I woke to a soft tapping at my window

When I was ten, my family moved into a house at the edge of a small town. It was an old place, with peeling wallpaper and a strange, musty smell that never quite went away. The locals avoided it, whispering about the family that had lived there before. But my parents brushed off the stories, convinced it was just superstition.

The first night, I woke to a soft tapping at my window. I figured it was just a tree branch swaying in the wind—until I realized there were no trees near my window. The tapping came again, slow and deliberate. When I finally gathered the courage to look, all I saw was my own reflection staring back. But as I turned away, something moved behind me.

The days passed, and strange occurrences became routine. The kitchen radio would turn on by itself, always playing the same eerie melody. My mother found deep scratches on the basement door, as if something had been trying to claw its way out. My younger brother spoke of a woman with hollow eyes standing at the foot of his bed at night, watching him but never speaking.

One evening, while I was home alone, I heard the front door creak open. Footsteps echoed through the hallway—heavy, deliberate. I called out, thinking my parents had come home early, but no one answered. The footsteps grew louder, closer, until they stopped just outside my bedroom door. I held my breath, paralyzed with fear. Slowly, the doorknob began to turn.

Then came the whispers. Soft at first, then rising to an urgent, almost pleading tone. “Get out…” they said. “Not safe…” My heart pounded as the door suddenly swung open, revealing nothing but an empty hallway. But the air was different—thick, heavy, charged with something unseen.

The last night we spent in that house, my mother woke to find every single mirror covered in handprints—small, childlike prints smeared across the glass. The moment she saw them, the power cut out, plunging us into darkness. A scream echoed from my brother’s room. We ran to him, only to find him staring at the wall, frozen in terror. “She was here,” he whispered. “She told me to run.”

We moved out the next day. My parents never spoke of what happened, but I know they felt it too. Years later, I went back, just to see. The house stood empty, abandoned, the front door slightly ajar as if waiting for someone else to step inside.