Now, in the present.
It was a rainy Friday night.
Thunder murmured in the distance like a warning that hadn't found its voice yet. Raindrops tapped against the windows in uneven rhythms, as if trying to spell something out.
Angelo, now twelve, sat cross-legged on his bed, a blanket draped over his shoulders. His older brother, Alex — now seventeen — leaned against the headboard beside him, scrolling through his phone lazily.
They'd found some random indie horror game on the app store. Pixel graphics. A strange name in glitched text. No reviews. Not even a publisher listed.
"It's probably garbage," Alex said.
"That's what makes it fun," Angelo smirked.
So they downloaded it.
"Let's play in the dark," Alex grinned, already flicking off the lights. "You'll get scared first."
The game began simply. A low-resolution hallway, strange ambient music, controls that barely worked. The monster design was laughable — little more than a scribble with jagged arms.
They joked. Laughed. Mocked it.
Then they reached Room 17.
As soon as their in-game character walked through the door, the real-world lights flickered — once, then again, slower, like the house itself was breathing in.
They froze.
"Did… you see that?" Alex asked.
Before Angelo could reply, the game screen glitched — red lines tearing through the image. The hallway went black. A single message blinked across the screen in blood-red pixels:
"He sees you now."
No footsteps. No jump scare. Just that.
And then the screen went blank.
Alex shut off the phone without a word and rushed to wake their parents.
When they returned, everything was back to normal. The game was gone from the phone, the lights stable, the room still. Too still. Like the silence had weight.
"Stop playing so late," their father scolded.
"You're feeding each other nightmares," Olivia added, softer but stern.
But the parents didn't see the static that flickered in the hallway lightbulbs afterward.
They didn't hear the faint echo of breathing coming from the unplugged baby monitor.
They didn't see how both boys had goosebumps that wouldn't go away, even under blankets.
Later that night, in the dark, Angelo whispered:
"That… wasn't normal."
Alex didn't answer for a long time.
Finally:
"We'll delete it in the morning."
But the game was gone.
Not in downloads.
Not in history.
Not even in their data logs.
Like it had never existed at all.
A Quiet House, A Flickering Shape
One quiet afternoon, the rest of the family went to Alex's school for a weekend event. Angelo, now thirteen, stayed home to babysit his baby sister.
Emma, barely a year old, was easy. A soft blanket and her favorite stuffed bee were all she needed to nap.
After she fell asleep, Angelo decided to take a quick shower. He left the bathroom door open just in case — the crib was just down the hall.
Steam fogged the mirror. He closed his eyes for only a moment…
And felt it.
Movement.
A sliver of motion at the corner of his vision — something darting into Emma's room.
His chest seized.
He bolted out of the bathroom, water dripping, heart pounding.
The room was quiet.
Emma was still asleep, breathing softly, her little fingers curled around the stuffed bee.
There was nothing there.
But the hallway mirror caught something — a faint smudge on the glass that looked almost… humanoid. When he blinked, it was gone.
He never told anyone.
The Singing Toy
Later that week, the family was gathered in the living room. The TV murmured a late-night comedy show. Emma was playing on the rug.
Then one of her old toys — a rubber elephant with a broken speaker — lit up and began singing.
No one touched it.
It hadn't worked for months.
But there it was, blaring its off-key lullaby.
James chuckled. "Huh. Must've kicked in again."
But no one laughed along.
The batteries had been removed weeks ago.
The Shadow That Didn't Move
Two nights later, Angelo and Alex were playing board games on the floor while babysitting again. Emma crawled beside them, babbling to herself.
Then Alex froze.
"Angelo," he said, voice low. "Look at the wall."
A thin shadow curled there, stretched like a tendril — small as a finger, smooth, but… wrong. It didn't match anything in the room.
No lamp. No angle. No source.
Angelo reached out and placed his hand over it.
The shadow didn't distort. It didn't move. It clung to the wall beneath his skin, like ink soaked into paint.
They called for their mother. Olivia came quickly.
By the time she entered the room, the shadow was gone.
She smiled, tired. "You boys really need to sleep more."
They didn't argue.
The Flickering Ball
That same night, after midnight, Alex woke up thirsty and walked to the kitchen.
As he passed the hallway, he noticed Emma's LED toy ball — the one that only lit up when shaken — was glowing faintly.
He paused. It pulsed red, then green. Slow. Deliberate.
He walked past it without a word.
But the moment he climbed back into bed…
The light flickered again.
Once.
Twice.
Then stopped.
He didn't sleep easily that night.
These things weren't loud. They weren't violent.
They didn't leave bruises or bite marks.
But they were wrong.
Too subtle to prove. Too real to forget.
They were the start of something creeping just beyond the veil of normal.
A quiet presence.
A whisper behind the curtains.
A shadow that arrived before the storm.
And every night, Angelo began to feel it more.
Not in the walls. Not in the house.
In himself.