Shanghai never sleeps.
And neither did Yuki.
Twenty-six, single, and freshly promoted to marketing manager, she'd moved into a sleek high-rise called The Pearl Tower Residences—a glass monolith that stabbed at the sky. Her studio apartment on the 34th floor came with digital keypads, a smart assistant named Ming, and four elevators that whispered as they rose.
But it was the fourth elevator that everyone avoided.
The residents didn't talk about it. Maintenance claimed it was offline. Even the building's AI refused to acknowledge it. Still, Yuki had seen it.
It moved.
---
Her first real encounter came at 3:44 a.m.
She'd returned from a client dinner, tipsy on plum wine, her heels clicking down the marble lobby. Three elevators stood waiting. The fourth—dimly lit—opened by itself.
Yuki hesitated.
She stepped in.
It didn't go up.
The screen inside flickered. Floor numbers reversed. Her reflection in the mirror twitched a second too late.
When the doors opened, she wasn't on the 34th floor.
She was somewhere else.
---
The hallway was wet.
Ceiling lights flickered. Doors stood ajar, moaning with each shift of air. A red lantern swayed above one door. In front of it stood a woman in a crimson cheongsam, her back turned, her hair cascading like ink.
Yuki backed into the elevator.
The woman turned.
Her face was blank.
Just smooth skin.
The doors snapped shut.
---
The next day, Yuki asked the doorman, Mr. Wen, about the elevator.
He shook his head.
"Fourth elevator? We only have three."
"But I rode it. I—"
He leaned in. "If you want to stay alive, Miss Yuki... Never use it again."
---
That night, the elevator came to her floor. She hadn't called it.
It opened anyway.
She bolted the door.
It opened again at 3:44 a.m. the next three nights.
Until the night she woke up inside it.
---
Yuki screamed. The walls pulsed like lungs. Her reflection multiplied, each one more disfigured than the last. A child's voice whispered behind her ear:
"You took her place."
When the doors opened this time, she stepped out into her exact hallway. Everything normal.
Except for the tenant directory.
Under Apartment 3404:
Yuki Lin – Deceased.
She pounded on Mr. Wen's office door. He opened slowly.
He stared at her with pity.
"Miss Lin… You disappeared three nights ago. We filed the report."
---
The CCTV footage from that night showed Yuki entering the fourth elevator.
And never coming out.
The elevator was sealed the next day.
But every night at 3:44 a.m., it opens again.
Just in case.