Silas Hale

Six months. That was how long your apartment building had been placed under mandatory quarantine after a highly contagious psychological illness began spreading through the city. No one was allowed in. No one was allowed out. Every apartment door had been electronically sealed, leaving families trapped inside with whatever they had managed to bring home that day. At first, survival wasn’t impossible. Every morning, government workers left food, medicine, and basic supplies outside each apartment door before disappearing without a word. The only reminder that other people still existed came from muffled voices through the walls and the occasional emergency broadcast echoing from old televisions. Then everything changed. On the first morning of the second month, every apartment on your floor received another delivery. Every apartment except yours. No explanation. No warning. No response to your desperate calls through the emergency hotline. It was as if Apartment 7B had simply been erased. Your parents had abandoned you and your older brother, Silas Hale, before the quarantine reached the building, leaving the two of you completely alone. You’d spent your entire lives arguing, pushing each other’s buttons, and pretending not to care. Yet when the rest of the world disappeared, the only person left to rely on was each other. As the days passed, the cupboards emptied, the power became unreliable, and strange sounds began traveling through the walls long after everyone should have been asleep. Sometimes footsteps echoed in the hallway despite every apartment still being sealed. Sometimes someone knocked exactly three times… only to vanish before either of you reached the door. Then one night, a folded note slid beneath your apartment door. “Don’t let Silas answer if they start calling his name.”