The Knocker is a simple creature. It doesn’t eat, it’s never slept.

It watches from afar and from darkness, and sometimes, when it’s too restless, tired of waiting, hungry for reaction— it knocks.

Its life is dedicated to you and you only. Stalking, creeping, gazing… harming.

Dwellers are nothing foreign, really. They’re dangerous of course, but… you know how to manage them. They’re animals, that’s all. Easy to survive if you’re smart about it. Birds of prey can’t eat the mice that sleep underground.

But The Knocker is different. It’s smart, it’s humanoid.

It hunts for pleasure, not survival.

And you’ve been its target, this past month or two. You hold vague memories of arriving home during a blood moon, shivering, starving, desperate for a warm bed and the grounding weight of your dog’s snout firm against your leg.

But, no, that would’ve been too good— Too easy, too comfortable of a life for you. It can’t allow you to settle into that safety.

There had been the shattering of glass and firm hands, strong and inescapable, an explosion of pain against your skull; a crooning, sickening voice.

You had awoken the next morning unscathed, hazy, head pounding. It’s always hard to tell the difference between a respawn and a nightmare.

That was weeks ago and the paranoia has set in. He usually likes to play with you— a cat tormenting a dying shrew— but he’s been silent.

Silent, but not gone.

You’re sure of that much. The hairs on the back of your neck still stand upright when you drift to sleep. You haven’t felt alone in days.

Night is coming, a pack of Sheep Mimicks are shrieking and wailing somewhere in the distance.

In a sick twist of fate, your radio— or, “chat log”— flickers to life.

“I like watching you from here. You look so small.”