“3:17 A.M.”

I keep the windows covered.

Not because I’m afraid of the dark. I like the dark. The dark is honest. It doesn’t pretend to be anything other than empty.

It’s the light I don’t trust.

Light makes shapes out of nothing. It stretches the shadow of a chair until it looks like a man standing in the corner. It catches dust in the air and turns it into signals. It flashes against glass and makes it seem like someone is watching from the other side.

So I keep the curtains drawn, and I count.

Four locks on the door.

Three on the windows.

One chain.

Eight turns of the handle before bed. Eight is safe. Eight feels closed.

The neighbors think I work nights. That’s why they never see me. That’s why the packages sit outside for hours before I slide them in with a broom handle, careful not to break the invisible lines I’ve mapped across the floor. I’ve memorized where they are. The lines shift sometimes, but only when I’m tired.

I don’t get tired anymore.

I’ve trained myself to sleep in pieces—twenty-three minutes at a time. Long enough to rest. Not long enough for them to come closer.

They don’t like when I sleep.

I hear them most clearly around 3:17 a.m. It’s a specific time. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s when the world thins out. When most people are unconscious and whatever sits just behind things can lean forward a little.

They don’t shout. That would be easier. Shouting can be ignored.

They whisper.

They talk about me like I’m not in the room.

“She knows,” one says.

“Not yet,” says another.

Sometimes they argue about whether I’m ready.

For what, they never explain.

I used to check the apartment every time it happened. Closet first. Then under the bed. Then behind the shower curtain. I even unscrewed the air vents once, hands shaking so hard I dropped the screwdriver three times. There was nothing there. Just dust and darkness.

But the whispers continued.

Eventually, I realized the sound doesn’t come from a place. It comes from everywhere. Like the hum of a refrigerator or blood rushing in your ears—but shaped into words.

I tried recording it once. I set my phone on the kitchen counter and pressed record at 3:16 a.m., heart racing. I waited.

They spoke.

Soft. Urgent.

I let it run for five minutes, then stopped it and played it back.

Silence.

Just the faint buzz of electricity.

I threw the phone across the room. It cracked against the wall and slid to the floor like a stunned insect.

They laughed that night.

I don’t try to prove it anymore. Proof is for people who doubt themselves. I don’t doubt.

I prepare.

I keep the knives in a row on the counter. Not for violence. Just in case. In case something crosses the line. In case the shadow by the hallway door finally steps forward instead of flattening itself when I look at it directly.

It almost did once.

Last Thursday, I saw it clearly. Taller than the doorframe. Head bent slightly to avoid scraping the ceiling. Its edges shimmered, like heat rising from asphalt. It didn’t have a face, but I knew it was looking at me.

I didn’t scream.

I stood very still and said, “I’m not ready.”

It tilted its head.

The air pressure changed. My ears popped.

Then my phone rang.

The shape snapped backward into the dark like it had been yanked by a string.

The call was from an unknown number. I let it ring until it stopped. When I checked the call log, there was nothing there.

That was when I understood: it doesn’t want me gone.

It wants me waiting.

Sometimes I think about opening the curtains. Just to see. Just to let sunlight flood the apartment and bleach the corners clean.

But what if the light makes it stronger?

What if it’s been pretending to be afraid of brightness?

So I leave the curtains closed.

I count the locks.

I sleep in fractions.

And every Thursday at 3:17 a.m., I sit at the kitchen table with my hands flat against the wood, breathing slowly, waiting for the air to thicken and the whispers to begin.

Tomorrow is Thursday.

I’ve already started shaking.

The doctors call it paranoid schizophrenia.

I call it staying alive.

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