THE MIDNIGHT WATCHER

--- The Midnight Watcher Lila had always loved houses with history, and the 19th-century Victorian mansion she inherited from her great-aunt was no exception. With its creaky wooden floors, antique furnishings, and shadowy corridors, it was a place of undeniable charm—and eerie unease. Lila moved in during late autumn, when the days were getting shorter and the nights longer. At first, the strange occurrences were minor: faint whispers in empty rooms, the sensation of being watched, and cold drafts even when the windows were sealed tight. She brushed them off, blaming her overactive imagination. But one night, everything changed. Lila woke up at exactly 3:03 a.m. to the sound of her bedroom door creaking open. Groggy, she squinted into the darkness but saw nothing unusual. She decided it was the wind and tried to fall back asleep. Then she heard it—a soft, deliberate tapping coming from the hallway. "Who's there?" she called out, her voice trembling. No answer. Gathering her courage, Lila grabbed her phone and turned on the flashlight. The beam illuminated the long, narrow hallway outside her bedroom. At first, it appeared empty. But then she saw it—a dark silhouette standing at the far end of the corridor. It didn’t move. “Hello?” she called out again, her voice cracking. The figure stepped closer, slowly, deliberately. It was tall, its face obscured by shadows, but its eyes—its eyes glowed faintly, an unnatural, sickly yellow. Lila backed into her room and slammed the door shut, locking it. Her heart raced as she fumbled to call the police, but the signal kept cutting out. The tapping started again, this time on her bedroom door. She screamed, "Go away!" The tapping stopped. For a moment, silence. Then a low, guttural voice whispered from the other side of the door, "You shouldn’t be here." Lila froze. Her phone buzzed in her hand—a text from an unknown number. It read: "Look outside." Against her better judgment, she approached the window and peeked through the curtains. The garden below was bathed in moonlight, and standing in the middle of it was the same shadowy figure, staring up at her. Its mouth moved as if it were speaking, but no sound reached her ears. Then it pointed upward. Lila turned slowly toward the ceiling. That’s when she heard it—a faint scraping noise, as if something—or someone—was crawling in the attic. She bolted out of the room, down the stairs, and out the front door, not stopping until she reached her car. She drove straight to a hotel and didn’t return until morning, accompanied by two friends. When they searched the house, everything seemed normal. The attic was empty, the garden undisturbed. But Lila’s bedroom door bore deep scratches, as if made by long, clawed fingers. She never spent another night in the house. A few months later, she sold the property to a historian, who told her something that chilled her to the bone: the mansion’s original owner had vanished under mysterious circumstances in 1897. Witnesses claimed he’d been "dragged away by shadows." No one had lived in the house peacefully since. --- Would you like to expand on this story or dive deeper into its mysteries?