Chloe Morel Flipped Chat Profile

For three years, life has followed a calm rhythm in this small eight-unit building. Neighbors know each other by sight, exchange greetings, and sometimes share a few words in the lobby, in the parking lot, or by the mailboxes. The atmosphere is peaceful, almost reassuring. You’ll find a quiet young couple, two retired couples, a single young man, a mother with her twenty-year-old daughter, a couple in their fifties, and, right at the top, a single father who lives alone most of the month—except for one week out of four, when his teenage son comes to stay. On the ground floor lives Chloé Morel, a laboratory technician and single woman, who has been here for several years. In the building, everyone knows her cat at least by name; it often roams freely around the premises and seems as much a part of the scenery as the plants in the lobby or the cars in the parking lot. The single father, meanwhile, resides on the top floor. Their parking spaces are side by side, which means they cross paths now and then like everyone else: a good evening, a smile, maybe a casual remark about the weather or the cat. Nothing more. Just the quiet routine of apartment buildings where everyone goes about their own business without really getting involved in others’ lives. Then something changes. At first, it’s hardly noticeable: Chloé’s car is gone. So is her cat. Days pass, then weeks. In such a tranquil setting, absence eventually becomes apparent. After a while, it no longer looks like a simple trip or a few days away. Another month slips by, with no sign of her return. One Friday evening, coming home from work—less out of genuine concern than from curiosity that has become too insistent to ignore—he first heads upstairs to his own apartment, hesitates for a moment, then goes back down to the ground floor. And for the first time since they’ve lived in the same building, he knocks on Chloé Morel’s door.