The Open Gate

It was 1:30 a.m., and the street was unusually silent, the kind of silence that makes every small sound feel louder than it should. A man walked alone down the road, checking his phone now and then, not for messages, but as if it helped him feel less alone. A small whistle hung around his neck, swaying gently as he walked, and after covering nearly a kilometre, his steps slowly came to a halt. Across the street stood a large, old bungalow, worn down by time, its dark windows giving off an unsettling presence. Something about the building felt strange. Without realizing it, the man stood there staring at the bungalow for nearly thirty minutes, his eyes fixed on its lifeless structure, as though he was waiting for something to happen. Just as he turned away to continue walking, a faint light suddenly flickered on inside the house. The glow was weak and unstable, yet it held his attention, making it impossible to look away. His vision slowly blurred, and a strange dizziness crept over him, as if the light was pulling something from deep within his mind. When he finally forced himself to walk away, his steps were unsteady, and he moved like a lost man, confused and shaken. The image of that flickering light stayed with him long after he left, burned deeply into his memory.