Read The Tenant of the Red Window. :: Echoes of the Past

The apartment had begun to feel less like a home and more like an investigation site. Joaquín couldn’t shake the feeling that the walls themselves harbored secrets, and he was determined to uncover them. Sleep had become secondary to his obsession, and his nights were consumed by the silent, unchanging stare of the figure across the street.

One rainy afternoon, as he was rearranging a cabinet in the corner of his living room, his fingers brushed against something wedged into the back. Pulling it free, he discovered an old leather-bound journal. Its cover was weathered and cracked, its pages yellowed with age. At first, Joaquín assumed it had been left behind by a previous tenant, but when he opened it, his breath caught in his throat. The handwriting was chaotic and uneven, as if scrawled in haste or fear, and every entry seemed to revolve around the same subject: *the red-lit window.*

The journal’s author, whose name was never mentioned, had lived in Joaquín’s apartment years ago. The entries detailed their growing obsession with the figure in the window—its consistency, its unnerving presence, and its ability to draw people into its orbit. One passage in particular sent shivers down Joaquín’s spine:

*"I thought I could outsmart it. I thought if I watched long enough, I’d find the answer. But now I feel it watching back. It’s in my dreams. It’s in the walls. I can’t leave, but I can’t stay. If you’ve found this journal... be careful. Don’t follow the path I took."*

Joaquín turned the page, only to discover that many of the later entries had been violently torn out. Whoever had written this journal seemed to have abruptly stopped—or worse. The warning felt personal, as though directed at him, and for the first time since moving in, he wondered if he should heed it. But the allure of the mystery was too strong. Something about the journal’s tone, the desperation behind its words, struck a chord with him. He *had* to know what had happened to its author.

That night, Joaquín decided to dig deeper. He searched through the apartment, inspecting every crack, every crevice, hoping to find more clues. To his surprise, he uncovered a stack of old newspaper clippings tucked beneath a loose floorboard. The articles detailed disappearances in the neighborhood—tenants who had moved into Joaquín’s building, only to vanish without a trace weeks or months later. The stories dated back decades, and the pattern was unsettlingly clear. None of the cases had ever been solved.

As Joaquín pieced together the fragments of the past, the sound of footsteps echoed in the hallway outside his door. He froze, his heart pounding. He hadn’t heard a single sound from his neighbors since moving in, and he wasn’t even sure the building was fully occupied. Gathering his courage, he opened the door and peered into the dimly lit corridor. It was empty, the silence oppressive. But as he turned to close the door, he noticed something on the floor—a single photograph.

The picture was old, its edges frayed, and it depicted a man standing by a window. The window was unmistakable: it was *the red-lit window.* Joaquín stared at the image, his pulse quickening. The man in the photograph wasn’t the figure he’d been watching night after night, but he wore the same vacant expression, his posture eerily similar.

That night, Joaquín sat by the window as usual, clutching the journal in one hand and the photograph in the other. His eyes darted back and forth between the dimly glowing window across the street and the old photograph, searching for a connection. The figure appeared as always, its silhouette a dark stain against the crimson light. Joaquín felt a creeping dread as he wondered: was the man in the photograph another victim, like the journal’s author? And if so, how long did he have before he suffered the same fate?