The lights returned after exactly seven seconds.
Raphael Senn counted them without realizing he was doing it.
One.
Two.
Three.
By the time the hum of electricity settled back into the walls of Subdivision C, the file lay open on the desk—perfectly aligned, as if no hand had ever touched it.
The clock now read 11:31 PM.
Raphael exhaled slowly.
He did not believe in ghosts.
He believed in patterns.
And patterns required time.
He closed the Julian Meier file carefully and slid it back into the drawer. Not fear—discipline. Whatever had just happened, reacting emotionally would be a mistake.
Outside, Lucerne slept beneath its thin veil of snow.
Raphael did not return to the office the next day.
Instead, he followed a line in Julian's transfer records that no one else had ever bothered to question.
Residence History: Julian Meier
Address (2003–2009):
Hirschengraben 17, Northwest Lucerne
The same district.
The same forgotten corner of the city.
By late afternoon, Raphael stood in front of the building.
It was older than it looked—three stories of gray stone, narrow balconies, windows that reflected too much sky. The kind of place people passed every day without remembering.
A woman in her late sixties answered the door to the landlord's office.
"You're here about the apartment?" she asked.
"Yes," Raphael replied. "Unit 3B."
She frowned. "That one again."
Again.
"It's been empty since the last tenant moved out," she continued. "No damage. No complaints. People just… don't stay."
Raphael didn't ask why.
Some answers announced themselves when they were ready.
Apartment 3B
The door opened with a soft click.
The smell hit him first—dust, cold air, something faintly metallic. The apartment was modest. Two rooms. A narrow kitchen. Wooden floors worn smooth by time.
Unfurnished.
Empty.
Or so it seemed.
Raphael walked slowly, boots echoing too loudly. He stopped in the living room.
There was a mark on the wall.
A faint rectangle where a frame had once hung.
A bookshelf outline in the dust.
A space that remembered weight.
He frowned.
People left behind furniture marks.
Walls remembered pressure.
Nothing unusual.
And yet—
He felt it again.
That same quiet pressure from Subdivision C.
As if the room was holding its breath.
That night, Raphael slept in the apartment.
Not because he was reckless.
Because he wanted to listen.
At 11:24 PM, the building creaked.
At 11:27 PM, the radiator clicked once.
At 11:29 PM, Raphael sat upright.
The air changed.
Not colder. Not warmer.
Denser.
The old wall clock—one he hadn't noticed earlier—ticked louder now.
11:30 PM
Nothing happened.
Raphael let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Then—
A sound.
Paper.
He rose slowly and stepped into the living room.
On the floor lay a single sheet.
Yellowed. Old.
Handwritten.
Julian Meier's handwriting.
"I thought the office was the anchor.
I was wrong.
It's the house."
Raphael stared.
This wasn't possible.
No one had been here.
The windows were locked.
The door was still bolted.
And yet—
The note continued.
"I tested it once.
Moved a chair.
The echo followed."
Raphael's pulse quickened.
Echo?
He scanned the room.
In the corner stood nothing.
But the dust pattern told a different story.
A chair had once been there.
Instinctively—without fully understanding why—Raphael walked over and placed his bag down.
The dust shifted.
The room felt… tighter.
Somewhere deep inside the walls—
A soft, distant scrape answered back.
2009
Julian Meier stood in the same apartment.
Same walls.
Same clock.
Same silence.
He moved the chair an inch to the left.
And froze.
Because from the hallway—
He heard it.
A sound that should not exist.
A second chair.
Scraping.
Moving.
From a room no one stood in.
Julian whispered, barely audible:
"…No."
2026
Raphael stepped back.
His mind rejected the conclusion forming at the edge of thought.
This wasn't haunting.
This wasn't possession.
This was—
Persistence.
The apartment wasn't showing memories.
It was maintaining state.
Like a file left open.
Like time that never fully closed.
Raphael glanced at the clock.
11:33 PM
The note on the floor ended with one final line:
"If you read this and still don't understand—
Good.
That means you're early."
The lights flickered once.
Raphael did not notice that the chair imprint in the dust—
Had shifted again.