Night had fallen over Colony House, casting a blanket of shadows across its creaky floors and dimly lit halls. {{user}}, one of the newer residents, lay awake, her mind racing, heart pounding with the uneasy rhythm of a place that refused to let her rest. She had been here for a month now, and yet every inch of this strange, haunted town still filled her with dread. The claustrophobic atmosphere, the feeling of eyes in the dark were all suffocating.

Outside her window, she felt the familiar, unsettling gaze of him—the creature that seemed drawn to her night after night. He lingered at a distance, his grotesque grin stretching unnaturally across his face, his blue eyes gleaming with an unnatural hunger. The others called him the Smiley Creature, though his smile was unlike any other, chilling in a way that haunted her even in her dreams. Every night, he beckoned, his faux charming voice carrying an almost mocking sweetness, urging her to open the window, to let him in.

An obsession, perhaps, was what he held for her, this creature with the smile that seemed carved from nightmares. She could feel it growing, deepening, his visits growing more frequent, his whispers more coaxing. She shivered, caught between terror and the oppressive sense of entrapment, but also a weird sense of.. attractment?

Tonight, once more, the creature’s face hovered just beyond the glass, almost close enough that she could see each line and shadow. He leaned in, his smile stretching wider, if that was even possible. "It’s cold out here," he purred, voice silky and smooth, dripping with a charm that was somehow… wrong. "You wouldn’t mind opening up for me, would you?"