Lighthouse Horror Podcast - The Apartment Building I live in has 5 SCARY Rules the tenants must follow

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

Join Lighthouse Horror on Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | PatreonNew Merch out! https://hauntedstuff.com/Art & Credits: ninerioartsMusic by Lucas King, Myuu, Kevin MacLeod & Darren CurtisOriginal YouTube link: The Apartment Building I live in has 5 SCARY Rules the tenants must followCopyright © 2025 Lighthouse Horror. All rights reservedThank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every week, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

My name is Thomas White. If you're reading this because you found an apartment listing for Wheeler Towers that seems way too cheap for Los Angeles, do yourself a favor and read every word before you sign anything. I didn't. At the time, I thought I'd gotten lucky. Three months earlier, I'd moved to L.A. from Phoenix after getting hired by a shipping company that handled overnight freight deliveries throughout Southern California. The pay wasn't amazing, but it was enough to get me started.

I figured I'd spend a year building experience, save some money, and then move somewhere better. That plan fell apart almost immediately. The company cut overtime. My car needed repairs. Rent kept going up. Within eight weeks, I was burning through my savings faster than I could replace them. I spent every night scrolling apartment listings on my phone after work. Most of them were ridiculous.

Tiny studios for $3,000. Apartments with four roommates. places that wanted six months of rent up front. One guy tried to rent me a converted storage room behind a laundromat. And then I found Wheeler Towers. The listing almost looked fake. One bedroom apartment, 39th floor, downtown L.A. Parking included, utilities included.

Rent was less than half what every other apartment in the area was charging. I assume there had to be a catch. Maybe the building was falling apart. Maybe there was a crime problem. Maybe the photos were, I don't know, 20 years old. Still, I called the number. The man who answered, introduced himself as Mario Collins. His voice sounded tired.

Like somebody who'd been dealing with the same problems for a very long time. He told me the apartment was still available. He told me I could come see it that afternoon. And most importantly, he told me the rent listed online was correct. And that should have been my first warning, because nothing in Los Angeles is that cheap. Well, I drove downtown after work. Wheeler Tower sat between two newer high rises

near an older section of the city. The building wasn't ugly, exactly. It just looked forgotten. The concrete exterior was stained in places. Several windows looked older than the others. The sign above the entrance probably been installed sometime in the 70s and never replaced.

Even so the place didn't look dangerous. It just looked. old. I parked across the street and spent a few minutes studying it. 39 floors rose above me. Thousands of windows reflected the afternoon sun. People came and went through the front entrance. Everything appeared normal. Eventually I crossed the street and went inside. The lobby surprised me. The building exterior looked worn down, but the lobby was spot must. Fresh tile and clean furniture. No trash or graffiti.

or strange smells. An older man sat behind a reception desk, reading a newspaper. When I introduced myself, he folded the paper and stood. Damis wait, he asked. Yeah, that's me. He extended a hand. Mario Callens. We shook, and his grip was surprisingly strong.

Mario looked like he was somewhere in his 70s. Thin gray hair, wire rim glasses, dark suit. The kind of person who looked like he'd been managing apartment buildings since before I was born. Way before. Hey, let's take a look at the unit, he said. He led me toward the elevators. The ride to the 39th floor took longer than I expected. Neither of us spoke much, and Mario seemed distracted.

A couple of times I caught him staring at the floor indicator above the elevator doors. When the doors finally opened, he guided me down a quiet hallway, lined with identical apartment doors. The carpet looked old but clean. The lighting was slightly dimmer than it should have been. Otherwise, it looked like every apartment hallway I'd ever seen. Mario stopped outside apartment, 3908. He unlocked the door and stepped aside.

I walked inside, and immediately I knew I wanted the place. Now, the apartment wasn't luxurious, but it was much larger than anything else I'd seen within my budget. living room, kitchen, separate bedroom, large bathroom. Most importantly, and at these huge windows, the view stretched across downtown L.A. Traffic moved far below like little streams of light. The mountain sat in the distance beyond the city. I walked straight to the windows.

Wow, not bad, I said. Mario smiled faintly. And most people say that. I spent nearly 20 minutes inspecting the apartment. Everything worked. The appliances were older but functional. The walls were clean. Plumbing looked fine.

I couldn't find a single major problem. Finally, I turned toward Mario. Okay, what's wrong with it? He raised an eyebrow. What do you mean? The rent? Nobody rents apartments this cheap. Mario stout.

at me for several seconds. And then he looked out the window. The building has a reputation. Bad neighborhood? No. Crime. No. I waited.

Mario sighed. The tenants tend to leave. The answer didn't really answer anything. People moved all the time, especially in L.A. I assumed you as being dramatic. Apparently, so did every other renter who toured the place. A few minutes later, we returned to the lobby and sat down to handle paperwork. The lease looked normal and application looked normal.

Everything looked completely ordinary until Mario opened a drawer and removed a laminated sheet of paper. He slid it across the desk toward me. I glanced down, and five rules were printed on the page. The first one immediately made me loud. I'll always lock your door after midnight. I skimmed the rest, and they only got stranger. When is this? I asked. Mario didn't smile.

Building rules. Seriously. Very. I looked back of the sheet. The entire thing read like something from an internet horror story or no sleep. I expected Mario to start laughing at any moment. He didn't. Instead, he folded his hands and,

watched me. You actually give this to people, huh? I do. And they believe it? Some do. I shook my head. The whole thing was ridiculous. But I couldn't stop thinking about the rent, and everything else about the apartment was perfect. Whatever weird game Mario was playing, didn't really matter. Not for that price. I signed the lease. Mario collected the paperwork and handed me my keys, and for the first time since we'd met, he looked genuinely relieved. Welcome to Wheeler Towers, he said. Thanks. I started toward the exit, and then Mario called after me. I turned around. The old man was still standing behind the desk. For a moment, he looked much older than before, more tired, more worried. One piece of advice.

What? He nodded toward the laminated sheet sticking out of my folder. Most tenants ignore the rules. I laughed. I'm guessing that's bad, huh? It usually is. Something in his expression made me pause. There was real concern.

The kind you don't fake. And then it vanished. Mario straightened his tie. The moment was gone. I left the building thinking, that guy's eccentric. Maybe lonely, maybe a little crazy. What I didn't realize

was that within a month, I'd be standing in my apartment at 12 o'clock in the morning, listening to something walk through the hallway outside my door. And by then, I would already wish I had taken the rules a lot more seriously. Rule one. Always locked your door after midnight.

I ignored Rule 1 for almost a month. Honestly, I didn't see any reason not to. The apartment and the building was great. Quiet? Neighbors seemed normal. Nothing about Wheeler Towers felt dangerous. If anything, it felt safer than most places I lived before. The first few weeks settled into a routine.

I'd leave for work in the afternoon, spend most of the night driving freight around L.A., and get home sometime between 10 and midnight. After that, I'd make dinner, watch TV for a while, and eventually go to bed. But Wheeler Towers did feel a little different, Sally Hoffman had apparently lived there since the late 90s. One retired teacher on the 22nd floor had been there so long he remembered when the building still allowed smoking. Even Mario Collins had worked there for over 30 years.

People didn't seem to leave Wheeler Towers. At least that's what I thought at first. And then I started noticing the empty apartments. The first one was three doors down from mine. One day, maintenance workers were carrying furniture out. the next day the apartment was empty. Well, nothing strange about that. People move. A week later, another apartment was cleared out.

Then another. Then another. And what struck me as odd wasn't the move-outs. It was the lack of move-ins. The units would sit empty. Weeks passed. Nobody knew arrived. One evening I mentioned it to Sally while we waited for the elevator.

Lots of vacancies around here, I said. She looked at me, then looked down the hallway. Then back at me. No, there aren't. What? There aren't vacancies. A frowned. The elevator arrived with a ding.

Neither of us got in. Sally kept standing there. You know, I've seen three apartments get emptied this month, I said. She nodded. So have I. Okay, then what do you mean? Sally folded her arms, and for several seconds she didn't answer. Then she pointed toward one of the apartment doors farther down the hallway. Apartment 3917 belonged to a man named Greg.

I waited. He lived here 12 years. She pointed farther down the corridor. Apartment 3902 belonged to a woman named Helen. Another door. apartment 3914 belonged to a married couple Okay, I still didn't understand where this was going Sally's expression never changed

Nobody saw any of them move out Yeah, well people move all the time, I said Not these people Then where'd they go? Sally looked at me for a moment And then she asked a question Have you been locking your door? The subject change caught me off guard.

What? After midnight, have you been locking it? Immediately, I thought of the rule sheet. I laughed again. Don't tell me you actually believe that stuff. Sally didn't answer. She just stared at me. The elevator doors opened again,

and this time she stepped inside. Before the doors closed, she said something that stayed with me the rest of the night. Ask Mario about Greg. Then the elevator disappeared. I didn't think much about it till the next evening. I got home from work around 11, and I found Mario sitting behind the front desk reading paperwork.

The lobby was empty. I walked over. Hey, um, can I ask you something? Mario lowered his glasses. Sure. Who was Greg? And for the first time since I'd met him, Mario looked genuinely uncomfortable. He didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he folded the papers on his desk and set him aside. Why are you asking? Sally mentioned him. And that explained everything, apparently. Mario sighed, leaned back in his chair. Greg lived on your floor. What happened to him? Mario rubbed his forehead.

Well, nobody knows. Come on, man. I'm serious. What do you mean nobody knows? Mario stared at the lobby floor. I was here one day. The next morning he wasn't. He moved out then.

No. Then what happened? We don't know. I expected him to smile to admit he was joking. He didn't. His car was still in the garage. His wallet was in the apartment. He counted on his fingers.

One, two, before, his keys were inside. His phone was charging on the kitchen counter. I felt myself frowning. Well, did the police get involved? Of course. What did they find? Nothing. And that answer irritated me.

Not because it was frightening, but didn't make any sense. Adults don't simply vanish. People leave evidence. They leave trails, something. Okay, uh, well, I mean, do they think he ran away? Mario shrugged. They had theories. But?

No answers. And the conversation ended right there. Mario clearly didn't want to discuss it further. I headed upstairs, feeling more confused than scared. The whole thing sounded ridiculous. A missing tenant wasn't proof of anything. Still, I found myself thinking about Greg while I got ready for bed. Then I thought about Sally and the rules.

And then I thought about how every strange conversation I'd had since moving into Wheeler Towers somehow circled back to Rule 1. Always lock your door after midnight. I remember standing in my kitchen, looking at the laminated sheet, and for the first time, it didn't seem funny. Just strange. Very strange.

Well, a few nights later, I found out why. I'd fallen asleep on the couch while watching TV. The sound woke me. At first I couldn't tell what I was hearing. The apartment was dark. The TV had shut at some. off. The digital clock on the cable box read 12.11 a.m. And then I heard it again. Footsteps. Not just one person, several. Moving slowly through the hallway outside. Back and forth.

I sat there listening for almost a minute. The building lights flickered. A brief flash of brightness appeared beneath the front door. Then darkness. Then brightness again. The The footsteps continued, and something about them felt strange. Like whoever was out there wasn't trying to get somewhere. Like they were looking for something. I walked quietly into the front door. The hallway beyond the peephole appeared completely empty. No people or movement.

Nothing. Yet the footsteps continued. I stood there staring, then I heard a metallic click. A pause. Another one. The sound moved slowly through the hallway, stopping at apartment after apartment, door after door. And then the realization hit me almost immediately.

Something was checking the handles. The footsteps stopped. Another click closer. Until finally the sound reached my apartment. Silence filled the hallway. And for several seconds, nothing happened. and then my doorknob began to turn, slowly, as if someone on the other side was testing whether it would open. I froze, the handle returned to its original position.

A few seconds passed, then it turned again, and the hallway lights flickered. For the briefest moment, I saw something pale move across the people, not a face or a body, just what looked like a white hand sliding past the door. Then the footsteps continued down the hallway. Apartment by apartment, door after door. The next morning I locked my door before leaving for work. And that night I locked it again. And I have never forgotten since.

Rule two. Never drink water from the tap. That was the exact wording. Not boil it first, not report discoloration, not contact maintenance. Just don't drink it. Well, I brushed my teeth with that tap water. I made coffee with it. I filled ice trays with it.

I probably drank gallons of it without thinking twice. And nothing happened. No stomach problems, no weird taste, no strange smell. The water seemed completely normal. If anything, tasted better than some of the places I'd rented before. And for a while I figured the rule existed because the building was old. Maybe the pipes were ancient. Maybe the management company was worried about liability.

Maybe there had been contamination years ago and nobody ever bothered removing the warning. That made sense. At least until I started noticing bottled water. Everybody in Wheeler Tower seemed to buy it. Not some people. Everybody. Cases of it. Stacks of cases of it.

entire shopping carts loaded with bottled water. I noticed in the elevators in the lobby. I noticed it every time somebody returned from the grocery store. First, I didn't think much of it, and then I started paying attention. One afternoon, I counted six different tenants entering the building, and every single one of them had bottled water. Another day, I watched a delivery truck unload dozens of cases directly into the lobby. A maintenance worker spent nearly 20 minutes distributing them throughout the building,

Then I noticed something else. The grocery store two blocks down from Wheeler Towers had an entire display dedicated to bottled water. Nothing strange about that, except the display included a handwritten note. The sign read, Wheeler Towers special. Buy two cases, get one free. I remember standing there staring at it. The store had created a sale specifically for people from my building.

That was odd. Still, I kept drinking. from the tap, wanted to save money. Nothing happened. Weeks passed. And one night I woke up thirsty. It was sometime around three in the morning. I remember checking the microwave clock as I walked into the kitchen, 317.

The apartment was completely dark, except for the digital display above the stove. Half asleep? I grabbed a glass and turned on the faucet. Water poured into the sink. I froze immediately lame, because the water was, wasn't clear. It was red. Not rusty. It was red. The color of blood. For several seconds, I stared. The stream continued running. The sink slowly filled. And every drop looked wrong. The liquid seemed thicker than water, darker. I turned off the faucet.

And the entire apartment seemed different. The kitchen felt cold. the shadows felt deeper, and for some reason I couldn't stop staring into the sink. The red liquid sat motionless beneath the overhead cabinets. I told myself it had to be some kind of rust, old pipes, sediment, something completely normal. The explanation sounded reasonable. The liquid in the sink didn't.

I waited for a long while. Then I turned the faucet back on. and clear water appeared immediately. Crystal clear, no discoloration or odor, nothing unusual whatsoever. The change happened so fast it actually made me uncomfortable. One second, the water looked like blood, the next completely normal.

I stood there for another minute before eventually going back to bed. The next morning I called the management office. Nobody answered. I tried again later and still nothing. By evening, I almost convinced my... myself the entire thing had been caused by old pipes. And then I got into the elevator with a tenant from the 29th floor.

The man was carrying three cases of bottled water. And for some reason I decided to mention what I had seen. The reaction caught me completely off guard. Recognition. Like I'd just described something he'd been expecting. He simply nodded once. And then he left the elevator without saying another word. The next few days I started noticing things.

people in Wheeler Towers never filled cups from sinks. Never, not once. They used bottle water for everything. Cooking, coffee, tea, everything. And I finally began buying it too. Life returned to normal for a while. And then the story started. Nobody ever told them directly, but I overheard pieces.

The kind of stories people say quietly when they don't want outsiders listening. One involved a tenant who lived in the building years ago. Apparently he'd refused to stop drinking from the tap. According to the rumors, he became convinced somebody was standing inside his apartment every night. Not speaking, just standing in the corner of his room, watching him. The stories claimed he started sleeping in the lobby because he was afraid to remain alone. And a few weeks later, he disappeared. Another story involved a woman on one of the lower floors,

The details changed depending on who told it. Some said she used the water for cooking. Others said she used it to fill a bathtub. The only consistent part involved footprints. Wet footprints. They supposedly appeared throughout her apartment every morning. Kitchen, bedroom, living room. Always wet?

Always leading nowhere. Eventually she vanished too. Well, I didn't believe any of it. Not really. You know, people exaggerate. Apartment rumors spread. Buildings develop myths. Normal.

The problem was that Wheeler Towers already had Rule 1, and Greg, and the empty apartments. The stories no longer existed by themselves. They connected. Every strange thing in the building seemed connected to something else. By the second month, I had stopped completely drinking water from the top. And then came the night that convinced me Rule 2 exist. existed for a reason. I got home late after work, around one in the morning, made dinner, watched TV, eventually headed toward bed. As I passed through the kitchen, I heard dripping.

I stopped. The sink faucet was running, not fully, just enough for a thin stream to fall into the basin. I knew I turned it off earlier. I walked over and stared. The water looked red again, darker than before much darker. The sink slowly filled. I don't know how long I stood there, maybe 30 seconds, maybe a minute. And then something moved beneath the surface. It was subtle, a ripple, nothing more. Yet something shifted beneath a red liquid.

A shape? Like something rolling beneath the surface. I backed away in medium life. I never saw what caused. paused it, and honestly I didn't want to. I turned around, walked out of the kitchen, grabbed my keys, and I spent the rest of the night sitting in the lobby. The next morning, the sink was empty. The faucet was off, and everything looked normal. I bought three cases of bottled water on the way home from work, and I have never used the tap since. Rule three. If a pale figure floats

outside your window and asks to be let in, do not let it in. Well, that's impossible, I thought. On the 39th floor. 39 floors. Even if somebody somehow climbed the outside of the building, there was nowhere to stand. The windows looked directly out over downtown L.A. No balconies, no maintenance ledges, nothing. The idea that somebody could appear outside my window was ridiculous.

The idea that something could float there was even more ridiculous. For a while, Rule 3 became a running joke. my head. Every time I walk past the windows, I'd think about it. Every night I looked out over the city at night, I'd remember that stupid line on the laminated sheet. Come on, who writes something like that? The whole thing sounded like an urban legend, a campfire story. The kind of thing teenagers tell each other at sleepovers. The weird thing, it's that the rule reminded me of something. For weeks, I couldn't figure out what. And then one night it finally clicked. Salem's plot, the old television version. I hadn't seen it in years, not since I was a kid, but I remembered

one scene perfectly. A dead boy floating outside a bedroom window, scratching at the glass, asking to be let inside. That scene terrified me when I was younger. I remember watching it in my grandmother's house and sleeping with the lights on afterward for a month. The image had stuck with me for decades. The more I thought about it, the more Rule 3 seemed even more ridiculous. That was basically the same thing. A floating figure outside a window. Maybe whoever created the rules had seen the movie, too.

Maybe that was the joke. Maybe the entire thing started as a reference somebody forgot to stop taking seriously. And then I started noticing something strange. People on the upper floors kept their blinds closed. Not some people. All of them. And that didn't make much sense. You know, the view was one of the biggest selling points of the building.

People paid fortunes for views like that in L.A. Yet the tenants who'd lived there the longest seemed completely uninterested in looking outside. I first noticed it while riding the elevator. The higher the floor, the more covered windows I saw. 32nd floor, blinds closed. 34th, curtains closed. 37th windows covered. I eventually convinced myself it was another coincidence.

And then I started noticing something else. Nobody stood near the windows after dark, mad at their hallways or the apartments or anywhere. I didn't realize it immediately. It was one of those things that slowly becomes obvious over time. People enjoy the view during the day. People stood near the windows in the afternoon. But after sunset, everybody seemed to lose

interest. One evening I got curious. I spent nearly an hour watching people from my living room window. Lights turned on throughout the surrounding buildings. Traffic moved through downtown. Thousands of people continued their lives below. Inside Wheeler towers, however, something different happened. One by one, the blinds closed, curtains closed, windows disappeared behind fabric. Within an hour, almost every apartment I could see had covered its glass. I remember standing there thinking how strange it was. And then I forgot about it. Life moved on.

The rules became background noise again. Until the storm. Now, Southern California doesn't get many storms, least not compared to other places I've lived. When they do happen, people notice. This one arrived late at night. Heavy rain, strong wind. constant thunder. The kind of storm that makes the entire city look different.

I got home around 11, and I spent most of the evening sitting near the windows watching the weather. Rain hammered the glass. Lightning flashed over downtown. For a while it was actually relaxing. By midnight the storm had gotten worse. The wind howled around the building. The windows rattled occasionally. I remember thinking how strange it felt to be 39 floors above the ground during weather like that. Everything looks smaller, more distant, less real. Eventually, I turned off the TV and got ready for bed. I was halfway down the hallway when I heard the sound. A tap, soft, barely audible. I stopped walking. The apartment became silent again. Then it happened a second time. The tap came from the living room, specifically from the...

the windows. I stood there for several seconds. The storm continued outside. Rain hit the glass, wind rattled the building. Then another tap came. A cold feeling settled into my stomach. Slowly I walked back toward the living room. The windows covered the far wall. Rain covered the glass. Lightning flashed outside. Everything looked normal. And then another bolt illuminated the sky, and I saw him. There was a boy floating outside the window. I froze. For a second, my brain refused to process what I was looking at. Thirty-nine floors above the street. In the middle of a storm, a boy floated inches from the glass. His skin was pale, almost white. His hair hung wet against his forehead. His eyes appeared completely black.

The lightning vanished. Darkness returned. I stood there unable to move. Then another flash illuminated the sky. And the boy was still there, floating and watching me. His face pressed slightly toward the window, one hand resting against the glass.

And the exact image from Salem's lot exploded into my mind. The floating child, the scratching the wind. window, everything. Except this wasn't a television screen. This was my apartment. My window? 39th floor. The next flash revealed something worse.

The boy was smiling. I took a step backward. The boy's hand moved. Slowly, his fingers tapped against the glass. The sound carried across the room. I remember staring, unable to look away. unable to understand what I was seeing. And then the boy's mouth moved.

At first I couldn't hear anything. The storm drowned everything out. The mouth moved again. The smile never changed. Another lightning flash showed his face. And this time I understood the words. Not because I heard them, because I could read them. Let me in.

The words repeated over and... and over again. The boy drifted slightly closer. And then I remembered Rule 3. For the first time since moving into Wheeler Towers, I remember to rule at exactly the right moment. I didn't approach the window. I didn't open it.

I didn't speak. I just grabbed the cord hanging beside the glass and pulled the blind shut. The tapping continued. For nearly an hour, I sat in my bedroom on the floor listening. The sound never changed. Just steady tapping on the other side of the glass. Eventually, it did stop.

The next morning, I opened the blinds. Nothing waited outside, no marks, no damage, no evidence whatsoever. The city looked completely normal. But from that day forward, I understood why the long-term tenants kept their blinds closed after dark. Rule four. If your phone rings at 6.60, 26. PM. Answer it and follow the instructions exactly. Now, Rule 4 was the point where I stopped trying to come up with explanations.

The first three rules were impossible, but at least they involved things that physically existed. Hallways, water, windows. Rule 4 didn't make any sense. There is no 666 p.m. That's obviously not a real time. And then one evening it happened. I just got no home. from work. The apartment phone rang from the kitchen. Not my cell phone. The apartment phone mounted on the wall. I remember glancing at the microwave clock as I walked toward it. The display read 666 p.m. I stopped immediately. For several seconds I just stared. Then I checked my watch. Same thing. I pulled out my cell phone. Same thing? 666 p.m.

Every clock in the apartment showed the same time. The phone continued ringing. I felt a knot form in my stomach. I genuinely considered ignoring the rule. I did not want to answer that phone. And then I noticed something taped beside it. A second laminated sheet. I'd somehow never seen it before.

Four sentences were printed in large black letters. The phone rang again. My hands were shaking. when I picked it up. At first all I heard was static, heavy static, the kind of hear on an old radio station, and then came breathing. The sound reminded me of somebody standing inches from the receiver. I gulped and read the first sentence.

No, I don't want anything. The breathing stopped. For a moment the line became completely silent. Then the static returned louder than before. I read the second line. No, you, you, you, you can't possess me. Something changed immediately. The static became distorted, almost angry,

as though dozens of voices were speaking at once somewhere beyond the noise. I read the third line. No, I'm not giving you anything. Whispers filled the receiver then. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. My heart hammered against me. my ribs. I wanted to hang up. I wanted to throw the phone across the room. Instead, I forced

myself to read the final line. And no, you're not alive anymore. You're dead. Everything stopped. Instant light. The static, the whispers, the breathing. There was silence. Absolute silence. A second later, the call disconnected. I slowly lowered the receiver, and then I looked at the clocks. Every display now read 7 p.m. And the apartment phone never rang again. Rule 5. If the building starts shaking, take the stairs and leave immediately.

Rule 5 was the only rule I completely agreed with immediately. In fact, it was the only rule on the entire sheet that sounded normal. If the building starts shaking, take the stairs, and get out. that's just earthquake safety. I'd actually been through a real earthquake before. Back in 2019, I was staying with a friend near RidgeQuest when the 7.1 earthquake hit Southern California. Wasn't the biggest earthquake in state history,

but it was the biggest one I'd been in. Pictures fell off walls, kitchen cabinets flew open, power went out across parts of the city. For a few minutes, it felt like the ground itself had turned into water. Now, one thing everyone learns during earthquakes is simple. You never use elevators. Ever. Power can fail, cables can jam, doors can lock.

If you're evacuating a building, you take the stairs, period. So when I first read Rule 5, I didn't think much about it. For once, the building wasn't giving supernatural advice. It was giving practical advice. Or at least that's what I thought. The shaking started. almost three months after I moved into Wheeler Towers. I was sitting on the couch watching TV when I felt a vibration beneath my feet. At first, I assumed somebody was moving furniture,

and then it got stronger. The windows rattled. The dishes in my kitchen cupboards shook. A second later, the building alarms activated. Every alarm in the tower started screaming at once. I immediately thought earthquake. The same thought seemed to hit everybody else. apartment doors flew open, people poured into the hallway. The entire floor became chaotic within seconds. The shaking continued harder now, stronger. Dust drifted from the ceiling. Somewhere below us, glass shattered.

Everybody started moving toward the exits. Most headed directly for the stairwells. A smaller group went toward the elevators, though. I remember noticing three college-aged women among them. They looked annoyed, more than frightened. One of them kept checking her phone. Another was laughing. I understood why they'd want to take the elevators.

They were faster. The stairs were 39 floors. And then the building lurched again. I turned toward the stairwell. Rule 5, take the stairs. Leave immediately. That's exactly what I did. But the trip down felt endless.

People filled every landing. Hundreds of kennedy. moved through the emergency stairwell, while alarms echoed throughout the building. The shaking never stopped. If anything, it seemed to become worse the lower we went. Concrete ground, metal rattled. The entire structure sounded strained. When I finally reached the ground floor, hundreds of people had already gathered outside. Everyone was staring upward, and at first I didn't understand why. And then I looked at the surrounding buildings. They weren't moving.

Not one of them. No shaking or alarms or evacuations. Nothing. Only Wheeler Towers. The realization hit me immediately. This wasn't an earthquake. Something else was happening. And then came the sound.

A loud metallic crack echoed from somewhere inside the building. Everybody heard it. The noise was a noise. impossible to miss. It sounded like a massive steel cable snapping. For a second, everything became quiet. And then the screaming started. Women, several, coming from somewhere deep inside the tower. The crowd froze, but the screams continued. Loud, panicked, terrified. And then something impossible happened. The screams started getting farther away. As though the elevator was still falling, and falling, and falling.

The screams became fainer, more distant. People around me were staring at each other. Nobody understood what they were hearing. The elevator should have reached the bottom already. It should have crashed, should have stopped. Instead, the screams kept going further, farther, until eventually they disappeared completely. Nobody spoke afterward.

Hours later, emergency crews searched the entire building. They searched the elevator shaft, the basement, the maintenance levels, everything. But they never found the elevator. Not damage, not crushed, not buried. It was just gone.

No wreckage or bodies, no debris, nothing. the shaft ended exactly where it should have. There was nowhere for the elevator to go. And yet, it wasn't there. To this day, nobody has ever explained what happened to those women. The official reports blamed equipment failure. The news blamed structural problems. Most tenants eventually moved on.

I didn't. Because I heard the screams. Everybody outside heard him. And everybody heard the same. thing. They didn't stop. They got further away. Like the elevator had fallen somewhere, much deeper than the ground floor. Deeper than the basement. Deeper than the building itself. Well, when I first moved into Wheeler Towers, I thought the rules were a joke. I think most people would have a haunted hallway, blood red water. A floating boy outside a 39th floor window. Phone call at 666 p.m.

None of it sounds real. If somebody had told me those stories before I signed the lease, I probably would have laughed and ran in the apartment anyway. The strange thing is that life inside Wheeler Towers is mostly normal. People go to work, they pay rent, they complain about management. The elevators break down, packages get delivered. For 99% of the day, the building feels completely ordinary. And then that remaining 1% reminds you why the rules exist.

At this point, I don't question them anymore. I lock my door every night before midnight. I haven't touched the tap water in months. The blinds stay closed after dark. If the apartment phone rings, I answer it. And if the building ever starts shaking again, I will be the first person heading toward the stairs. Maybe that's the real secret of Wheeler Towers.

You don't have to understand the rules. You just have to follow them. I've stopped trying to figure out why the hall hallway walkers exist. I've stopped trying to understand the red water. I've stopped wondering what was floating outside my window that night. Some questions don't have answers. Or maybe they do. Maybe I just don't want to know them. The one thing I do often think about still is the elevator. Not every day or every week, but every now and then, usually late at night, comes back to me. the screaming, the sound getting farther away, the realization that it should have stopped,

an elevator shaft has a bottom, a building has a foundation, gravity has limits. Everything about the world says those screams should have ended within seconds. Instead, they just kept going. The city never found the elevator. The fire department never found it. the building never found it. It simply disappeared, along with everyone inside.

Sometimes I stand in the lobby waiting for the mail, and I catch myself staring at the elevator doors. They're newer now. New cables, machinery, new inspection certificates. Everything has been replaced. Everything except the memory. Because every person who lived in Wheeler Towers

that night knows the same thing. The elevator with those women inside didn't crash. It vanished. And every once in a while, when those doors slide open, I find myself wondering where it went.