Every night, the old man in the attic room would hear the clock ticking. Not the usual tick of a normal clock, but a slow, deliberate rhythm that seemed to pulse with something alive. He had moved into the boarding house years ago, seeking solitude after his wife passed away. The attic was small, with a single window that overlooked the empty lot behind the building. It was quiet, and he liked it that way. One evening, as he sat by the window, he noticed something strange. The reflection of the moon on the glass seemed to shimmer differently than usual. He leaned closer, expecting to see his own face, but instead, he saw a different version of himself—older, with a deeper voice, and a look of sorrow that he didn’t recognize. He blinked, and the image vanished. He told no one about it. But the next night, the reflection returned, and this time, it spoke. "You should not have come here," it said in his own voice. He stumbled back, heart pounding, and the mirror went dark again. That night, he couldn’t sleep. The sound of the clock in the room grew louder, almost like a heartbeat. The following days, he began to notice other things. A door in the hallway that hadn’t been there before, leading to a narrow staircase that spiraled downward. When he opened it, he found himself in a dimly lit corridor lined with portraits of people who looked exactly like him—different ages, different expressions, but unmistakably his face. He reached out to touch one, and the frame trembled as if it were alive. He started to explore more. Each door he opened led to a different version of his life. One room showed him married to a woman he had never met, living in a city he had never visited. Another showed him as a child, playing with a dog that had died years ago. The most unsettling was a room where he stood alone, surrounded by shadows that whispered his name. He began to feel a pull, an invisible force guiding him through the hidden corridors. The clock in his room continued to tick, but now it matched the pace of his own heartbeat. He realized the attic wasn’t just a place—it was a gateway. A threshold between worlds, where every decision, every possibility, existed in its own reality. One night, he found a journal tucked beneath the floorboards. Its pages were filled with entries written in his handwriting, but the dates were wrong. Some described events that had never happened, others detailed conversations he had never had. The final entry read: "I must go back. I cannot stay here. They are watching." He closed the journal, his hands trembling. Was he losing his mind? Or was he simply remembering something he had forgotten? The next morning, he woke to find the attic empty. The clock had stopped. The door to the hidden corridor was sealed shut. The only thing left was a single photograph on the desk—a picture of him standing in front of a mirror, with a figure behind him that looked like him, but with eyes that gleamed like black glass. He never spoke of what he saw. But sometimes, when the wind blew through the empty lot behind the house, he could swear he heard a voice calling his name. And for a moment, he wondered if he had ever truly left.