The scrape came again at 1:40 a.m., low and deliberate, like furniture dragged an inch and stopped. Yelena lay perfectly still, her eyes wide open in the dark, counting the seconds until it happened again. It didn’t.
“Just the pipes,” she whispered into the empty bedroom, her voice sounding thin and unconvincing. She told herself the building was old—wood contracting and parts settling under the brutal February cold. Having lived in the unit for eight months, she knew its usual nighttime playlist: the radiator’s predictable tick, the upstairs neighbor’s late-night showers, and the elevator groaning two floors down. This wasn’t one of those. It was much closer, perhaps right outside her main door.
She sat up, holding her breath until her ears literally rang with the effort, but heard nothing more. “Get a grip, Yelena,” she muttered, rubbing her face. By the time she finally fell back asleep, she’d half-convinced herself it was just a vivid dream. That night was simply the first time she didn’t know to be afraid yet, the last ordinary night before she started keeping track.