The Hallway

Tuesday, 7:08 AM

Nora: Olivier. I've been waking up at exactly 3:27 AM for three weeks now. Every single night.

Olivier: what? why didn't you tell me anything

Nora: Because I thought it was stress or something like that. But that's 19 nights in a row now. Same time.

Olivier: and what happens when you wake up? is there noise?

Nora: No. Total silence. I wake up with this feeling that someone's in the hallway, but when I turn on the light there's nothing there.

Olivier: Nora that's just your mind playing tricks

Nora: That's what I thought. So last night I set my phone to record the hallway from my bedroom door before I fell asleep.

Olivier: and?

Nora: I'm watching it now. At 3:27:04 the hallway goes completely silent. 9 seconds. Then you can hear breathing.

Olivier: send me the video

Nora: I don't have the video. It deleted itself at 3:44 AM. Only the audio from those seconds is left.

Olivier: send me the audio then

Nora: image1.jpg

Nora: It's a screenshot of the audio's spectrogram. Sending this because the audio won't upload here. 9 seconds of almost total silence and then that.

Olivier: it does sound like breathing, yeah. but it could be anything. street noise, pipes

Nora: There are two different breathing patterns. I analyzed them. One matches mine, which was recorded in the background. The other one is different. Faster. Closer to the mic.

Olivier: Nora, that's really easy to misread

Nora: Olivier. I snore lightly. Always. I know because I have older recordings. The breathing that matches mine doesn't snore. It's perfectly silent.

Olivier: what do you mean

Nora: That the breathing I recorded in my bedroom isn't mine.

Olivier: what? why didn't you tell me anything

Nora: I can't. I'm in bed and if someone's here I don't want them to know that I know.

Olivier: are you still recording?

Nora: Yes, I just set the phone up again pointing at the hallway. The door's ajar.