The deadbolt clicks. The door creaks open and light leaks onto the floor from the hallway. The lights flick on, and Maisie enters, bringing life back into the studio apartment—a small rectangular room with a single window on the far wall. Aside from the bathroom, everything in it can be seen from one end to the other.

Maisie locks the door and sighs, letting her bag and jacket slide off her arms onto the floor. She takes off her hat and shakes out her short, dark hair, the back of which is choppy from cutting it herself.

She moves through her routine, taking her laptop out of her bag and setting it on the dining table: an old card table covered in a tablecloth stained by coffee and time. All the furniture in the apartment is second-hand or from Ikea.

She sits at her laptop doing schoolwork until the sun sets, which is when she decides if she feels like making dinner for herself that day.

Maisie takes a few steps over to the kitchenette that consists of a small fridge, the only sink in the apartment, a hotplate, and very little counter space. After a quick glance in the fridge, she pulls out her phone and orders food. She continues to work at the laptop while she waits.

Less than an hour later, there’s a sharp knock at the door.

Her attention snaps to the door, but she stays seated. The room is silent for a moment before the knocking starts again. Maisie’s eyes widen. Every time she orders food, the driver knocks once and leaves the food at the door.

It’s silent again, then more knocking. It’s louder now.

Maisie doesn’t look away from the door as she retreats to her bed. The room is full of the sound of knuckles pounding against wood.

Then silence.

Maisie waits, trying to steady her breathing. A minute passes. Then two. She rises from the bed and creeps to the door. She peers through the peephole before snatching the bag of no-longer-warm food from the hall and slamming the door shut.

~

Sunlight sneaks in through a crack in the curtains and rests upon Maisie’s peaceful expression as she sleeps. The serene moment is shattered by the blaring of her alarm clock. Maisie stirs. Her face scrunches and her brows pull together. She groans, shifting onto her side, fingers fumbling to silence the beeping.

Once she’s dressed for class, she sits cross-legged in front of the tall mirror leaning against the wall. She dumps out a bag of unopened and barely used makeup products and spends about thirty minutes applying them to her face.

She takes a minute to examine her work from different angles in the mirror before sighing and wiping it all off.

She packs all of the products back into the bag and leaves for the bus.

~

After her classes instead of following her usual routine, Maisie sits on her bed scrolling through an Instagram profile. When she reaches the bottom of the posts, she begins typing a message. She rewrites it multiple times before reaching the final product. She reads the message over, then holds her thumb on the backspace button until it’s gone and tosses the phone onto the end of her bed.

She sits with her head in her hands. She pulls her hair away from her face and takes a deep breath, exhaling as she lets it fall.

Still sitting on her bed, she opens her laptop and attempts to do schoolwork for about an hour before closing the tabs and watching a movie.

Once it’s dark outside, Maisie gets up and makes instant noodles—the only thing she’s eaten recently besides packaged oatmeal. She’s avoided ordering anything to her place the last couple of weeks.

As she’s eating, her phone buzzes, still face-down on the end of her bed. She carefully turns it over and her face lights up. She types a short reply and sends it.

A faint smile rests on her face for the rest of the day.

~

Maisie leaves for class the next day, but she doesn’t return at the usual time. The sun sets and she’s still not there.

That night, there’s a muffled voice at the door. A man’s voice. The lock clicks. A hand switches on the lights and Maisie steps inside.

She stands in the doorway as the man speaks to her from the hall.

“Sorry for keeping you so late,” he says. “Hey, if you wanted, I could drive you to your class tomorrow. You wouldn’t have to wake up so early for the bus.”

Maisie agrees and the two part ways.

~

The next morning, as Maisie gets ready, there’s a light knock at the door. Her shoulders tense, but when she checks the peephole, she relaxes. She opens the door, and a schnauzer pushes its way through, wagging its tail and sniffing her.

“Hi,” Maisie says. “This must be Ziggy.”

“It is,” says a voice from the other end of the leash. It’s the man from the night before.

“I’m almost ready. You guys wanna wait in here?”

The man enters the apartment, and the dog takes it as an opportunity to jump up on Maisie.

“What a sweet girl,” Maisie says, leaning down to pet the dog.

“Yeah, she really likes you. She’s a good judge of character.” He sits down at the table and unhooks the dog’s leash.

The dog familiarizes itself with the apartment, sniffing everything it comes into contact with. It stops in front of the closed door next to the bathroom, inspecting it longer than everything else. It takes a step back and growls at the door, catching Maisie and the man’s attention.

The man scolds the dog, but it ignores him. “Sorry, she almost never barks.” He looks at the door. “What’s in there?”

“You know, I’m not sure,” Maisie says, pausing what she’s doing. “I think it’s an old electrical room. My landlord told me not to go in there.”

“Why is that in your apartment?”

“This studio used to be an old storage room. That room’s technically not counted as part of the unit. It’s locked from the inside.”

Maisie shoves her laptop into her bag and they go to leave. The man has to tug on the leash to take the dog’s attention away from the locked room.

Maisie comes home earlier than the night before, but late enough to impede on her routine, which she treats as non-existent over the next few weeks. She arrives home at inconsistent times, leaves the apartment on days she doesn’t have classes, and has phone calls with the man—Ben—long into the night.

~

One Thursday afternoon, the two arrive at the apartment after shopping for groceries. Ben has long stopped bringing his dog with him due to its constant barking and growling at the locked room.

They cook pasta together in the cramped kitchenette. Afterwards, they watch a movie on Maisie’s laptop, and she invites him to stay the night.

~

Maisie sleeps in the next morning, having forgotten to set her alarm the night before. When she wakes, it’s about ten minutes before she has to leave for the bus. She drowsily looks around the room, then at the empty space next to her.

She fully opens her eyes and sits up.

“Ben?”

She can’t find him anywhere in the apartment. She rushes to get ready when she finally sees the time, sending a text before heading out the door.

~

Maisie comes home at the normal time. She sits with her laptop in front of her but barely types anything. She sends another text, then obsessively glances at her phone for the rest of the day.

It’s later than usual when she falls asleep and she wakes late the next day. She’s out of bed for less than an hour before lying back down and scrolling on her phone. She falls asleep and doesn’t wake up until the sun begins to set. She eats something quick and lays back down, scrolling late into the night, the blue glow of the screen reflecting in her tired eyes.

The next two days are nearly the same. This is the first weekend in a month she hasn’t left her apartment.

~

On Tuesday, she sleeps until midday and makes no effort to attend her afternoon class.

When Maisie finally pulls herself out of bed, she pauses and looks around the room, frowning. She sniffs the air and the frown turns into a grimace. A putrid odor has infiltrated the apartment.

Maisie opens the window, which only marginally improves the smell. She cleans out the entire fridge, throwing out the leftover pasta, but the odor is not made any better.

~

She leaves the window open all night. When she wakes up, the stench has become unbearable, and the apartment is teeming with bugs.

She stands next to the window, pulls out her phone, and attempts to make a call. It goes to voicemail, so she leaves a message.

“My apartment smells really bad. I don’t know if it’s mold or a pipe burst, or what. I’m gonna try to stay somewhere else for a bit. Let me know when you can come check it out.” She exhales and makes another call.

A phone rings in the locked room. Maisie looks toward the sound. Her eyes widen and her body goes rigid. She drops her phone and approaches the door. She shakily calls out for Ben.

There’s no answer.

She tries and fails to twist the doorknob.

The phone continues to ring.

Maisie grabs two screwdrivers from the junk drawer and uses them to remove the hinge pins, breathing through her mouth. She steps aside and lets the door thud onto the floor.

She gags when she sees Ben’s body, his greenish swollen skin overrun with flies and maggots. She stumbles back at the sight of me standing at the back of the cramped room.

I reach out and touch her for the first time.