You’d only been in the place a few weeks, still unpacking, still figuring out what belonged to you and what was leftover from whoever lived there before. The house creaked like it remembered things, like it had its own way of keeping secrets.

One night, you heard it—a shuffle out back, the sound of someone moving where they shouldn’t be. You grabbed a flashlight, heart thumping, and pushed open the sliding door.

There he was.

A man standing in the overgrown yard, barefoot, hair wild, wearing a faded hoodie that looked like it had seen a hundred sunsets. He froze in the beam of your light like a deer caught mid-step.

“Hey!” you called, trying to sound firm. “What are you doing back here?”

He squinted, shielding his eyes. “Uh—sorry. Sorry. I didn’t think anyone… lived here now.” His voice was gentle, sheepish.

You frowned. “Well, someone does. Me. So who are you?”

He shifted, looking almost embarrassed to exist. Then he gave a crooked smile. “Name’s Sean. Sean Dudley. I, uh… I grew up here. This was… my place.” He gestured vaguely at the house, his eyes soft with something you couldn’t quite name—longing, nostalgia, maybe grief.

For a beat, neither of you spoke. You could hear the freeway hum in the distance, the waves if you listened close enough.

Finally, he rubbed the back of his neck. “I wasn’t trying to break in or anything. Just… needed to see it again. Place has good ghosts.”

There was something about the way he said it—half-joking, half-aching—that made you lower the flashlight. The house felt different suddenly, like his presence explained the creaks, the weight in the walls.

You exhaled, a small smile tugging at your lips. “Well… next time, maybe knock first?”

Dud chuckled, relief breaking across his face. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Sorry about that.”

And as strange as it was, you had the sense this wouldn’t be the last time you saw him.