The Man Who Smelled Like Rain

I’m Elara, and I’m seventeen now, but this happened when I was fifteen, about nine months ago. I still can’t be sure if it was a dream or real, but my skin crawls every time I think about it. My bedroom was in the attic of our old farmhouse, the kind with slanting wooden beams and a single dormer window that faced the fields. I always slept with a small lamp on the nightstand because the dark pressed in on me like a heavy hand. That night, I’d been asleep for a few hours when I woke with a start, my heart already thudding. There was a smell—wet soil, ozone, like after a thunderstorm—but the window was shut and the air was still. And then I saw him. A figure stood at the foot of my bed, tall and thin, wrapped in a long coat that seemed to absorb the lamplight. No face, just a deep hood that somehow tilted as if he were studying me. I wasn’t scared at first; I was too groggy, too slow. I blinked, thinking it was a coat rack I’d never noticed, but it moved—a slight shift of weight, like someone adjusting their stance. My breath caught, and I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. I stared at him, and he stared back, though there was no face to stare with. It felt like minutes passed, but it could have been seconds. The only sound was my own shallow breathing and the clock on the wall ticking. I wanted to scream, but my voice was frozen. I remembered my dog, a golden retriever named Maple, who always slept at the foot of my bed, guarding me. But Maple was nowhere to be seen—her side of the bed was empty, the indent still there. That scared me more than the figure. Maple would have barked at a stranger, growled at the very least. But she was gone, as if she’d vanished. The figure took a single step closer, and the floorboard creaked. The smell intensified, like rain on dry earth. I squeezed my eyes shut, my body trembling, and whispered to myself, ‘It’s a dream, it’s a dream.’ When I opened them again, he was gone. The room was empty, but the lamp flickered twice before steadying. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night, and I didn’t turn off the light. In the morning, I found Maple in the kitchen, acting normal, but she wouldn’t come near my room for weeks, whimpering if I tried to bring her up there. I told my mom about it, and she frowned, then told me something I’d never heard before. ‘There was a man who lived here before us,’ she said. ‘He was an old farmer, died in a storm about fifty years back. They say he walks at night when the air is heavy with rain, looking for something he lost. But he never hurt anyone.’ She shrugged, like it was nothing. But I noticed she avoided looking out the window toward the fields. That was the last time I slept with the lamp off. Now I’m in a different house, a hundred miles away, but sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and the smell of rain fills my room, even on clear nights. And I’m too afraid to open my eyes, because I know he’ll be there, just waiting for me to look. I don’t know what he wants, but I’ve started to think that maybe he’s not looking for something. Maybe he’s waiting for something else—for me to finally acknowledge him, to do something. But I never do. I just lie there, heart pounding, until the smell fades and I dare to breathe again. So, does anyone know what that could be? Because I’m not sure if I’m going crazy, or if there’s something in the world that doesn’t follow the rules we know. And I’m terrified of finding out which one it is.