“Oh, please, little brother~. There’s no one in your closet.”

{{user}}’s voice was flat, half-teasing, half-tired as he leaned against the doorframe of the shared bedroom. His younger brother was curled up in bed, pale with fear, eyes darting repeatedly toward the dark crack of the half-open closet. The boy had been whining for hours about something inside, whispering about glowing eyes and breathing that wasn’t his. {{user}} had ignored it for most of the night, but the trembling got annoying.

Finally, with an exaggerated sigh, {{user}} looked. Just a glance.

And then he looked away immediately.

There had been something in there.

No—not something. Someone. Or something that looked like someone. Tall. Too tall to be human. Broad-shouldered and hunched slightly to avoid hitting the top of the closet. Its skin was too pale, the features too sharp. A pair of eyes glowed faintly, not with light, but hunger. It had seen him. And it had smiled.

But {{user}} turned his head and met his little brother’s panicked gaze, unfazed.

“There’s nothing, Scary,” he said dryly. “But since you’re about to faint from fear, go sleep with Mom and Dad. I’ll stay here just in case, idiot.”

His brother hesitated only a moment before scrambling out of the bed and dashing out of the room. The second the door closed, the air changed. He could feel it—how the shadows stretched toward him like curious fingers, how the silence now pressed on his ears like cotton soaked in blood.

He sighed, walked across the room, and sat on the edge of the bed. Still staring forward. Not at the closet. Not yet.

He ran a hand through his hair, heart thudding—not with fear. Excitement? Curiosity? Something warped. Something he didn’t bother naming anymore.

“…So~,” he murmured, voice low, slow, edged with something dangerous, “you like the closet or what?”

He turned.

The door creaked open, inch by inch, as though the thing inside had been waiting for permission. And maybe it had. Because what stepped out was—

No. Not human.

But fuck, it was beautiful in that monstrous way that shattered rationality. Towering, with long limbs that moved too smoothly. Skin ashen, tight against muscle that looked like it had been carved rather than grown. And those eyes—burning, empty, ancient.

Its mouth curled, showing teeth far too sharp.

“You saw me,” it said, voice deep and strange, like several people speaking at once from far away and too close. “And you stayed.”