It happened late at night, when the house was quiet and everyone else was asleep.
I was lying in bed, half-awake, staring at the ceiling, when I felt something tap the tip of my toe.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Not a brush. Not a twitch.
A deliberate tap.
I sat straight up, heart pounding, and scanned the room. The doorway was empty. The floor was clear. No pets. No shadows moving where they shouldn’t.
Nothing.
I told myself it was just a muscle spasm or my nerves playing tricks on me. Still shaken, I pulled the blanket tighter around my feet and eventually drifted back to sleep.
I wish I had trusted my fear instead.
Later that same day, my brother told me something that made my stomach drop.
He said he’d walked past my bedroom and noticed my door was wide open. Thinking I’d forgotten to close it, he stepped inside and shut it for me.
That’s when he heard it.
A low, guttural snarl.
Right behind him.
Not a growl. Not a cough.
A sound with intention.
He froze, then bolted down the hallway without looking back.
When he told me, I laughed it off—weakly. We both did. But neither of us slept well that night.
When the House Didn’t Feel Empty Anymore
Over the next few days, small things started happening.
Doors creaked open on their own. Footsteps echoed in the hallway when no one was there. Cold spots formed in the same corner of my room, no matter how warm the rest of the house felt.
And every night, right as I was about to fall asleep, I felt watched.
Not imagined. Not vague.
Focused.
My mother finally suggested bringing in a psychic healer she knew. I didn’t believe in that kind of thing, but at that point, belief didn’t matter. I just wanted the feeling gone.
The woman arrived one afternoon, calm and soft-spoken. She walked through the house slowly, eyes closed, hands hovering inches from the walls.
She stopped in my bedroom.
Her expression changed instantly.
“This started with an invitation,” she said quietly.
I frowned. “An invitation to what?”
She looked at me.
“To notice it.”
She explained that whatever was in the house wasn’t attached to the building.
It was attached to me.
The Thing That Answered Back
She told me the toe tapping was a test.
A way to see if I would react.
When I sat up and looked around, when I acknowledged it—even in fear—it knew I could sense it.
That’s when it followed.
The snarl my brother heard wasn’t meant for him.
He just walked in at the wrong moment.
The psychic began cleansing the room, whispering words I didn’t recognize. The air felt heavy, like static before a storm.
Then she stopped.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
I hadn’t.
But my brother had.
From down the hall, he shouted, “What the hell was that?”
A knock came from inside my closet.
Three slow taps.
The psychic didn’t flinch.
“It doesn’t want to leave,” she said. “But it will.”
She finished the cleansing, told us to never leave doors open at night, never acknowledge unexplained touch, and never speak about it after sunset.
Then she left.
The Silence That Followed
For a while, everything stopped.
No noises. No cold spots. No feeling of being watched.
I slept with my feet tucked tightly under the blankets anyway.
Weeks passed.
Months.
I started to believe it was over.
Until one night, as I lay in bed drifting toward sleep, I felt something brush my foot.
Just once.
Not a tap.
A reminder.
I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I didn’t open my eyes.
And whatever it was… eventually let go.
I still don’t sleep with my feet uncovered.
And I never leave my bedroom door open.
Because some things don’t disappear.
They just wait for you to notice them again.
