The glass rattled before I heard the sound.
Just a soft tremor at first, a shiver through the old bedroom window of my rented house on the edge of town. I froze halfway through unpacking a box of therapy workbooks, fingers still hooked around a spiral-bound manual. Outside, the North Edge wind was a low, constant hush through pine needles, the same muffled roar I’d been listening to since I arrived that afternoon.
Then it came again.
Three knocks. Precise. Hollow.
My heartbeat jumped into my throat. I told myself it was old wood shifting in the cold or some bird being stupid, but my body knew better. Every hair along my arms lifted like I was standing under a static-charged sky.
I set the workbook down carefully on the bed and walked toward the window, bare feet catching on the rough grain of the unfinished floorboards. The digital clock on the nightstand threw a square of red light over the wall: 2:13 a.m.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
The local realtor’s voice came back, too bright as she’d handed over the key. "North Edge has its… stories. Ignore the old-timers if they mention the Midnight Caller. It’s just mountain folklore. Kids banging on windows for kicks."
Three more knocks. Not playful this time. Measured. Like someone who knew the exact weight to use to reach bone.
I stopped two steps from the window. My reflection stared back at me in the black glass: pale face, dark curls in a messy knot, an oversized North Edge High hoodie I’d grabbed from the thrift store in town, sleeves swallowing my hands.
On the other side of my own eyes, darkness. No porch light. No streetlights out here. Just woods and the thin sliver of a cloud-smeared moon.
"Who’s there?" My voice came out steadier than I felt.
Silence.
I swallowed. "If this is some stupid hazing ritual, I’m not—"
Something scraped the glass, slow and deliberate, from one side of the window to the other. Not nails. Not exactly. The sound raised a memory I couldn’t place—metal on stone, or bone on bark—sharp enough to make my stomach tighten.
Everything in me screamed to back away. Instead, I did what I always do when fear edges too close to panic: I breathed in for four, held for four, exhaled for six. The familiar pattern cut a groove through the adrenaline. Ground yourself, Sky. Reality check: new town, new job, weird neighbors.
Except this neighbor had chosen 2:13 a.m.
"I’m calling the police," I lied, because there was no service out here and the landline installation wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow.
The knock that answered that was softer. Almost… amused.
I hated that my legs carried me those last steps, hated that some part of me needed to see what waited beyond the glass. I curled one hand around the curtain and yanked it aside.
Nothing. Just my own ghost-pale reflection and the dark smudge of pines.
But something was there. I felt it. A pressure on the other side of the fragile pane, like a presence leaning close enough that if I breathed, it would fog the dividing line between us.
A whisper slid through the wood and glass, threading directly into my ear without passing through air.
"Found you."
The word was low and rough, scraping over syllables like they weren’t meant for a human tongue. Male. Familiar in the way nightmares are familiar—you don’t remember them until you’re right back inside them.
