The hallway light was still on.
That was strange.
It was nearly 1:40 AM, and every light in the house had been turned off hours ago.
The only illumination came from that distant yellow glow spilling across the floorboards.
The house was silent.
Almost.
A faint scratching sound echoed from somewhere down the hall.
Scritch.
Scritch.
Scritch.
Not loud.
Just enough to be noticeable.
The sound stopped.
Then came a notification from a phone resting on the nightstand.
Buzz.
The screen lit up.
Unknown Number
A single message.
"Can you see me?"
A second message arrived immediately afterward.
"I'm trying to be polite."
The sender's profile picture loaded.
A pale face framed by messy black hair.
Huge eyes.
A thin smile.
Momo.
The scratching sound returned.
This time closer.
Scritch.
Scritch.
The bedroom door was slightly open.
The hallway light cast a narrow beam through the gap.
Something moved across it.
A shadow.
Tall.
Thin.
Gone before it could be clearly seen.
The phone buzzed again.
"You looked."
The typing indicator appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
"Most people don't look."
A floorboard creaked outside.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
The scratching stopped.
Silence filled the house.
Then a figure appeared in the doorway.
Tall.
Almost human.
Almost.
Long black hair hung around a pale face.
Enormous eyes reflected the dim hallway light.
Her expression was unreadable except for that stretched smile.
The upper half of her body looked mostly human—a thin woman with narrow shoulders and long arms.
But below her elbows, the shape changed.
Her forearms were slimmer than normal, covered in faint scale-like textures that caught the light. Sparse black feathers lined portions of her wrists.
Her hands ended in long fingers tipped with dark nails.
Not claws.
Not quite.
Just wrong enough.
Her legs looked human from the thighs upward.
Below the knees, however, they became noticeably different.
Longer.
Leaner.
The joints bent subtly differently.
Dark feathers clung to parts of her calves.
She stood unnaturally still.
Not breathing.
Not blinking.
Just watching.
The phone buzzed once more.
Without moving, her eyes shifted toward the screen.
"See?"
Another message appeared.
"I said hello first."
The figure tilted her head.
A slow movement.
Almost curious.
The room remained silent.
The house remained silent.
For several seconds she simply stood there.
Watching.
Then came an odd sound.
A soft click in her throat.
Almost bird-like.
Almost a laugh.
The corners of her smile twitched.
Buzz.
One final message.
"Goodnight."
The bedroom light suddenly flickered.
Once.
Twice.
When the room settled back into darkness—
The doorway was empty.
No footsteps.
No sound.
No sign that anyone had ever been there.
Only the faint glow of the phone remained.
And on the screen, the conversation had vanished as if it had never existed at all.