I found the perfect apartment in the city. Something in it is stealing my life.

Everyone’s always looking for that perfect place. Big enough, not too expensive, close to work. Somehow, I actually found it.

The building itself was old, the kind with narrow hallways and a slow elevator that always made a faint noise on the way up, but it was well kept, clean and quiet in a way that’s hard to find in a city like this.

The landlady lived in the same building, three floors above me. She was a tall, older woman, with a soft voice and tight shoulders, and seemed genuinely pleased to show me the apartment.

It had two bedrooms, a big living room, and one balcony. It was also just a few blocks from the office, which meant I could walk to work every morning instead of dealing with packed trains.

I walked through each room expecting there to be a catch. I had just graduated and still had student loans to deal with, so there was no way I should be able to afford something like that.

But when she told me the rent, I just stood there for a second.

She said she gives a big discount to young women who are new to the city, because she had been one herself once, and I didn’t question it. I signed the lease that same day.

Moving in felt good. My dad helped me bring my stuff over and fix a few small things, and for the first time it felt like I was actually starting my life.

The only strange thing that first night was when I dropped a toolbox on my foot and cut the side of my big toe pretty badly. I cleaned it, put a bandage on it, and figured I’d take a better look the next day.

But when I woke up, the cut was already gone, like it had happened a long time ago.

***

The first month felt perfect.

I used to sit on the balcony every morning, eating scrambled eggs and drinking coffee before walking to work. I was in my early twenties, living in the biggest city I’d ever been in, with a job I actually liked, and it felt like everything had finally worked out.

The apartment was a big part of that.

The first time something felt off was after a night out drinking with coworkers. I got home, opened Instagram, and saw a picture of myself from earlier that night, and I looked different.

Nothing obvious, just older. My face looked a little more tired, my skin dull, with faint dark circles under my eyes.

I even pulled up older photos to compare. Same angle, same smile, but it didn’t look like the same person.

I didn’t think much of it at first, but over the next week it got harder to ignore.

My skin got drier, I started waking up exhausted no matter how much I slept, and one morning at work I couldn’t stop yawning during a meeting. Later that day, during a presentation, I felt this weird pain in my back.

At first I thought it was just stress. My first real job, new city, new routine. It made sense.

I went to a doctor just to be safe, and he confirmed it was probably fatigue.

So I kept going.

Day after day, I started getting used to feeling like that. I went out less, stopped going to the gym, and most nights I just stayed in watching random shows.

Every month, I’d slide the rent under the landlady’s door, like we agreed. I almost never saw her after the first week, and she never reached out.

***

About two months after moving in, I found my first gray hair.

It was a Sunday morning and I was brushing my hair while listening to some podcast when I saw it. It honestly freaked me out.

After that, things got worse fast.

My coworkers started noticing. My face looked thinner, my skin dry and lifeless, and I must have lost over twenty pounds without even trying. The gray hairs kept multiplying.

My boss even called me into his office and asked if everything was okay, if I needed some time off.

I didn’t even know what to tell him. Every doctor I had seen kept saying the same thing, stress, burnout, something like that, but the truth was I wasn’t even working that hard.

Then Thanksgiving came up, and I decided to visit my parents back home because I couldn’t wait to get out of that city. I kept thinking maybe I just needed that break.

And for one day, I believed that was it. The first night back in my old room, my skin already looked better, I had energy again, and I felt like myself.

But my parents didn’t see it that way.

They looked at me like they were seeing a different person, like they didn’t recognize me anymore.

And the worst part came when I stood next to my mom in the bathroom mirror. 

We looked the same age.

That’s when I knew it wasn’t just stress.

***

I ended up staying there for two weeks, and when I went back to the apartment I already knew something in that place had changed me for good.

The second I walked in, I started packing. I grabbed everything I could, threw it into two suitcases, and rushed to the elevator.

There was another woman inside. A woman tall, athletic, wearing workout clothes and sunglasses, even indoors. She looked like she was in her early twenties.

I barely paid attention to her at first. Then I looked again.

Something about her felt familiar. The way she walked. The way she kept her shoulders tight. The shape of her face.

I kept staring, trying to place it.

And then it hit me.

She looked exactly like the landlady, only decades younger.

I stared at her longer than I should have, and she noticed. She turned away quickly and tried to step out as soon as the elevator reached the ground floor.

But I didn’t let her.

I grabbed her arm and turned her toward me. 

I didn’t need her to say anything.

I already knew.

It was the landlady.

I started yelling at her, asking what she had done to me. She tried to pull away, but I wouldn’t let go, and we ended up fighting right there in the lobby.

Of course, she was now stronger than me, much stronger, and she shoved me hard enough that I fell and hit the back of my head on the floor.

***

I don’t remember losing consciousness. It just felt like everything cut out.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital room, with bright lights and nurses moving around outside, and the landlady sitting next to my bed.

She looked guilty, almost sad.

She apologized for pushing me and said she didn’t have a choice, but I didn’t care about that. I just wanted answers.

Through tears, she told me the same thing had happened to her, that she had moved into that apartment about a year ago, and that there had been another landlady before her.

I processed that information for a minute then asked how the hell that worked, and she said she didn’t know exactly.

What the last landlady told her was only that the two apartments, hers and the one she rented out, had been connected since the building was constructed, and that one drains time while the other gives it, like a straw.

I know how insane that sounds, because my first instinct was to call it a lie.

But she stood up, wiped her eyes, and put a key in my hand, telling me that both apartments were mine now and that she was moving out.

I asked her what I was supposed to do with it.

She gave me a small, tired smile and told me to rent it out.

***

I thought about going to the police.
I thought about trying to find the landlady.
I thought about going back to my parents.

But none of that would give me those months back. Or the years.

I am twenty-two, but my body feels decades older, and every time I looked in the mirror, I can tell it won’t just reverse on its own.

In desperation, I listed my apartment on the same website where I found it, and moved to hers. The messages started coming in almost immediately.

The first showing is today. That’s why I’m writing this: out of guilt.

One part of me keeps saying I don’t have to do this. That there has to be another way.

But the other part screams that I don’t have a choice, that it’s either this or accepting that I’ve lost all my youth.

The girl coming to see the place sounded young and hopeful on the phone. She’s excited to find a spot where she can have the best time of her life in this city.

I remember sounding just like that.