[SPEAKER_00]: Story number one, a few years back, the three of us, me, my wife, and our then four-year-old son, were crammed together in our queen bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our son had been telling us for days that his room was too cold at night, and he'd wake up shivering in tears.

[SPEAKER_00]: We wrote it off as him being fussy, but eventually caved and let him sleep with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not really a superstitious guy, have a basic job, normal life, and considered myself rational, at least until that night.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was just after 3am.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know because I was scrolling aimlessly through articles on my phone, lying on my left, careful not to wake anyone with the screens glow I couldn't sleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, the room itself felt off, heavier somehow.

[SPEAKER_00]: The air felt crisp even though we hadn't had the windows open for weeks.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I brushed it off, maybe nerves, maybe the AC malfunctioning.

[SPEAKER_00]: His eyelids fluttered open, and he fixed his gaze, not at me but on the lamp atop the dresser at the far end of the bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: For a moment it looked like his eyes were darting, but then still as a statue he zeroed in on the lamp.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then something happened I can't fully explain.

[SPEAKER_00]: I saw the lamp slide off the dresser, not tip and fall, but slide.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like someone unseen grabbed it and swept it off fast.

[SPEAKER_00]: The lamp hit the floor with a sharp crack and shattered.

[SPEAKER_00]: The crash snapped my wife awake.

[SPEAKER_00]: We locked terrified eyes, hearts thudding so hard I could actually hear mine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before either of us could react, I glanced at my son.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was asleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: No sign of him having been up, eyes closed.

[SPEAKER_00]: For a few minutes we set up right, waiting to see if this was a prank, a fluke, something.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our sun didn't move again.

[SPEAKER_00]: We were both shaking, but decided against cleaning up the lamp at 3am.

[SPEAKER_00]: Afraid if we got up we'd wake him, or, honestly, disturbed whatever mood had settled over the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to sleep, but couldn't, 20 minutes, maybe 30, past before I realized I was hearing something.

[SPEAKER_00]: A faint sucieration, like distant voices leaking into the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not from outside, not from the radiator, but from inside, like the sound of two people speaking in the back of your mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: At first, I thought I was just over-tired, but then I saw my son again.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't just sleeping, he was upright, criss-crossed applesauce.

[SPEAKER_00]: His face was turned toward the shattered lamp, or more accurately, where it had been his lips were moving, barely audible words tumbling out.

[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't a language I recognized, not even nonsense nursery rhyme stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was a rhythm, a cadence, like a chant.

[SPEAKER_00]: His voice, too monotonous and low for a child, chilled the room further.

[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to nudge my wife awake but felt rooted, incapable of reaching over.

[SPEAKER_00]: In those moments, my son turned his head slowly, and my heart nearly stopped.

[SPEAKER_00]: His eyes were huge.

[SPEAKER_00]: Black pools that didn't reflect a bit of light.

[SPEAKER_00]: No corneas, no whites, just bottomless black.

[SPEAKER_00]: The kind of gaze that feels ancient and utterly wrong in a kid's soft face.

[SPEAKER_00]: I might have blacked out for a second, because when I registered again, I looked at my wife.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the dimness, her night shirt was soaked red, spreading across her back.

[SPEAKER_00]: It looked exactly like she had just been stabbed, over and over.

[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't think, I scrambled up, panicked, surging through me, and grabbed at her, [SPEAKER_00]: But when my hands touched her, she was dry.

[SPEAKER_00]: She woke up annoyed, confused, and asked why I was acting crazy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I world around, my son had laid back down, his eyes normal, and was giggling softly, as if something hilarious had just happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: My wife touched my face, both of us wide awake, confusion and fear plain between us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We were still processing when my son's laughter choked off into a single piercing streak.

[SPEAKER_00]: The sound wasn't his scream, not the one I knew.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was dissonant, animal, pain and rage stitched together.

[SPEAKER_00]: He arched limbs spasming and then his body started contorting in jerky, unnatural ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: His bones made cracking sounds short and sharp like twigs snapping under foot.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not one or two, but every joint, every finger.

[SPEAKER_00]: I counted them sick to my stomach.

[SPEAKER_00]: The noise was too real to ignore, echoing through the mattress.

[SPEAKER_00]: It only lasted a minute, but I swear time slowed, dragging out each second.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then suddenly, total stillness.

[SPEAKER_00]: His chest didn't rise or fall.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was no breath, no heartbeat, nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: A limp cold doll in the crook of my arm.

[SPEAKER_00]: I fumbled for my phone to call 9-1-1, hands shaking so badly I almost dropped it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then he drew a ragged deep breath.

[SPEAKER_00]: The kind you see people making movies after nearly drowning.

[SPEAKER_00]: He blinked and eyed us bleerly, yorned, then curled up and fell asleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not even a shiver of awareness on his face.

[SPEAKER_00]: The rest of the night stretched on, uneventful.

[SPEAKER_00]: We lay there, no one's sleeping, just watching him and the shadows crawl around the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember wondering if I was trapped in a nightmare, or if my mind had finally cracked under stress.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in the morning, everything was fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: The broken lamp wasn't in shards across the floor.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was at the foot of the bed, looking untouched, as if someone had moved it there deliberately.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were no stains on my wife's shirt or sheets.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our son was bright-eyed, asking for toast like nothing happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: We comb the room for oddities, no blood, no glass, no evidence at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: We even checked the nest camera in his old room just in case, but it had glitched out for hours, totally black.

[SPEAKER_00]: ever since I haven't been able to let it go.

[SPEAKER_00]: We tried to rationalize, maybe I was exhausted and hallucinating.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe my son had night terrors and sleepwalked, and we both got spooked by the coincidence of a falling lamp.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sleep deprivation does weird things.

[SPEAKER_00]: They say you see things.

[SPEAKER_00]: My wife, the biggest skeptic, says it was a collective nightmare, a trick of the light, a waking dream I tried to believe her.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the bone cracking, the lamp sliding without being touched, the impossible blackness of those eyes, the blood that wasn't the chanting voice under his breath.

[SPEAKER_00]: None of it fits a rational script, even now.

[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't had another night like it, but sometimes I wake up at 3am, heart pounding, and stare at my son sleeping peacefully, wondering if it'll start again.

[SPEAKER_00]: The lamp sits on the dresser, exactly where it was, never moved since.

[SPEAKER_00]: Occasionally out of nowhere, my son mutters unfamiliar words in his sleep, just snippets, and the air goes cold.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's all explainable, sleep deprived paranoia, brains misfiring under stress, or maybe that night's just a warning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Either way, I don't think I'll ever really sleep easy again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Story number two, when we first moved into that house, the basement felt like a privilege.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was finished, dry, had its own little window, and a decent amount of privacy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our eldest wanted it, naturally, and I didn't mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: Teenagers crave distance, and it seemed harmless enough to let him have it.

[SPEAKER_00]: For the first couple of years, nothing seemed wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just the occasional comment from him about bad dreams, or that he'd been waking up at odd hours I chalked it up to stress.

[SPEAKER_00]: School, hormones, too much late night gaming.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone dreams strange things down in dark rooms, but gradually his dreams began sounding, consistent, always involving a girl, always standing at the foot of his bed, always silent.

[SPEAKER_00]: He never told us much while living there, but when he finally moved out, he looked relieved in a way I couldn't explain.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not happy, just lighter.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then my middle son wanted the basement room.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's when everything started feeling off.

[SPEAKER_00]: It began with him complaining that the air felt heavier down there.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said it smelled damp and metallic even though there was no leak.

[SPEAKER_00]: The night he moved in, he came upstairs at 3 a.m.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pale is chalk, saying he'd heard someone walking across the room when the lights were off.

[SPEAKER_00]: He described slow, dragging footsteps circling the bed, stopping right by the closet.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was pipes or air ducts, or maybe even a raccoon stuck somewhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: I went down the next morning to check.

[SPEAKER_00]: The smell he mentioned, it was real not damp, not mildew.

[SPEAKER_00]: More like rust and soil that had been left wet too long.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember opening the closet door, it creaks slightly, like something unused but alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was nothing inside, just coats, a few boxes, and a half broken mirror leaning against the wall.

[SPEAKER_00]: For weeks, he refused to sleep there alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: I tried being rational, teenagers feet off fear, but then little things started happening even when no one was in the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: The light bulb over the stairwell leading down would flicker.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not die, just pulse faintly whenever someone passed by.

[SPEAKER_00]: The washing machine which sat in the small utility nook near his room would start running mid-cycle even when it was empty.

[SPEAKER_00]: Once while folding laundry, I heard something faintly tapping from inside the closet.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember freezing, thinking it was pipes expanding, but the taps weren't rhythmic like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: They came in slow sets of three, as if mimicking a knock but from within the wall.

[SPEAKER_00]: We nailed the closet door shut that evening.

[SPEAKER_00]: My husband rolled his eyes at me, said I was feeding into the boys' imaginations.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that night, while we were in bed, we both heard a long-grown from below, like woodstretching or something shifting.

[SPEAKER_00]: He insisted it was the foundation settling.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted it to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: Months passed.

[SPEAKER_00]: The basement stayed unused except for storage.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then one afternoon before Christmas, I went down there looking for decorations.

[SPEAKER_00]: The nails were gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every one of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even remember taking them out.

[SPEAKER_00]: The closet door hung slightly a jar.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just a few inches.

[SPEAKER_00]: That same evening, I noticed muddy footprints near the bottom of the stairs.

[SPEAKER_00]: Barefoot, small, child-sized.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one in our family has feet that small anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I mentioned it, my husband finally went down with a flashlight.

[SPEAKER_00]: He came back up 15 minutes later, saying he'd found the window cracked open.

[SPEAKER_00]: Probably neighborhood kids sneaking in, he said.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the window was barely large enough for a small animal to crawl through.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let alone a child.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next morning, my middle son told me he'd seen someone in the corner of his room while he was waking up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Said it was a girl with dark hair and a long dress.

[SPEAKER_00]: Said she didn't move, just stood there facing him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He covered his face to terrified to look.

[SPEAKER_00]: When he peaked again, she was gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: He refused to stay in that room after that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I went down again after he left for school.

[SPEAKER_00]: The closet door was open wider this time, though I swear I'd left it closed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Inside, the mirror I'd leaned against the wall had somehow slid down and cracked across the middle.

[SPEAKER_00]: It looked like something had pressed hard against it.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was when I hung sage and sweet grass near the window in the closet door.

[SPEAKER_00]: A friend told me it might clear the energy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't believe in that stuff, but at that point, I was willing to humor anything that brought peace to my home.

[SPEAKER_00]: For a while it seemed to help.

[SPEAKER_00]: The air smelled cleaner, lighter.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then one night while doing laundry, I heard something that froze me completely.

[SPEAKER_00]: a child humming, very faint, behind the wall where the closet sat.

[SPEAKER_00]: The kind of soft, distracted humming that kids do when they're focused on something.

[SPEAKER_00]: I turned off the dryer just to make sure it wasn't some weird mechanical noise, but it continued low and deliberate.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't tell anyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: I went upstairs, locked the basement door, and left the laundry undone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Weeks later, our eldest came home for Christmas.

[SPEAKER_00]: He went down to grab a chair from storage.

[SPEAKER_00]: A few minutes later, I heard him climb the stairs quickly.

[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't say anything, just look pale and distracted.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't press.

[SPEAKER_00]: After dinner, I caught him staring at the basement door.

[SPEAKER_00]: He asked if I'd ever had anything strange happened down there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I shrugged it off, but I could see something was bothering him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Later that night I found him standing by the top of the basement steps listening.

[SPEAKER_00]: He told me almost absolutely that he used to wake up with the closet doors slightly open, sometimes seeing it move by itself.

[SPEAKER_00]: Said he'd seen that same girl twice, both time standing at the foot of his bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't tell him his brother had said the same thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't tell him about the humming or the footprints.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or that sometimes even now I can hear the slow, deliberate creek of the basement door at odd hours.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's being open just enough for someone small to peek through.

[SPEAKER_00]: He left the next day.

[SPEAKER_00]: We keep the basement locked now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not because I think something supernatural lives down there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, I don't know what I believe anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: But because every time I open that door, the air feels wrong, like it's holding its breath.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes when I pass by, I catch a faint smell, rust and wet earth, and I think about those years, and that girl they both claimed to have seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was just night terrors, maybe bad wiring or carbon monoxide or some trick of sleep paralysis.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I can't shake the feeling that something stayed behind in that room.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something that watches through the crack of that closet door, waiting for someone new to move in.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've thought about renting the basement out.

[SPEAKER_00]: People keep asking.

[SPEAKER_00]: But every time I imagine a stranger sleeping down there, I hear that faint humming again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Slow, steady, coming from behind the wall.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I tell them the space isn't ready yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe deep down, I know it never will be.

[SPEAKER_00]: story number three.

[SPEAKER_00]: When my mother-in-law bought that house, it looked ordinary enough, quiet street, brick porch, little garden.

[SPEAKER_00]: It smelled faintly of varnish and mothballs, like a space that hadn't yet decided who it belonged to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Within a month we'd all moved in.

[SPEAKER_00]: My husband, my six-year-old daughter, are three dogs and me.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first few weeks were fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was the sort of calm that hums too steadily.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even the dog settled in quickly, the German Shepherd and the Terrier would wrestle in the backyard while the Beagle snored on the couch.

[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter played with him constantly.

[SPEAKER_00]: She said they liked her room best because it was the brightest.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't think much of it then.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a Friday evening when the first thing happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: We were all sitting on the couch, backs to the hallway, watching a movie.

[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter got up to grab snacks.

[SPEAKER_00]: The house was dim except for the TV's blue light.

[SPEAKER_00]: I heard the soft scrape of her slippers faded into the kitchen, and then silence.

[SPEAKER_00]: Both the German Shepherd and the Terrier froze.

[SPEAKER_00]: Their ears went straight up, noses pointed toward the hallway.

[SPEAKER_00]: They stood there rigid.

[SPEAKER_00]: Eyes locked on the dark corridor behind us.

[SPEAKER_00]: I saw my daughter standing next to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just as still.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was as if the three of them had forgotten how to move.

[SPEAKER_00]: I turned around.

[SPEAKER_00]: The hallway was dark, completely still.

[SPEAKER_00]: I could barely make out the outlines of picture frames on the wall.

[SPEAKER_00]: I squinted thinking maybe I'd catch movement, a shadow, a trick of the eye.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I turned back to the TV, but five minutes later they were still staring.

[SPEAKER_00]: The dogs' growls were low, almost trembling.

[SPEAKER_00]: My husband turned then, too, annoyed, until we both saw it.

[SPEAKER_00]: The light switch on the hallway wall flipped itself upward.

[SPEAKER_00]: The bulb flickered on, humming faintly, as if the air itself had changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: The dogs erupted, barking like something was inside the house.

[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter screamed, I can still hear how shrill it sounded in that small room.

[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't the kind of scream that comes from being startled.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was the kind that knows something.

[SPEAKER_00]: I tried telling myself it was electrical.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a short circuit or static build up from the old wiring.

[SPEAKER_00]: The house had some age to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that didn't explain the switch flipping or how the dogs avoided the hallway for the next two days like it was alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: A few weeks later, it happened again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Same movie night, same setup, same awful quiet.

[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter was tossing one of her many tennis balls down the hallway for the German Shepherd.

[SPEAKER_00]: The other dogs were dozing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was half watching, half scrolling on my phone.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I realized they both gone still again.

[SPEAKER_00]: This time though, the shepherd was wagging her tail.

[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter was smiling.

[SPEAKER_00]: Her eyes fixed down the hallway like she was watching something fun unfold.

[SPEAKER_00]: She tilted her head and pointed.

[SPEAKER_00]: A single orange ball rolled out of the darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Smooth, steady, deliberate.

[SPEAKER_00]: It stopped right beside her foot.

[SPEAKER_00]: She giggled and said without looking at us that her new friend wanted to play too.

[SPEAKER_00]: The hair on my neck stood up so fast I could feel my skin tightened.

[SPEAKER_00]: The shepherd licked the ball once, [SPEAKER_00]: My husband turned pale, and my mother-in-law quietly switched on every light in the house.

[SPEAKER_00]: After that, I couldn't un-feel the unease.

[SPEAKER_00]: The hallway grew colder at night, enough that you could see your breath if you stood there long.

[SPEAKER_00]: The light bulb buzzed faintly even when it was off.

[SPEAKER_00]: Once I noticed the family photos on the wall had shifted slightly, as if someone had been touching them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then came my daughter's dreams.

[SPEAKER_00]: She told me in that half a sleep voice kids use when they're too tired to make up stories that she saw the house on fire every night that we were all inside it, unable to open the doors.

[SPEAKER_00]: She'd wake up sweating, smelling faintly of smoke.

[SPEAKER_00]: I comforted her, but my chest stayed tight for hours after.

[SPEAKER_00]: Three quiet weeks followed.

[SPEAKER_00]: I convinced myself we were fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: The dog stopped staring into corners.

[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter's laughter filled the house again.

[SPEAKER_00]: We started leaving the hallway light on at night just in case.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then one morning she woke us up before sunrise.

[SPEAKER_00]: She said the house smelled like it was starting.

[SPEAKER_00]: The words barely registered before I smelled it too.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thin, chemical, unmistakably smoky.

[SPEAKER_00]: We all rushed around, checking the kitchen, outlets, and finally the garage.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where we saw it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thin curls of smoke rising from a fluorescent light fixture attached to an old wooden beam.

[SPEAKER_00]: The beam was darkening at the center, scorched, just beginning to smolder.

[SPEAKER_00]: The light had been left on all night.

[SPEAKER_00]: I realized the fixture was screwed directly into the dry rafter, probably decades ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: If my daughter hadn't woken us, the fire might have spread.

[SPEAKER_00]: I felt that sick wave of realization, how close we'd been.

[SPEAKER_00]: My husband climbed up and switched the light off, the smell of burnt dust lingering long after.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I turned to look at my daughter, she was watching the beam quietly, almost studying it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Her face didn't show fear or relief, just a strange kind of calm.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then she said, in the same tone, one might use to mention the weather, that she knew this was going to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: She added that her friend had burned in a house once, and that they didn't want to be alone anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't sleep that night.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next morning I noticed black smudges on the hallway wall, like fingerprints, smeared and soot.

[SPEAKER_00]: None of us had gone near that area after the garage incident.

[SPEAKER_00]: My husband scrubbed them off.

[SPEAKER_00]: They came back two days later, higher up this time.

[SPEAKER_00]: We moved out a month later.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even look back when we left.

[SPEAKER_00]: The new apartment was small but bright, full of people and noise.

[SPEAKER_00]: For a while things were normal again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Until one evening during dinner, I noticed my daughter wasn't eating.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was sitting quietly on the floor, staring into the apartment's short hallway.

[SPEAKER_00]: The German Shepherd was beside her, tailwagging gently, eyes fixed on the same empty space, the air grew still, just like before.

[SPEAKER_00]: I realized I hadn't even unpacked that orange tennis ball, yet it rolled softly out of a room and stopped near her feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter smiled faintly, eyes unfocused, and whispered something under her breath I couldn't catch.

[SPEAKER_00]: The shepherd wagged faster, and the terrier, who'd been asleep moments ago, sat up suddenly in bark once, sharp and panicked.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't check the hallway, I didn't need to.

[SPEAKER_00]: The air already carried that faint, accurate trace of something warming, like a wire beginning to overheat.

[SPEAKER_00]: I told myself later that maybe it was static again, or a small draft rolling the ball from under a box.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe dogs just remember patterns, maybe children dream vividly and forget to separate dreams from waking.

[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes late at night, I still hear the faint hum of that old fluorescent light in my mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: That same soft buzz that used to come before something happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: I try to ignore it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I try to be rational.

[SPEAKER_00]: Except a week ago, the new apartment's hallway light flickered on by itself in the dark, and the next morning, I found a black fingerprint on the wall, smudged as if someone had tried to wipe it clean, but didn't quite finish.

[SPEAKER_00]: I keep telling myself it's nothing, but the dogs have started sleeping by my daughter's door again, and last night I could have sworn I smelled smoke.

[SPEAKER_00]: story number four, when I was a kid I hated visiting my grandparents' house.

[SPEAKER_00]: People always say old houses have character, but the only character I ever sensed there was wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't mean to sound dramatic, but it always felt bad in a way I could never name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not loud bad, just this steady pressure, like nausea that settles right on your nerves, making you want to leave.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a two story house on the outskirts of town, the kind that looked fine from the outside, but somehow felt too quiet once you stepped in.

[SPEAKER_00]: The basement scared me most.

[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't the typical monster under the stairs fear.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was the kind of place that made you aware of yourself, aware of the sound you're breathing made, the echo of your own movements.

[SPEAKER_00]: My grandpa kept jars of nails and screws on dusty shelves, old tools hanging on hooks that look like they [SPEAKER_00]: The single light bulb down there buzzed faintly, and even when it was on, the corner stayed dark.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I was about 10, my mom and I stayed over for a few nights because my grandparents weren't feeling well.

[SPEAKER_00]: My grandpa's room was on the first floor at the end of a narrow hallway that always seemed colder than the rest of the house.

[SPEAKER_00]: His bed was pushed against the wall under a wide window that faced the overgrown backyard.

[SPEAKER_00]: That night I couldn't sleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: My mom was asleep beside me, her slow breathing steady and soft.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was facing the middle of the bed, my back to the wall, and the window.

[SPEAKER_00]: The room was dark except for a pale light leaking through the curtains from the street lamp outside.

[SPEAKER_00]: The shadows from the branches outside kept shifting across the ceiling, moving slowly like something pacing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how long I lay there, but after a while I started to feel uneasy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not scared exactly, just watched.

[SPEAKER_00]: I kept trying to convince myself it was just the strange sounds of the old house.

[SPEAKER_00]: The faint ticking from the radiator, the occasional creek of wood expanding in the cold.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there was something else, something quieter, almost deliberate, like the faint drag of fabric on wood, or a soft tap every now and then.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then it happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: Two short distinct pokes on the back of my head, not a tickle or a brush, actual pressure, quick and firm, like someone pressing a finger through the blanket.

[SPEAKER_00]: I froze instantly, my entire body went rigid.

[SPEAKER_00]: My first thought was that my mom must have moved, but her breathing hadn't changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: I could hear her faint snores, completely oblivious, I told myself, maybe I'd imagined it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was my hair catching on the sheet, or a muscle twitching.

[SPEAKER_00]: But before I could finish that thought, there was another, not a poke this time, but a shift in the air.

[SPEAKER_00]: a faint dip in the mattress near the wall, like someone tiny had leaned their weight there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't move the rest of the night.

[SPEAKER_00]: My eyes stayed open, watching the ceiling.

[SPEAKER_00]: The faint glow from the street light made the room feel frozen in some strange half-light.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every few minutes I thought I heard a small rustle from behind me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something brushing against the wall, something dry and hesitant.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the morning, nothing seemed out of place.

[SPEAKER_00]: The window was closed, the bed undisturbed.

[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to tell my mom about it, but she laughed it off saying it was probably my imagination.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was, but that sensation of being poked, that specific physical feeling never left me.

[SPEAKER_00]: years past, and we stopped visiting that house after my grandparents passed away.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was eventually sold, but for some reason I found myself driving by it years later when I was in my late 20s.

[SPEAKER_00]: The new owners had repainted it a cheerful yellow, trimmed the bushes, added wind chimes near the porch.

[SPEAKER_00]: It looked normal, too normal.

[SPEAKER_00]: I almost convinced myself that whatever I'd felt back then was just childhood nerves, almost.

[SPEAKER_00]: A few months after that drive, my mom gave me an old box of my grandparents' things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Most of it was junk, expired medicine, faded photographs, letters that smelled of mildew.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the bottom, I found a small rusted tin box with no label, inside were a few odd trinkets, buttons, safety pins, and a single Polaroid photo.

[SPEAKER_00]: The picture showed the bedroom we'd slept in, same window, same wallpaper.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what caught my eye wasn't the bed?

[SPEAKER_00]: It was the wall behind it.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the photo, the wallpaper seemed to be peeling away in one section, and beneath it, I could faintly see what looked like an outline drawn in chalk, a shape, small, childlike, and two dark smudges above it, like eye sockets.

[SPEAKER_00]: I stared at that picture for a long time before I realized something else.

[SPEAKER_00]: The angle of the shot was from the bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Someone had taken the picture while lying down.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that night I couldn't sleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: Around 3am, I woke up to a faint tapping sound, slow and irregular.

[SPEAKER_00]: It seemed to be coming from the wall behind my headboard.

[SPEAKER_00]: My rational mind jumped to pipes or mice, but the sound wasn't scurrying or mechanical.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was like the sound of knuckles on Hollywood.

[SPEAKER_00]: I moved my head slightly in the noise stopped.

[SPEAKER_00]: I lay still for several minutes, heart hammering, telling myself it was just old plumbing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then from the darkness came the faintest sensation.

[SPEAKER_00]: The lightest push against the back of my head.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just once.

[SPEAKER_00]: I set up instantly, turned on the lamp.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next morning I moved my bed away from the wall.

[SPEAKER_00]: Behind it, the paint had a small, discolored patch.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe from dampness.

[SPEAKER_00]: I scrubbed it clean, convinced myself I'd imagined everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes late at night, I'd hear faint scratching sounds, rhythmic and patient, like something tracing a line beneath the wall.

[SPEAKER_00]: I tried recording it once, but every playback was silent.

[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually I moved apartments.

[SPEAKER_00]: I told myself it was all stress.

[SPEAKER_00]: The brain's way of finding patterns where there are none.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I still have that polaroid.

[SPEAKER_00]: And every time I look at it, I notice something new.

[SPEAKER_00]: Last week, I swear I saw a faint blur behind the drawn outline in the photo, like a hand pressed against the wall from the other side.

[SPEAKER_00]: It could just be aging film, of course.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the easy explanation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Still, I can't help noticing that when I keep the photo face down on my nightstand, I sleep fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when it's face up, when that faint outline is staring up from under the glass, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with that familiar sensation.

[SPEAKER_00]: A gentle, deliberate poke at the back of my head, twice.

[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't turned around to check.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not once.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have proof, and I don't have answers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just that memory, those deliberate ice-cold pokes, and the knowledge that somewhere out there, not everything fits into reason, and that's what stays with me, lingering on nights when even the dark feels too full.

[SPEAKER_00]: story number five.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've never figured out what actually happened to me that night.

[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, I don't expect anyone else to believe me either.

[SPEAKER_00]: Growing up, I was normal.

[SPEAKER_00]: No head injuries, no history of sleep walking.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing weird except for the slightly rundown suburb I called home.

[SPEAKER_00]: My parents love the alarm system more than anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: Old ugly beige boxes by every door in window, perpetually beeping until you typed in the code.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every night 10pm, dad would walk through and set it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You couldn't even open a window a crack without it shrieking like a banshee.

[SPEAKER_00]: On this particular night, life was boring as ever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Parents said good night, tucked me in real tight the way they always did.

[SPEAKER_00]: My last memory was of my dad's hands smoothing the sheets by my feet, and then the warm home of the house as I drifted off.

[SPEAKER_00]: no wind outside, no traffic.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just that numb, settled darkness settling in like always.

[SPEAKER_00]: Somewhere between then and the next morning, something changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: I became aware slowly of a strange, earthy smell mixing with something sharp, metallic, almost exactly like cut grass and old coins.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next thing my brain clocked was the hardwood beneath me, bumpy under my shoulder blades.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was a cold dampness in the inside of my mouth was bone dry, so much so that every swallow crack like tearing paper.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was dark except for thin, blueish gray light peaking through slats by my feet, I lay still.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking I was at home, I must be, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: But stretching out a hand I touched a corrugated wall and a rusty latch, and realized I was nowhere normal at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: It took a moment before I recognized the place.

[SPEAKER_00]: The backyard shed, about 30 feet from my house.

[SPEAKER_00]: The air inside was thick and musty, almost sweet in some sick way.

[SPEAKER_00]: My hands closed around something, a shovel and some twine, sticky and dirty.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing made sense.

[SPEAKER_00]: My sheets were gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was something sticky on my heel, not blood, just...

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, sap.

[SPEAKER_00]: It clung, warm, and odd, which made less than zero sense in that freezing shed.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know that feeling when you try to piece together your night after a blackout, remembering bits and pieces but nothing in between?

[SPEAKER_00]: It was like that, only worse.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were no missing memories, just a blank void, no footsteps, no dreams, no sense of having walked out here at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the part that sends chills down my back years later.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I'd opened any door a window in the house, the alarm would have gone off it always did.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was right outside my room and everyone's door squeaked.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there I was lying in the shed, half covered and saw dust.

[SPEAKER_00]: And nobody else had heard a thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: From the shed, I could see tiny points of frost shimmering on the grass through the dim slit under the door.

[SPEAKER_00]: The house itself stood quiet and perfectly still.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not a light on.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was wrong somehow to wake up there, wrong to feel so displaced in my own skin.

[SPEAKER_00]: Trying to convince myself this was all a dream.

[SPEAKER_00]: I slowly slid the door's latch.

[SPEAKER_00]: The metal was so cold at bit my fingers.

[SPEAKER_00]: The garden smelled dense and sweet, like damp leaves after too much rain, but here and there, underneath it all, something else, a faint bite of bleach or ammonia.

[SPEAKER_00]: Treading cautiously, I tiptoed through the brittle grass.

[SPEAKER_00]: My breath felt sharp in my chest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Each soft step away from the shed made the darkness thicken, and I saw that something odd had been scored into the lawn.

[SPEAKER_00]: At first, I thought it was just frost or someone dragging a bike, but the lines were jagged and oddly symmetrical in a way that grass never grows.

[SPEAKER_00]: My bare toes brushed dirty, squished leaves, and every inch felt unfamiliar and intrusive.

[SPEAKER_00]: as if I were walking through a stranger's yard, a low, almost inaudible vibration hummed under my feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I was imagining it, the distant wires in the ground, or the deep industrial pipes somewhere far below, inside the house was silent as a tomb.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing was disturbed, no alarm, no lights on.

[SPEAKER_00]: My bedroom door hadn't budged, my covers were thrown back, but the window was locked on the inside, and there wasn't a sign that anyone had opened it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to tell myself maybe I had sleepwalked, even though I had never done anything close before.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I'd had a fever or a nightmare, or maybe those lines in the lawn were just weird frozen patches from the cold.

[SPEAKER_00]: Still I checked the alarm panel just to be sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: The digital screen, ugly, blocky numbers reported nothing unusual.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every door, every window was locked tight and undisturbed.

[SPEAKER_00]: No entry, no exit, no alarm triggered at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: I went back up to my room and collapsed under the covers, shivering hard even though the house was warm.

[SPEAKER_00]: I noticed then, as my body finally started to calm down, little flex of grass and dirt my nails, and the faintest trace of that sticky residue around my ankles.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not sap, not blood, not quite anything I recognized.

[SPEAKER_00]: Tiny wells forming, each one itching with slow pulsing heat.

[SPEAKER_00]: Morning came.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody in my family knew anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone acted normal.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mom made pancakes, dad read the paper, my sister grumbled about school I kept looking for something off, some hint that I was dreaming, or maybe losing my mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the shed door was still slightly a jar, and the patch of grass I'd seen was gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Flattened or smoothed over, only faint ridges left if you looked at just the right angle in the sunlight.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was nothing in the dirt except a series of faint overlapping shoe prints, one set matching my own.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I wonder if it was all some half awake nightmare, but I still can't come up with a single good explanation for how I got outside not through a locked window, not through a silent door, and definitely not through an alarm that everyone would have heard.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even now I get flashes of that metallic sour smell.

[SPEAKER_00]: Randomly, years later, always when I'm least expecting it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I wake up with that numb cold sensation, and for just a split second, I can almost feel the shed floor beneath me again.

[SPEAKER_00]: And every spring the grass in that spot grows just a little lighter than everywhere else.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe nothing at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: But enough that sometimes when I look out my window at night, that patch makes me uneasy.

[SPEAKER_00]: My parents moved out years ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hardly ever go back.

[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes if I let the fear settle in as it did back then, I find myself counting every door in window.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listening for the faintest chime.

[SPEAKER_00]: Waiting to see if just maybe I'll wake up somewhere I shouldn't again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was all in my head.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was some impossible sleepwalking episode or a busted alarm or pure coincidence.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I still can't shake the feeling that just under the surface of ordinary life, something was off that night.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some small silent crack in the walls that keep nightmares out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes I worry that one night I'll slip through again.

[SPEAKER_00]: story number six.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is something I rarely talk about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mostly because every time I try, people rationalize it away, or laugh about how fever dreams mess with kids, or offer up some explanation I've heard a dozen times.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I get it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd think I made it up too if it hadn't happened to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was somewhere between five and seven years old, still small enough to end up sandwiched between my parents' some nights.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember why I climbed into their bed that evening.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe nightmares, maybe a thunderstorm.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe just one of those nights where the shadows felt heavy in my own room.

[SPEAKER_00]: We lived in a perfectly normal house in a perfectly normal suburban neighborhood.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything quiet, un-eventful.

[SPEAKER_00]: The whole thing started when I woke up in the darkness of their room.

[SPEAKER_00]: The curtain was drawn half open.

[SPEAKER_00]: The orange haze of the streetlight, painting lines across the carpet.

[SPEAKER_00]: My eyes landed on the old digital clock on the dresser.

[SPEAKER_00]: 4-11 AM.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember the numbers exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: The closet door creaks softly from the air vent kicking on.

[SPEAKER_00]: For a second, I thought maybe that was what had woken me, but there was a heaviness in the air, the sound of my parents breathing, rhythmic on either side of me, and then an odd, almost metallic scent.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's when I saw him.

[SPEAKER_00]: At first, just a tall shadow standing stock still at the far end of the room, bathed in that fuzzy orange street light he was hunched, like he'd been there a long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: One bony hand braised against the window sill.

[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't the generic bogey man's shape.

[SPEAKER_00]: No fedora, no slasher villain mold, just a tall robed figure, wool brown and all full of course folds, the hood pooling around wide sloping shoulders.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had the heightened build of someone big, maybe six feet four inches or more, but he looked, dried out drained.

[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to tell myself I was imagining details, but the fact is, even in the partial light, it was all strangely clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I started to rise, the bedsheets rough against my palm, the figure moved.

[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't jerk or startle, just turned his head toward me, very slow, and I felt pure, animal-level cold scuttled down my back.

[SPEAKER_00]: The face was wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: Real but wrong in a way my five-year-old mind couldn't process.

[SPEAKER_00]: The skin had a colorless waxy look.

[SPEAKER_00]: pure white but soft, squishing in on itself like old bread dough, pulled down into the weirdest sharp, unnatural chin I'd ever seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: It seemed to drip right off the bones beneath, lines and grooves etched deep as if gravity pulled the whole face down, and the mouth just hung open, round and slack, as if heat forgotten how to close it.

[SPEAKER_00]: His eyes were etched wide, bugged out and shining in the streetlight, pitch dark but glimmering, like he was frozen in alarm, not angry, not threatening, just startled, like he'd been caught somewhere he shouldn't be.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even as a little kid, I knew adult faces didn't move or look that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd never seen that kind of fear, not on someone real anyway.

[SPEAKER_00]: A thick, sloshing sound filled my ears like heavy rain on a roof except there was no rain.

[SPEAKER_00]: My scalp prickled and my body locked.

[SPEAKER_00]: My tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth, and I realized I could smell something else now too.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sweet and old and breathy, like fruit left out too long.

[SPEAKER_00]: I honestly thought for a split second I might throw up.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thing watched me, I watched it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how long that actually lasted.

[SPEAKER_00]: My hands bald up in the comforter.

[SPEAKER_00]: My feet frozen as if the weight of his stare pressed them flat to the mattress.

[SPEAKER_00]: He began moving, still holding my gaze, shuffled slow past the foot of the bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: His robe brushed the old carpet in a hush.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whispery grainy sounds I still hear from time to time.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I wake up way too early, I remember the way the air got thick as he passed, like stepping into a cloud of dust.

[SPEAKER_00]: He never looked away even as he drifted toward the door.

[SPEAKER_00]: His mouth stayed hanging open as if he wanted to say something, or scream, or maybe couldn't figure out how to breathe at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: The closer he got, the more it seemed like the room was shrinking around him, air buzzing behind my eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: His head almost grays the entry frame when he exited, but somehow he fit beneath it, shrinking or folding up on himself as he slipped out the open bedroom door.

[SPEAKER_00]: No footfalls, just that heavy, soft scraping.

[SPEAKER_00]: With each second, the smell faded, and something else happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: The humming quiet, that thick, too silent quiet, you only get it for AM.

[SPEAKER_00]: Broken a split second as all the lights snapped on.

[SPEAKER_00]: Violently bright, flooding the room with white.

[SPEAKER_00]: I flinched, cover thrown over my eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: My heart ricocheted through my chest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Both my parents sat bolt up right, gasping, practically clawing at their own chest.

[SPEAKER_00]: I watched them in the two bright light, both sweating and wide-eyed, panning like they'd been running in their sleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to scream, but all that came out was a thin, trembling whimper.

[SPEAKER_00]: I could tell by their faces that they'd both had the same kind of terror, even if maybe it played out in their minds differently.

[SPEAKER_00]: They kept looking at the door, then at each other, then at me, silently, as if expecting me to say something.

[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, my mother reached to touch my forehead, probably looking for a fever.

[SPEAKER_00]: My father got up to check the hallway and came back, shaking his head, probably thinking he'd heard something odd from the living room.

[SPEAKER_00]: nobody mentioned the lights.

[SPEAKER_00]: A couple hours later, the sun came up and everything looked normal.

[SPEAKER_00]: My parents eventually brushed it off, blaming a bad dream or nerves.

[SPEAKER_00]: The lights, according to Dad, had just been on a fritz for weeks.

[SPEAKER_00]: He pointed to the switch which was old and wobbly.

[SPEAKER_00]: As for the figure, I got all the standard adult answers, shadow play, sleep paralysis, night terrors, overactive imagination I played along, but there were only a couple things I couldn't explain away.

[SPEAKER_00]: First, my parents had both woken up as violently as I did, but they'd never asked what I'd seen, not even once.

[SPEAKER_00]: Second, over the next week, I found four faint, greasy smudges along the baseboards leading away from the bedroom door, almost shaped like trailing pointed fingers.

[SPEAKER_00]: I told myself it could have been anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oil from our skin, someone tracking in something from the garage, but I never forgot the closeness of that face, or the way the air went strange as he left.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes when I can't sleep, I replay the whole thing again and again, and try to make sense of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how many adult explanations I turn over in my head, I still can't shake the feeling that, whatever or whoever that was, he'd been watching something out there until he noticed I was watching him too.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the scariest part is, sometimes at night, even all these years later.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hear that soft, grainy shuffling in the hallway, and I'm right back in that bed, holding my breath, waiting for him to stop at the door.

[SPEAKER_00]: Story number 7 I've always tried to be a logical person and reframe my odd experiences, but this one from my childhood in South Korea, it sticks like something greasy under my skin, so I figured venting it out here might help.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not dramatic or theatrical like what you see in movies, but it's never left me.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was back when I was maybe eight or nine and we lived in a countryside house, big but not in a flashy way.

[SPEAKER_00]: It had an old courtyard paved with crackstones, a metal gate that shrieked if you slid it too fast, bad lighting outside.

[SPEAKER_00]: One lonely street lamp that cast a yellowish bruise over everything and managed somehow to make things darker rather than brighter.

[SPEAKER_00]: The air was always thick with the smell of earth and hay, especially at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: One evening my family had just come back from the big supermarket in town.

[SPEAKER_00]: And since I was the youngest, I ended up being the last one lugging bags in from the trunk.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why, but I always like being out in the courtyard alone at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, until this happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was shutting the gate behind me, arms full of groceries, and as I clicked the lock, the snap of cold shot up my spine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like standing waist deep in ice water, but only for a split second, everything felt denser somehow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like sound was being sucked out of the air.

[SPEAKER_00]: I turned around, expecting to see maybe a neighbor or a stray dog.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, floating in the center of the courtyard, was this human-like shape made of blue, white, and a sort of shimmering.

[SPEAKER_00]: like the after image you get if someone takes a flash photo in the dark, but way brighter and hanging there as if pinned up by invisible wires.

[SPEAKER_00]: The weirdest part, aside from it, existing, was how it didn't really have a face, just a kind of suggestion and its outline fuzzed into the air like smoke.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just hovered, maybe two or three feet above the ground, gliding silently closer.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's light making the dark stones glow faintly under it.

[SPEAKER_00]: No sounds not even from cicadas or the nightly hum of frogs from the fields.

[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't move for a moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: All I remember is my heart racing in my ears.

[SPEAKER_00]: Feels like my body would refuse to obey if it didn't mean survival.

[SPEAKER_00]: than panic snap me loose.

[SPEAKER_00]: I tore up the steps fumbling for the door handle.

[SPEAKER_00]: Frozen sweat trickled down my back.

[SPEAKER_00]: My hands felt like they belonged to someone else.

[SPEAKER_00]: Once inside, I slam the door and slid the locks over in a series of clumsy shaking hands.

[SPEAKER_00]: I ran really all but tripped into the living room and sat cross-legged in the lotus of old Lego bricks, pretending nothing happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: The TV flicker.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think my lips were moving, but I don't remember what I said.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one noticed anything odd.

[SPEAKER_00]: The light outside had gone back to its sickly yellow.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't mention it because what do you say?

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I saw a faceless blue ghost in the courtyard and it came at me.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I told my mom she would have just blamed a combination of too much sugar and too many cartoons.

[SPEAKER_00]: That night, after forcing myself to stay awake, I somehow slipped into sleep anyway.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember almost everything from the dream.

[SPEAKER_00]: My mother was gone, no sign of her in the house.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just me wandering from room to room I went out into the brisk, do heavy morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: The grass was sharp and damp under my bare feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: I started looking, calling for her, feeling this vast open nothingness around me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like every direction was a wrong turn.

[SPEAKER_00]: Somehow I ended up at a hill I recognized.

[SPEAKER_00]: The one passed the rice fields that kids weren't supposed to go to after dark.

[SPEAKER_00]: Only now there was a door built right into the ground.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rough, wouldn't, like something from a half finished basement.

[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't belong there.

[SPEAKER_00]: The wood grain squirmed, pulsing slightly under my palm.

[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like I should turn back, but it felt like I was being pulled towards it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I pushed.

[SPEAKER_00]: The door didn't swing, it exploded open.

[SPEAKER_00]: When blasted out hot and foul, thick was screaming, burning metal and rotting flesh.

[SPEAKER_00]: Creatures poured out, twisted, shrieking things made of hands and blind gaitping faces.

[SPEAKER_00]: The sky went red.

[SPEAKER_00]: in the air felt like it prickled inside my ears.

[SPEAKER_00]: For a split second, they dragged my perspective with them, pulled toward the darkness bubbling inside the door.

[SPEAKER_00]: The only thing I remember clearly is one of the creatures had a glowing, faceless blur for a head.

[SPEAKER_00]: The same electric blue from the courtyard.

[SPEAKER_00]: I woke up soaked in sweat, heart jabbing so hard I thought I'd puked.

[SPEAKER_00]: My mother was in the kitchen making rice, uh, perfectly fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: She said I'd wet my sheets from drinking too much water with dinner, and that was the end of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But after that night, I started noticing other things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Small, off-key details, like a song going off-key while everyone else keeps singing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes going back in from the courtyard after dusk, I'd smell something like static electricity, ozone and burnt hair.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just for a split second, occasionally the motion sensor porch light would flicker blue for no reason, even with nobody moving.

[SPEAKER_00]: Late at night, I'd hear what sounded like footsteps on gravel when all the windows were closed, but when I'd peek outside, the yard would be empty, except for the wind.

[SPEAKER_00]: Car headlights passing on the street would sometimes reflect off something high up in the darkness, something that seemed to pull the night tighter around it before dissolving into air.

[SPEAKER_00]: At least twice, I woke up and thought I saw a soft blue haze sliding across the ceiling, only for it to vanish when I blinked and broke for the light.

[SPEAKER_00]: Still, I never saw the figure up close again, not like that first night.

[SPEAKER_00]: Part of me thinks it really was just a kid's brain, piecing together stray light, exhaustion, nerves.

[SPEAKER_00]: We live close to the edge of the woods, too, and Foxfire showed up sometimes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that was it, though Foxfire isn't supposed to float, or maybe a neighbor's security light malfunction night vision can play tricks.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know that, but every so often in those in-between moments when I'm alone in a quiet place, walking a dark hall at 4am, or waiting for my car to heat up in the pre-dawn blue.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll catch a flicker of something peripheral.

[SPEAKER_00]: A faint blue glow that crawls just outside the corner of my eye, hovering for a heartbeat.

[SPEAKER_00]: than disappearing before I can look twice.

[SPEAKER_00]: It always leaves the air feeling colder, heavy with static, and my body remembering the exact feeling of that first night, the mountain pressing in, the old wounds of a stone courtyard, and the memory of a door you know you should open, knowing you already did.

[SPEAKER_00]: I still tell myself it was just a trick of the light, a bad dream, or nerves buzzing at the edge of sleep, but there's always a tiny part of me that wonders,