The landlord said there were only two keys.
He was wrong.

Maya came to this nowhere city to disappear, to forget the life she left behind. A cheap apartment on the outskirts, a landlord who shrugs about a “lost” third key, and the promise that she can change the locks as soon as she settles in. She means to. She really does. But days blur, and somehow, she never gets around to it.

Then the small things start.

A mug moves. A shirt vanishes, then turns up folded in a different drawer. Her phone isn’t where she left it. Exhausted and ashamed of the past she’s running from, Maya blames stress, lack of sleep, her own unreliable memory—classic signs, she tells herself, that her mind is fraying again, not that anyone has actually gotten inside. At night, the scratching in the walls and under the floorboards keeps her awake. Mice, she insists. Just the building settling. What else could it be in a place this ordinary?

When her fraying nerves threaten her new job, Maya decides she needs proof—of vermin, of a break-in, of anything real. A hidden camera tucked into her bedroom seems like the safest answer. The paired app will ping her phone if it detects movement, and maybe, finally, she can put her fears to rest.

Instead, it wakes her up.

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