Late at night, Emily woke to a sound—a soft scraping, like something dragging across the floor. Her eyes flicked open, body tense as she strained to listen. The house was old, prone to creaks and groans, but this sound was different. It had a rhythm, a deliberate quality that set her pulse racing.

She lay still, trying to convince herself it was nothing. The house settling. A breeze moving something outside. But no matter how hard she tried, the uneasy feeling gnawed at her, making her heart pound harder in her chest.

Then she noticed something. The closet door. It was open—just a crack, but enough to reveal a sliver of thick, impenetrable darkness inside. She always kept it shut before bed. Always. Had she forgotten? Her breath hitched in her throat. Maybe she had. Maybe it was nothing.

But the sense of dread twisted deeper into her gut. She tried to shake it off, pulling the covers tighter around her as if they could protect her from the creeping unease that filled the room. The shadows seemed darker tonight, more alive, pressing in from every corner.

Scrape. The sound came again. Closer now. Her breath caught. It was coming from under the bed.

Her body stiffened, every instinct telling her to stay perfectly still. If she moved, whatever was making that noise might know she was awake. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to calm herself. She was being ridiculous. It was nothing. It had to be nothing.

But then her phone buzzed on the nightstand, the sudden noise jolting her. She grabbed it quickly, as if the light from the screen could shield her from the growing terror. She unlocked it with trembling fingers, hoping for some distraction—anything to make this creeping fear go away.

A single message appeared on the screen. No number, no contact.

“I see you.”

Her stomach dropped. She stared at the words, her blood turning to ice. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be real. But as the cold sweat trickled down her spine, the truth settled in her gut: the message didn’t come from the phone in her hand. It came from something else. Something inside the room.

Her breath came shallow and fast as her eyes flicked toward the shadows beneath the bed. It felt like a nightmare, but she was awake—too awake.

Scrape. The sound again, louder this time, more deliberate, and closer. Her body tensed. Something was under there. Something was moving under her bed.

The weight of the darkness in the room seemed to press down on her chest, making it hard to breathe. She didn’t want to look, but every nerve screamed that she had to. Slowly, painfully, she shifted her legs toward the edge of the bed. Her bare feet hovered just above the floor. What if it was waiting? What if it grabbed her the moment her toes touched the cold hardwood?

A sour, musty smell hit her, sharp and suffocating, as if something old and rotting was lurking just out of sight. Her mind raced. You’re imagining it. You’re being ridiculous. But the smell persisted, choking her with the unmistakable stench of decay.

She forced herself to lower her feet. The cold floor sent a shock through her body, but nothing happened. There was nothing there. No hand shooting out from beneath the bed to grab her. Just… silence.

For a moment, she felt relief, her chest loosening as she let out a shaky breath. She was imagining it. Of course, she was. Exhaustion was making her paranoid. She let out a small, nervous laugh, feeling the tension drain from her body.

But then, from the shadows under the bed, a voice—raspy and low—slithered through the silence.

“I told you… I see you.”

Her body went rigid, terror freezing her in place. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The voice wasn’t in her head. It was real. It was right there, beneath her.

Against every instinct, she leaned down, her hand gripping the edge of the mattress as she forced herself to look under the bed.

Nothing.

Just cold, empty space.

She sat up quickly, her heart hammering in her chest. No, no, no. This wasn’t possible. She wasn’t losing her mind. She heard it. It was there. It had to be there. But there was nothing.

And then, the closet door creaked. Slowly. Deliberately.

Her head whipped toward it, her heart pounding louder in her ears. The door was now wide open, the darkness inside gaping like a mouth. She stared at it, paralyzed, her breath shallow as her vision blurred. Hadn’t she closed it? She was sure she had. She was sure.

Something moved inside the closet. A small, barely perceptible shift in the darkness. And then… two pale eyes glinted at her from the shadows, unblinking, locked onto hers.

Her stomach twisted with a primal fear. The thing in the closet was watching her. It had been watching her this entire time.

The pale eyes blinked once, then a wide, twisted grin emerged beneath them, stretching too far, too grotesquely wide for any human mouth. The smile didn’t belong on a face. It didn’t belong in this world.

“And now…” the voice whispered, low and guttural, “you see me.”

Emily’s chest tightened. She pressed herself against the headboard, her pulse roaring in her ears. The darkness seemed to grow thicker, pressing in from all sides. She wanted to scream, to run, but her legs wouldn’t move, and her voice was trapped in her throat.

The grin in the closet widened, impossibly so, the eyes glinting with malicious glee. And then, from under the bed, the scraping sound began again, louder and more insistent, as if something—something else—was moving in tandem with the creature in the closet.

Slowly, with deliberate slowness, the thing in the closet began to emerge. The shadows seemed to ripple around it, distorting its body, stretching it in unnatural ways. As it slithered toward her, Emily’s mind raced in terror. Was this the first time? Had it been watching her for days, weeks, waiting for the moment when she would finally see it?

Her breath came in short, sharp gasps as she tried to push herself further back against the wall, but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. The creature crawled closer, its pale eyes never leaving hers, its grin fixed in place.

And then, as it loomed over her, the scraping sound stopped. Silence filled the room, thick and suffocating.

Emily’s body trembled, her mind a fog of panic and disbelief. She couldn’t understand it, couldn’t process what was happening. Was she going to die? Was it going to take her? She didn’t know.

The creature tilted its head, the grin still wide, its eyes glinting with an unnatural hunger.

And then, just before the darkness swallowed her whole, she heard the phone buzz on the nightstand again.

A single message flashed on the screen.

“You were next.”

Then, nothing.