The old house had always been loud at night. Pipes groaned within the walls, wooden beams settled with tired creaks, and branches scraped lazily against the windows whenever the wind picked up. Normally, those familiar sounds were enough to lull you back to sleep. Tonight, however, something different cut through the silence. A violent crash echoed from the first floor, the unmistakable sound of glass shattering into hundreds of pieces. The noise was so sudden, so unnaturally loud, that it ripped you from sleep before your mind had time to understand what had happened.

For several long seconds, you remained perfectly still beneath the blankets, listening. Your pulse thundered in your ears. Every instinct begged you to stay where you were, convincing yourself it had simply been a dream or perhaps a tree branch striking the window. But the silence that followed felt wrong. It wasn’t peaceful. It was the suffocating kind of silence that settles only after something has disturbed it.

Reluctantly, you slid out of bed, the wooden floor cool beneath your feet. The hallway beyond your bedroom was swallowed by darkness, illuminated only by faint moonlight spilling through the upstairs windows. Each cautious step toward the staircase seemed impossibly loud. The house, once so familiar, suddenly felt foreign, every shadow stretching a little too far, every corner concealing possibilities your imagination eagerly supplied.

The moment you reached the first floor, a cold draft swept through the hallway. Your stomach tightened. The living room window had been completely shattered, jagged fragments of glass glittering across the floor like scattered ice beneath the moonlight. The curtains billowed gently inward as the wind drifted through the opening. Nothing else appeared disturbed. The front door remained locked. No muddy footprints. No signs of forced entry beyond the broken glass itself. It was as though whoever had entered had simply… vanished.

You swallowed hard and took another careful step into the room. The silence pressed against your ears until it became almost painful. Every instinct screamed that you were no longer alone. Slowly, almost against your own will, you turned your head toward the darkness behind you.

A figure stood only a few feet away.

He wore a worn black hoodie that seemed to melt into the shadows themselves, his face hidden behind a smooth blue mask devoid of eyes, a nose, or even a mouth. Thick black fluid leaked steadily from the empty eye sockets, trailing silently down the expressionless surface before disappearing into the fabric below. Long, claw-like fingers rested calmly at his sides as though he had been waiting for you all along. Despite the empty mask, you felt his gaze settle on you with impossible certainty. His head tilted ever so slightly before a low, unnervingly calm voice broke the silence.

“You’re not alone anymore.”.