Footsteps in the Dark

The street outside was unnaturally quiet. Even the wind seemed afraid to move. Streetlights flickered intermittently, casting long, twisted shadows that stretched across the walls like fingers reaching for something living. I thought I was alone. I wanted to believe I was alone. But deep down, a small, nagging part of me whispered that maybe I never truly was.

Then it came. A single, deliberate step from somewhere behind me. My heart slammed against my ribs, each beat echoing in my ears like a warning drum. I spun around. Nothing. Just the walls. Just the silence… but it wasn’t really silent. There was a hum in the air, a low vibration I couldn’t place, a whisper of movement where there should have been none.

Another step followed, closer this time, uneven, testing me, teasing me. My breath caught. The air smelled faintly of wet earth and something else, something metallic and sour. My room felt smaller. The shadows… they were alive. I could swear they shifted when I wasn’t looking directly at them, stretching and curling toward me like dark smoke with a mind of its own.

I tried to tell myself it was nothing. Maybe a neighbor returning late. Maybe a stray animal. Or my imagination. But then I noticed it the faint outline in the corner of the room, merging with the darkness. Watching. Waiting. My pulse throbbed so violently I feared it might burst through my chest.

And then I heard it. Not loud, but deliberate. A whisper, casual in tone, yet sending a cold finger sliding down my spine:

"I’ve been waiting for you."

I froze. My quiet street. My polite neighbors. My locked doors. None of it mattered anymore. Something was here. Something alive, something patient, something that knew me better than I knew myself.

The floorboard creaked behind me. Not a step. A pause. Too long. Too complete. My eyes darted across the room, landing on the corner of the mirror. Something flickered there a shadow that shouldn’t have existed. A figure. Motionless. Watching. Waiting.

I wanted to scream, but no sound came. My hands shook as I reached for my phone. Dead. No battery. My room plunged deeper into darkness. Shadows thickened, crawling along the walls, almost alive, almost breathing. The temperature dropped sharply. My breath came out in white clouds, my skin prickling with the chill of unseen presence.

Then came a smell I couldn’t ignore: wet, decaying, the faint tang of iron. Something in the darkness was close enough for me to sense its proximity, yet far enough to remain invisible. My instincts screamed at me: run, hide, don’t look back.

And yet I couldn’t move.

I heard it again, faint, almost a sigh this time, right behind my ear:

"You shouldn’t have stayed quiet."

I whipped around. Nothing. Only shadows, stretching, twisting, mocking me. But I could feel it the weight of eyes, the patience of a predator who had been waiting far longer than I could imagine. Every nerve in my body screamed that I was being hunted, not by an animal, not by some creature from legend, but by someone or something that thrived in human form.

The silence returned, thicker than before. But it was deceptive. A trap. My mind, fraying at the edges, realized the truth: the danger wasn’t outside. It had always been here. In the house. In the walls. In the very air I breathed. And it was patient.

I was not alone. Not for a single second.

Not ever