Mila never questioned small, strange things—until the Post-it notes started appearing.

The first one was simple: a grocery reminder she hadn’t written. The second, eerier: Save your documents. The third made her blood run cold: Our landlord isn’t letting me talk to you, but it’s important that we do.

She lived alone. The locks were intact. Her security camera footage? Deleted.

Panicked, she confided in her best friend, Jessica. Instead of ghosts or stalkers, Jess suggested something terrifyingly real: Carbon monoxide poisoning. Symptoms? Confusion, memory loss, paranoia.

Mila bought a detector that night. The reading shot to 100 ppm. Dizziness hit immediately. Gasping for air, she fled and called for help.

At the hospital, the doctor confirmed it: prolonged exposure could have killed her. The source? A leak from the apartment’s parking garage, right below her unit.

When she confronted her landlord, Greg, he wasn’t surprised. He brushed her off, told her to move out. But the blank Post-its on other doors haunted her. Had others suffered too?

Packing the last of her things, Greg appeared. “You’re leaving?”

“You knew,” she accused.

A flicker of something—guilt?—crossed his face before he shut down. “You should go.”

Mila left, but the warning stayed with her.

If something feels wrong, don’t ignore it. Sometimes, paranoia is just survival.