My heart told me to freeze. But a deeper voice, older than fear, whispered four letters: WDDM.
Silence. Then the smallest sound: a creak on the stairs that did not belong to the house.
The old clock read 11:57. Rain sheeted against the window, each drop a tiny fist demanding entry. The power had flickered twice already. Soon, the dark would come fully — not the gentle dark of bedtime, but the heavy, knowing dark that fills a house when every circuit fails.
Not wildly. Not loudly. But deliberately. I reached left, found the iron poker by the hearth. I stood, not crouched. I took three steps toward the hallway — not away from the stairs, but across the bottom of them, to the back door I had bolted at sunset.
My heart told me to freeze. But a deeper voice, older than fear, whispered four letters: WDDM.
Silence. Then the smallest sound: a creak on the stairs that did not belong to the house. My heart told me to freeze
The old clock read 11:57. Rain sheeted against the window, each drop a tiny fist demanding entry. The power had flickered twice already. Soon, the dark would come fully — not the gentle dark of bedtime, but the heavy, knowing dark that fills a house when every circuit fails. Then the smallest sound: a creak on the
Not wildly. Not loudly. But deliberately. I reached left, found the iron poker by the hearth. I stood, not crouched. I took three steps toward the hallway — not away from the stairs, but across the bottom of them, to the back door I had bolted at sunset. The power had flickered twice already