seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from Netherlands
seen from Netherlands
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Belarus
seen from Taiwan
seen from China
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Mexico
seen from Taiwan
seen from United Kingdom
seen from China
seen from Netherlands
seen from Türkiye
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Philippines
M'L Instant
DarkFear...
It happened that night, a would changed forever. Lost left to travel the world alone. No one believes me but they will in time. Why would i do such a thing then, why would I come back to lie to them now. It's here its always here, lurking just outside... Hiding in the dark.
image: Artistic Hand Fear Dark Scary HD Wallpaper - Wallpaper S
Let me know my ghouls and goblins what you think and pass the thought along 🎃.
Happy Halloween, Boo 👻.
The Vintage Mirror
Clara absolutely adored the charming, intricate details of nineteenth-century gothic architecture. Specifically, she spent her entire life savings purchasing a historic, deeply atmospheric apartment downtown. Consequently, she wanted to decorate the massive space exclusively with authentic, period-accurate antique furniture. She scoured dusty local estate sales and dark thrift stores every single weekend. Ultimately, she stumbled upon a highly peculiar, incredibly beautiful object hidden in a basement shop. The heavy, ornate vintage mirror completely captivated her absolute, undivided artistic attention. Therefore, she immediately purchased the heavy glass without asking a single question about its origins. Indeed, this careless, purely aesthetic decision invited a terrifying, relentless nightmare directly into her home. Hanging the Vintage Mirror The antique object felt unnaturally heavy, requiring two strong delivery men to carry it upstairs. Specifically, the thick wooden frame featured highly detailed, deeply carved gargoyles and twisting black vines. Consequently, Clara decided to hang the massive piece directly at the end of her long, primary hallway. She wanted the reflective surface to bounce the natural sunlight throughout the dark, historic apartment. Therefore, she hammered a thick iron nail into the old plaster wall with heavy, deliberate strikes. She carefully mounted the heavy item, stepping back to admire her beautiful new decorative focal point. Initially, the dark glass perfectly reflected the elegant, patterned wallpaper and the polished hardwood floors. Consequently, Clara felt a massive surge of proud, absolute satisfaction regarding her unique interior design. She spent the entire evening unpacking her remaining cardboard boxes in the nearby master bedroom. However, a sudden, inexplicable drop in the ambient temperature completely shattered her peaceful, productive mood. Specifically, the air inside the apartment turned freezing cold, causing her breath to visibly mist. Therefore, she walked out into the dark hallway to check the ancient, rattling radiator pipes. She stopped walking halfway down the corridor, her dark eyes locking onto the heavy glass. Consequently, Clara noticed a strange, highly unsettling anomaly resting deep within the polished, reflective surface. The vintage mirror displayed the correct hallway, but the lighting looked entirely wrong. Specifically, her actual apartment featured warm, glowing amber light from a small brass table lamp. However, the reflected hallway appeared bathed in a sickly, cold, and heavily shadowed blue hue. Ultimately, she blamed her exhaustion and simply turned off the lights to force herself to sleep. The First Impossible Shadow The terrifying psychological torment officially began during her third night in the historic apartment. Specifically, Clara woke up feeling incredibly thirsty shortly after two o'clock in the morning. Consequently, she walked out of her bedroom, heading directly toward the dark kitchen for water. She passed the end of the long hallway, naturally glancing sideways into the heavy glass. Therefore, she froze completely, her bare feet planted firmly against the freezing oak floorboards. A massive spike of pure, unadulterated terror flooded her entire nervous system instantly. The reflection displayed a tall, incredibly dark silhouette standing exactly at the opposite end of the corridor. Specifically, the shadowy figure possessed absolutely no discernible facial features or distinct clothing details. Consequently, Clara spun around violently, fully expecting to see a home intruder standing behind her. However, the actual, physical hallway remained completely empty, totally silent, and profoundly still. She turned back toward the heavy glass, her heart hammering violently against her ribcage. The terrifying shadow still stood inside the reflection, completely ignoring the fundamental laws of reality. Clara desperately tried to formulate a logical, highly rational explanation for the impossible visual anomaly. She assumed a weird trick of the outside streetlights caused the terrifying, looming shadow. Consequently, she quickly closed the heavy velvet curtains in the living room to block all external illumination. She walked back to the hallway, clutching a heavy iron fireplace poker in her trembling hand. Therefore, she stared into the dark glass, praying the terrifying silhouette had completely vanished. Unfortunately, the vintage mirror refused to release its dark, suffocating grip on her sanity. A Vintage Mirror and Creeping Dread The dark figure did not disappear; instead, it grew significantly larger and much more defined. Specifically, the entity took a single, highly deliberate step forward inside the icy, reflected hallway. Consequently, Clara stumbled backward, dropping the heavy iron poker loudly onto the wooden floorboards. She sprinted back into her master bedroom and locked the heavy oak door instantly. Furthermore, she pushed a heavy wooden dresser directly against the doorframe for added, desperate security. She spent the entire night huddled under her blankets, shaking with absolute, paralyzing fear. The morning sunlight finally arrived, providing a false, entirely temporary sense of domestic safety. Clara cautiously emerged from her bedroom, carrying a large cup of hot, steaming black coffee. Specifically, she approached the end of the hallway with extreme, highly agonizing hesitation. She peeked carefully into the reflective glass, expecting to see the terrifying monster waiting for her. Consequently, the surface only displayed her own pale, deeply exhausted, and highly terrified face. The dark entity apparently retreated during the daylight hours, hiding within the deep shadows. However, the temporary reprieve completely failed to calm her rising, suffocating paranoia. Therefore, Clara grabbed her laptop and desperately began researching the specific history of the antique object. She contacted the dusty basement shop where she initially purchased the massive, heavy item. Consequently, the eccentric shop owner refused to answer her frantic, demanding questions over the phone. He simply hung up immediately after she mentioned the deeply carved gargoyles and twisting vines. Indeed, the vintage mirror clearly possessed a dark, highly guarded, and incredibly dangerous local reputation. The Entity Moves Closer The psychological tension escalated dramatically as the winter sun slowly dipped below the city skyline. Specifically, Clara turned on every single light fixture inside her massive, historic apartment. She hoped the intense, blinding illumination would completely banish the terrible shadows from the glass. Consequently, she sat on her living room sofa, staring intensely down the long, empty corridor. The antique object hung silently on the plaster wall, waiting patiently for the midnight hour. Ultimately, she knew she could not hide from the reflection forever. She slowly approached the heavy glass shortly before midnight, armed with a bright tactical flashlight. Consequently, she shined the harsh, blinding beam directly into the center of the dark surface. The reflection completely ignored the brilliant light source she held in her trembling, freezing hand. Specifically, the reflected hallway remained entirely cloaked in that sickly, deeply terrifying blue darkness. Furthermore, the shadowy figure now stood exactly halfway down the corridor inside the glass. Therefore, the monstrous entity actively marched toward the boundary separating their two distinct realities. Clara could finally perceive specific, highly disturbing details regarding the impossible, looming shadow. The creature possessed impossibly long, deeply skeletal arms that dragged against the reflected floorboards. Consequently, its head tilted at a violent, entirely unnatural angle, suggesting a broken, shattered neck. She watched in sheer, unadulterated horror as the entity slowly raised one long, jagged finger. Specifically, it pointed directly at her through the cold, impenetrable barrier of the heavy glass. The invisible stalker actively acknowledged her presence and declared its dark, violent intentions. Desperate Attempts to Escape Clara absolutely refused to become a passive, helpless victim to an impossible supernatural threat. Therefore, she rushed into her kitchen and grabbed a thick, heavy wool moving blanket. She intended to completely cover the terrifying object and smother its dark, supernatural power. Consequently, she marched back down the hallway, holding the thick fabric like a protective shield. She threw the heavy blanket directly over the carved wooden frame, completely hiding the reflective surface. Furthermore, she taped the edges down securely against the ancient, cracked plaster wall. She returned to her living room, finally exhaling a massive, deeply shuddering breath of relief. Specifically, she believed she successfully neutralized the terrifying psychological threat haunting her beautiful home. Consequently, she poured herself a large glass of red wine to calm her heavily frayed nerves. She sat on the sofa, listening to the quiet, soothing ambient sounds of the city traffic outside. However, a sudden, violent ripping noise completely shattered the delicate, temporary domestic silence. Therefore, she slowly turned her head toward the dark hallway, her blood freezing instantly. The heavy wool blanket lay completely shredded on the hardwood floor, torn into tiny, useless pieces. Specifically, massive, jagged claw marks scarred the thick fabric and the surrounding plaster wall. Consequently, Clara realized the terrifying entity possessed the immense power to physically manipulate her actual reality. The vintage mirror did not merely reflect a monster; it operated as an open, highly unstable doorway. Furthermore, the glass surface now completely lacked any reflection of her historic apartment. Instead, it displayed a swirling, incredibly dense vortex of suffocating black fog. Shattering the Vintage Mirror The terrified woman reached a total, absolute breaking point of pure, primal desperation. She grabbed the heavy iron fireplace poker and charged aggressively down the long corridor. Specifically, she intended to completely smash the haunted glass into a million harmless pieces. She raised the heavy metal weapon high above her head with a loud, furious scream. Consequently, she swung the iron poker violently toward the exact center of the black, swirling fog. She expected the satisfying, sharp crash of breaking glass and flying silver shards. Instead, the heavy iron weapon sank directly into the surface without meeting any physical resistance. Specifically, the glass rippled like a dark, freezing pool of thick, viscous black water. Consequently, a massive, incredibly strong hand shot out from the center of the dark vortex. The skeletal, freezing fingers wrapped tightly around the metal shaft of her fireplace poker. Therefore, Clara screamed in absolute terror, attempting to rip the weapon out of the supernatural grip. However, the entity possessed impossible, deeply overwhelming physical strength. The dark creature slowly pulled the iron poker entirely into the cold, impossible dimension. Specifically, Clara let go of the weapon just before her hands crossed the terrifying threshold. She stumbled backward, tripping over the torn pieces of the heavy wool moving blanket. Consequently, she scrambled backward across the hardwood floor like a frightened, deeply hunted animal. She watched the dark fog slowly recede, perfectly restoring the reflection of her historic hallway. Ultimately, the vintage mirror displayed a brand new, highly devastating reality. Trapped Inside the Glass Clara stared at the heavy glass, her dark eyes wide with pure, unadulterated madness. Specifically, the reflection no longer showed her sitting terrified on the polished hardwood floor. Consequently, the glass displayed the tall, shadowy entity standing entirely alone in her beautiful hallway. The monster successfully crossed the dimensional boundary and entered her actual, physical apartment. Therefore, Clara slowly looked down at her own trembling, freezing hands in the dim light. She noticed her skin turning completely gray and slowly dissolving into dark, wispy smoke. She frantically tried to scream for help, but her vocal cords produced absolutely no sound. Specifically, the terrifying realization crashed over her rapidly fading mind like a heavy, suffocating weight. The entity did not simply escape the glass; it actively swapped physical places with her entirely. Consequently, Clara felt herself forcefully pulled backward into the cold, sickly blue dimension of the mirror. She watched the dark monster slowly turn around and walk casually toward her living room. Therefore, the creature completely stole her historic apartment, her peaceful life, and her physical body. Clara slammed her ghostly, smoking hands against the invisible, impenetrable barrier of the glass. She was entirely trapped inside the cold, agonizing silence of the impossible, twisted reflection. Specifically, she watched the monstrous imposter close the heavy velvet curtains and turn off the lights. Consequently, she realized nobody would ever notice the terrifying, subtle change in her behavior. She was doomed to remain an invisible stalker, haunting her own beautiful home forever. Indeed, the cursed antique successfully claimed another desperate, entirely oblivious victim. Read the full article
The Service Road
By the fourth night, Nora had started measuring the walk home by the service road.
At first, it was only a shortcut.
The buses were unreliable because of the strike, taxis cost too much after midnight, and the path behind the retail park cut twenty minutes off the journey to her flat. Therefore, practicality chose the route before fear had time to object. She left the call center at 11:08, crossed the employee car park, passed the locked pharmacy loading bay, and entered the narrow lane that ran behind the shuttered stores toward the canal bridge.
Nothing dramatic happened on the first night.
On the second, she noticed how quickly the city disappeared once she turned the corner. Traffic sound dimmed. Music from the ring road dissolved. Even the wind seemed to move more carefully there, as though the blank rear walls of the stores kept ordinary noise out.
By the third night, the quiet had acquired structure.
It waited for her at the mouth of the service road like something punctual.
“You still walking behind the park?” her colleague Dev asked on Thursday while they shut down their terminals.
Nora pulled on her coat. “Until the buses remember they’re public transport.”
He made a face. “I’d rather sleep under my desk.”
“That option remains available.”
Dev laughed. However, when she mentioned the lane behind the loading bays, his expression changed by a fraction.
“Don’t cut past the old delivery road if the lights go out,” he said.
“That sounds like a story invented to improve punctuality.”
“Maybe,” he replied. “Still, don’t.”
Behind the Retail Park
The retail park looked exhausted at night.
By day it sold discount furniture, pet food, flat-pack kitchens, and cheerful things no one needed urgently. After closing, the place lost its performance. Signs went dark. Window displays became ghostly reflections. Metal shutters flattened every shop into the same expressionless face.
The service road ran behind all of that, narrow and functional, bordered on one side by concrete walls and on the other by chain-link fencing beyond which lay the canal path, a strip of brush, and then the black back gardens of houses she never saw clearly. Security lights hung above the loading docks at measured intervals. Painted arrows pointed delivery vans toward bays that slept empty after ten.
Meanwhile, Nora’s footsteps always sounded too loud there.
On Friday night, she entered the lane at 11:16 and felt the air change immediately. The temperature did not drop exactly. Rather, the warmth of the city fell away behind her. In its place came a stillness that felt arranged.
She told herself that empty places always exaggerate thought.
Even so, she kept checking over her shoulder.
Once home, she made tea and opened stories in the Horror and Dark Fear archives, mostly to mock her own nerves. Reading about invented dread should have reduced the real thing. Instead, the mood of those pages only made the walk feel more legible.
The Night the Sound Changed
On Saturday, rain had just finished when Nora left work. The asphalt behind the retail park shone under the loading-bay lights in long silver strips. Somewhere far off, a siren lifted and faded. Then the city sealed itself again.
She walked faster than usual.
Halfway down the service road, she heard another set of footsteps.
Not behind her.
Ahead.
The sound arrived faintly at first, almost hidden under her own pace. Then it became impossible to mistake: a second rhythm striking wet ground several yards in front of her, matching her speed while remaining just beyond the next cone of light.
Nora stopped.
The footsteps stopped too.
She stood very still, listening for breath, movement, fabric, anything human enough to reduce the moment into sense. Nothing came. Only the hum of a high security lamp and the distant knock of something loose against metal fencing.
When she started walking again, the steps resumed ahead of her.
This time she reached the canal bridge almost breathless. At the far end she turned, expecting to see someone emerge from the lane behind the pet warehouse.
No one did.
What Dev Said Later
“You’re overtired,” Dev told her the next evening.
Nora stirred powdered creamer into a machine coffee she did not want. “That diagnosis lacks imagination.”
“Good. Imagination is expensive at 2 a.m.”
She nearly dropped the subject. Then again, dread grows worse when spoken only in the head.
“I heard footsteps,” she said. “In front of me.”
Dev did not laugh.
Instead, he looked toward the blank office windows where their reflections floated over the dark parking lot. “My uncle used to drive deliveries there,” he said. “Before they rebuilt the canal access. He said the back route was longer at night.”
Nora waited.
“Not longer on a map,” Dev added. “Longer while you were on it.”
“That is an extremely useless distinction.”
“I know.”
She wanted him to grin then and admit the joke. He did not.
Later, while waiting for her system to restart, Nora clicked through the Psychological and Secrets & Suspense sections on her phone, looking for words that belonged to what she felt. Nothing fit cleanly. Anxiety was too small. Paranoia was too clinical. What she feared had less to do with madness than with place.
The Camera Above Bay Three
On Sunday night, she almost took the long route home.
Instead, irritation made the choice for her.
Fear had begun to feel embarrassing, and embarrassment is often stronger than caution. So she zipped her coat to the throat, crossed the employee lot, and entered the service road with the deliberate pace of someone refusing to be corrected by a lane of asphalt.
The security camera above Bay Three was pointed down.
She stopped under it and looked up.
The other cameras along the loading bays faced outward at useful angles, each one aimed to watch doors, fencing, or van access. This one was different. Its lens tilted almost directly at the ground, as if it had spent the evening studying where feet were supposed to fall.
Nora told herself that maintenance workers adjusted equipment badly all the time.
Still, she moved on with her shoulders tight.
Near the dark rear wall of the furniture store, she heard the footsteps again. Ahead. Steady. Patient.
Light from the next lamp showed nothing except rain marks on concrete and weeds pushing through cracks near the fence posts. However, the sound remained specific enough to make denial feel childish.
Step. Step. Step.
Her pace shortened.
The sound shortened too.
At the canal bridge, she checked the time. 11:24.
That was impossible. The walk should have taken at least fourteen minutes. Even hurrying, she never reached the bridge before 11:29.
She stared at the screen until her reflection took over the glass.
The Map App
Back in her flat, Nora opened her map history.
She had used the walking route on the first night because the bus strike had rerouted half the city. The app still held the journey in recent searches. Yet when she entered her work address and home again, the suggested path no longer used the lane behind the retail park.
Instead, it sent her along the ring road, over the bright main bridge, and past the late-night supermarket.
She zoomed in.
The buildings were there. The canal was there. The employee car park was there. However, the narrow strip she had been using all week did not appear as a named road at all. It looked like a blank seam behind the stores, service space without access.
Nora searched directly: service road retail park.
No result.
For a moment, she considered messaging Dev. Instead, she opened pages tagged missing time, place-based discomfort, and quiet dread. The terms were irritatingly accurate. Worse than that, they offered no instructions.
The Long Way Refused
Monday brought freezing fog.
Nora left work determined to avoid the shortcut. She crossed the lot, turned toward the main road, and walked as far as the bus shelter before stopping under its clouded plastic roof.
Something was wrong with the sound of the traffic.
The ring road was visible. Headlights moved. A lorry passed. Yet the noise reached her in a muffled way, as though she were listening from indoors. By contrast, the silence behind the retail park felt sharply available, almost nearer than the street she stood beside.
She hated the logic of what happened next.
Instead of continuing toward the bright bridge, she turned back and entered the service road again.
The relief was immediate.
That frightened her more than the footsteps had.
The lane seemed to receive her. The pressure in her chest eased. Her breathing slowed. Even the cold felt more structured there, cleanly arranged between the fences and the loading docks.
Then the first security light went out.
Not with a pop or flicker.
It simply ceased to exist the moment she walked beneath it.
Nora looked back. The lamp behind her still glowed. The one above her remained dark.
Ten paces later, the next light died too.
Where the Road Lengthened
After that, she did not run.
Running would have admitted that the lane wanted something from her, and she was not yet ready to believe in wanting. So she walked quickly, eyes fixed on the bridge she knew should appear after the loading bays ended.
It did not appear.
Bay Seven passed. Then Bay Eight, though she was almost certain there were only six. A shuttered garden-supply unit followed, then a blank wall she did not remember, then another fenced section full of pallets wrapped in black plastic.
The service road kept going.
Meanwhile, the footsteps stayed ahead, always at the edge of hearing, never fast enough to catch, never slow enough to let her overtake.
Nora took out her phone and tried to call Dev. The screen lit her face in a weak blue square. No signal bars appeared. The time read 11:18.
She stared at it.
11:18 had been the time when she entered the lane.
For several seconds, nothing in her body worked properly. Her hands went cold first. Then her mouth. Then thought itself seemed to slip on something invisible, the way shoes skid over wet leaves before the fall registers.
Up ahead, the footsteps stopped.
So did she.
The silence that followed was so complete it seemed almost vocal.
The Space Between the Lights
“Keep walking,” said a voice behind the fence.
It was not loud.
In some ways, that made it worse. Loudness would have made the moment theatrical, and theatre can be resisted. This voice sounded practical, patient, nearly tired.
Nora turned toward the canal side. Fog pressed against the chain-link mesh. Beyond it she could make out only brush, black water, and the pale suggestion of a maintenance path lower down the embankment.
“Who’s there?” she asked.
No answer came at first.
Then, from somewhere parallel to her own position, the voice said, “Not too slowly.”
She backed away until her shoulders touched concrete.
Something moved beyond the fence, not crossing toward her, only keeping pace with the space she occupied. Branches shifted once. Then stillness returned. No face showed. No hand reached through. Yet the certainty of a presence settled over the lane with intimate precision.
Nora began walking again because standing still suddenly felt like a choice she would regret.
The security lights ahead did not turn on. One by one, however, they woke behind her.
After the Bridge
She reached her flat at 4:12 a.m.
That was what the oven clock said when she stumbled into the kitchen with wet shoes, numb fingers, and the taste of metal at the back of her throat. Her phone battery was nearly dead. The call-center lanyard around her neck had cut a red line into her skin. Gravel lay in the cuffs of her trousers as though she had walked somewhere rougher than asphalt.
At first, she thought she had fainted and invented the rest.
Then she checked her notifications.
Seven missed calls from Dev.
Two messages from her supervisor.
The first read: Where are you? You left over four hours ago.
The second, sent later: Call me when you get in. Please.
Nora sat at the kitchen table until dawn bleached the window.
By morning, the city looked brutally ordinary. School traffic formed at the crossing. Delivery vans blocked half the side street. Somewhere downstairs, a child practiced the same six notes on a keyboard with impressive persistence. Ordinary noise had returned, and yet it seemed thinner than before.
She did not go to work that night.
Instead, she searched the retail park on three different maps. None showed a walkable road behind the stores. One satellite view suggested only fencing and service yards. Another displayed a strip of dark ground where the lane should have been, blurred as though the image had stitched badly.
Later, unable to stop herself, Nora opened stories in Thriller and Mind Games, hoping genre might insult what had happened into unreality. It did not.
The Following Night
On Tuesday, the buses resumed.
Dev texted twice asking whether she was alive, then once more to say he was serious. Nora almost answered honestly. Instead, she wrote that she had been ill and needed another day. He sent back a thumbs-up and, a minute later, Don’t take the back way again.
At 11:18 p.m., she stood at her kitchen window.
From the sixth floor, she could not see the retail park itself. However, the glow above that side of the district was visible beyond the rooftops: a low commercial haze, white and indifferent. Rain touched the glass in small diagonal lines. Somewhere far off, a siren moved toward the canal and away again.
Nora should have felt safe. After all, she was indoors. The buses were running. The route home had returned to public existence.
Nevertheless, she found herself listening.
At first, she heard only the building. Pipes settling. A distant television. The muted lift motor rising and falling through the shaft.
Then another sound reached her, thin but exact.
Footsteps.
Not in the corridor.
Not on the stairs.
They were coming from outside, far below, keeping a patient rhythm along the pavement no map would name. Step. Step. Step. Then, just for a moment, they stopped directly beneath her window.
Nora did not move toward the glass.
She remained where she was, hands flat on the sill, while the city held its breath around her.
Finally, the steps resumed and went on into the dark, heading nowhere she could see.
The Shape in the Nursery Window
The Shape in the Nursery Window
The Shape in the Nursery Window is a dark fear story about a quiet house, a locked nursery, creeping dread, and the shape that appears at the window after midnight. For readers who enjoy eerie atmosphere, slow-building horror, and unsettling tension, this HollowVelvet story turns one empty room into the center of a growing nightmare.
If you enjoy chilling fiction, you can also explore our Horror stories and discover more uneasy tension inside Dark Fear.
The House at the Edge of Town
When Iris Vale moved into the house on Marrow Hill, she chose it for the silence.
After the noise of the city and the long collapse of a life she no longer liked naming out loud, silence felt expensive. This house, however, came cheaply. It stood at the far edge of town where the road narrowed, the trees grew closer, and the streetlights ended too early. Even so, the place looked almost gentle in daylight.
The windows were tall. The floors were old oak. Pale wallpaper softened the narrow upstairs hall, while a small garden leaned behind the house in tired, overgrown layers. According to the agent, it had belonged to an elderly couple who had both died years apart. Because of that, the house had sat empty for too long and developed the stale stillness of unused places.
Iris told herself she could air that out.
For the first few days, she almost believed it.
The Room She Did Not Want to Open
Upstairs, one room stayed closed.
The door stood at the end of the hall beneath a small brass light that never seemed bright enough. According to the floor plan, it had once been a nursery. The previous owners had left behind almost nothing, yet the agent had mentioned that room in a lowered voice, as if speaking too casually about it might sound disrespectful.
“You may want to leave it as storage,” she had said.
Iris never asked why.
Instead, she carried boxes past it for two days without touching the handle. She told herself she was busy. She told herself she did not need every room immediately. More than that, she told herself that old houses often came with odd details and stranger moods. Still, every time she passed the nursery door, she felt the same thin reluctance move through her.
By the third night, she locked it.
That choice made no sense. After all, the room was empty and the house was hers. Even so, locking it felt easier than opening it.
The First Night at the Window
Rain started just before midnight.
The sound should have been comforting. Water moved across the roof in soft waves, and wind brushed the back garden with a patient hand. Meanwhile, Iris lay awake in her bedroom listening to the house settle around her. Sleep was close, but not close enough.
At 12:37 a.m., something tapped lightly against glass.
Her eyes opened at once.
The sound came again.
Not from her room.
It came from the end of the hall.
Iris sat up and listened. For a few seconds, she heard nothing except the rain. Then the tap returned. This time, it came in a small pattern, as though fingernails were testing the nursery window one careful touch at a time.
She left the bed, crossed her room, and opened the door.
The hallway was dark except for the weak yellow bulb above the stairs. At the far end, the nursery door stood closed exactly as she had left it. However, light from the storm flashed across the narrow window on the landing, and in that brief silver glare she saw something outside the nursery window.
A shape.
Tall.
Still.
Watching.
Morning Made It Seem Smaller
By daylight, fear had already begun its usual work.
It softened details. It thinned certainty. It made the night feel like something tired nerves had exaggerated.
So Iris made coffee, opened the kitchen windows, and tried to be reasonable. Perhaps a branch had tapped the glass. Perhaps the shape had been a shifting shadow from the trees behind the house. Because of that, she almost managed to turn the memory into something harmless.
Almost.
After breakfast, she went upstairs.
The nursery door was still locked. The brass knob felt cold beneath her fingers, although the rest of the hall had already warmed in the morning sun. She unlocked it, opened the door a few inches, and waited.
Nothing moved inside.
Dust drifted through the pale light. The room was smaller than she expected. A faded moon-and-stars border still ran along the top of the wall. In one corner sat a narrow wooden chair. Beneath the window, peeling paint marked the sill in long strips like old skin.
The window itself was closed.
Even so, five wet marks rested on the outside of the glass.
They were too high for any child.
The Chair by the Window
Iris should have cleaned the room that day.
Instead, she left it untouched and shut the door again.
By late afternoon, the choice began bothering her. Avoiding a room inside her own house felt childish. Worse than that, it made the nursery seem important in ways she did not want. So, just before sunset, she brought upstairs a bucket, a cloth, and a box of old newspapers for the floor.
Dust lay everywhere. It coated the chair, the baseboards, and the inside edges of the closet. However, when she reached the window, she stopped.
The chair had moved.
That morning, it had been near the corner.
Now it stood directly beneath the window, facing out.
Iris stayed very still.
There are moments when the mind tries to rescue itself with logic even while the body knows better. She told herself she had remembered the chair wrong. She told herself empty rooms can distort distance. Even so, her pulse had already changed.
She put the bucket down and left the room without cleaning anything.
The Voice on the Stairs
That evening, she called her sister.
Maren listened patiently, then with concern, and finally with the careful gentleness people use when they do not want to sound dismissive.
“You haven’t been sleeping well for months,” Maren said. “Maybe the move is making everything louder.”
Iris stared into the dark kitchen while the kettle hissed beside her. “I know the difference between being tired and seeing a chair move.”
“Did you check the floors?”
“What?”
“Old houses shift,” Maren said. “Furniture slides sometimes.”
Iris almost laughed. Instead, she rubbed one hand over her eyes. “Yes. I’m sure that explains the marks on the glass too.”
Maren went quiet for a beat. Then she said, “Come stay with me for a night.”
Iris should have said yes.
Instead, she said, “If I leave before I understand it, I think it will get worse.”
Even as the words left her mouth, she hated how true they felt.
If you enjoy eerie fiction shaped by hidden tension and quiet dread, you can also explore our Psychological stories and browse darker unease inside Horror.
The Shape Returned at Midnight
At 12:37 the next night, the tapping began again.
This time, Iris was already awake.
She had left the bedroom lamp on. She had also told herself she would stay in bed, ignore the sound, and prove that fear only grows when fed. However, the tapping came in that same slow pattern, careful and patient, until ignoring it felt worse than facing it.
So she opened her door.
The hall looked exactly as it had the night before. Rain moved faintly against the windows, and the weak stair light painted thin shadows across the walls. Yet the nursery door was open now.
Iris had locked it.
She knew she had.
Cold moved through her arms.
The tapping stopped.
Then something shifted inside the room.
What Waited in the Nursery
She walked down the hall before she could stop herself.
Fear makes strange bargains with the body. It can freeze you, but it can also drag you forward when not knowing becomes unbearable.
Iris reached the doorway and looked in.
The nursery was almost dark. Storm light from the window gave shape to the furniture and the old border near the ceiling. The chair still stood beneath the glass, but now it was angled slightly toward the room, as if whoever had been sitting there had just turned to listen.
Nobody was inside.
At least, that was what she thought until lightning flashed.
In that instant, she saw the window clearly.
On the other side of the glass stood the same tall shape from the night before. It had no face that she could understand, only the suggestion of one beneath wet darkness. One hand rested lightly against the pane. The fingers were too long. The arm bent wrong at the elbow.
Then the light was gone.
Iris stumbled backward into the hall.
The Neighbor on the Corner
By morning, she went to the only house nearby that looked lived in.
An older man named Mr. Carden opened the door after the second knock. He smelled faintly of tobacco and cedar, and his expression shifted the moment Iris mentioned Marrow Hill.
“You bought the Vale house?” he asked.
She nodded. “Do you know anything about it?”
He took too long to answer.
That silence alone made her chest tighten.
Eventually, he stepped aside and motioned her in. The sitting room was neat and dim, with heavy curtains drawn against the gray morning. Mr. Carden remained standing while Iris explained the tapping, the window, and the nursery.
When she finished, he looked toward his fireplace as if he disliked the memory waiting there.
“There was a child,” he said at last. “A little girl. Sick often, they said. Kept upstairs. Then one winter she died, and after that the mother stopped opening the nursery at all.”
Iris swallowed. “That doesn’t explain someone at the window.”
“No,” he said. “It explains why the room was never meant to look outward again.”
The Photograph in the Hall Closet
That afternoon, Iris searched the house.
She began in the kitchen, then moved through the sitting room, the drawers, and the hallway cabinet beneath the stairs. Finally, inside a shallow closet near the landing, she found a box of old papers and a small stack of framed photographs wrapped in cloth.
Most showed ordinary things: a garden in summer, a man in a dark coat, a woman beside a gate. However, the last photograph made Iris stop.
It showed the nursery window from the outside.
The image had been taken years ago, perhaps decades. Even so, one detail was clear enough to turn her stomach cold. Behind the glass stood a child-sized figure looking out. Beside the window, half-hidden by the frame, was a second shape taller than the child and bent at an unnatural angle.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written five words in faded ink:
Do not let it in again.
The Window Would Not Stay Closed
Iris locked every downstairs door before sunset.
After that, she closed the nursery door, pushed the chair back into the corner, and fastened the window latch twice. For extra certainty, she slid a narrow dresser against the wall beneath the sill.
None of it made her feel safer.
At 12:37 a.m., the tapping began for the third time.
Now it sounded stronger.
Not patient.
Insistent.
Iris sat upright in bed and listened as the tapping became a slow scrape against the nursery glass. Then came a sound she had not heard before.
A child laughing.
The sound was soft at first. However, it carried through the hall with a thin sweetness that made it worse, not better. Nothing about it felt alive. Worse still, it was followed by another noise underneath it, low and wet and almost too quiet to notice.
Breathing.
The Face at the Window
Iris did not remember leaving her room.
One moment she was in bed. The next, she was halfway down the hall with her pulse hammering so hard she felt sick.
The nursery door was wide open.
Inside, the dresser had been dragged away from the window. The chair stood directly beneath the glass again. Above it, pressed lightly to the pane from the outside, was the face of a child.
At least, it looked like a child from a distance.
Its skin was pale and swollen with rain. Dark water ran from its hair in thin lines down the glass. The eyes were open too wide, and the mouth held a smile so fixed and small that it did not look human. Behind it, towering in the dark, the taller shape leaned over the child’s shoulder as if guiding it closer.
Then the child lifted one hand and tapped the glass from the outside.
Three times.
Slowly.
Gently.
The Mother in the Room
Iris could not move.
Lightning flashed, and for a second the entire room turned silver. In that brief light, she saw more than she wanted. The tall shape outside was not holding the child. It was growing from behind it, wrapped around its small body like a second shadow. Long arms bent around the window frame. A face hung above the child’s head, stretched and wrong, with dark hollows where the eyes should have been.
Then the child spoke through the glass.
Although the sound was muffled, Iris understood the words clearly enough.
“She let me in.”
The taller thing smiled.
At once, the window latch lifted by itself.
The Only Door Left Open
That broke the spell.
Iris ran forward, slammed both hands against the window, and forced it shut just as it opened a breath too wide. Wind knifed through the gap. Rain hit her face. On the other side, the child’s hand pressed against hers through the glass with impossible gentleness.
Then the larger shape moved.
Its head tilted once. After that, its mouth opened far too wide, not in a scream but in a silent and patient hunger.
Iris shoved the latch down again, grabbed the chair, and drove it beneath the window handle. Then she backed out of the room, slammed the door, and turned the key with shaking hands.
For one second, there was silence.
Then something hit the nursery door from the inside.
Once.
Again.
A third time.
Each blow was wet and heavy, as though whatever stood beyond the wood had too many limbs and too much patience.
What the House Wanted
Iris stumbled downstairs and reached for her phone. There was no signal. The screen showed one pale bar, then none at all. Even so, the house had not gone quiet.
Above her, footsteps moved across the ceiling.
Not one set.
Two.
One sounded small and quick. The other dragged behind it with a slow and broken rhythm.
Iris backed toward the front door, unlocked it, and pulled.
Nothing happened.
The lock had turned. The door should have opened. Instead, it held fast as if the frame had grown around it.
From upstairs came the sound of a child laughing again.
Then, very softly, a woman began humming.
Morning on Marrow Hill
The delivery driver found the front gate open at 8:12 the next morning.
That was strange enough to notice because the house at the edge of Marrow Hill had been empty for years before Iris moved in, and nobody in town expected company there. Even so, he might have kept driving if he had not seen the upstairs nursery window standing open in the cold morning light.
Police arrived twenty minutes later.
They found the front door unlocked.
They found the kitchen light still burning.
They found muddy water across the upstairs hall and a wooden chair jammed beneath the nursery window.
What they did not find was Iris.
Inside the nursery, however, the old faded border had changed. On the wall beneath the stars and moons, written in a child’s uneven hand, five new words had been scratched into the paint.
Now she opens it too.
To read more unsettling fiction, explore our Dark Fear, Horror, and Stories categories on HollowVelvet.
Short Story
Mallow jumped from the cat post at the sound of a familiar alarm and ran to his friends door. This alarm signified the awakening of the human, and shortly following it, a feeding.
“WAKE UP!” He howled at the door dramatically.
It had only been a few hours since he ran out of food, but those hours were filled with anxiety that it may never be replenished. Full of helpless feelings, that he might waste away before the human awoke to refill the bowl.
“WAaaaAke uUUuUP!!!” He cried again, drawing it out so that the human would feel the urgency of the situation.
This morning, no sounds came from within, and Mallow became a nervous wreck, throwing himself at the door and clawing the floor underneath.
Were they dead? Did they sneak away? preposterous! I would have cought that. What’s going on?!
The panic subsided a bit when the alarm sounded again, signifying a later awakening. Mallow reverted to his normal moaning outside. A loud *THUD* against the door startled him and made him return to a safer distance, by his food bowl to moan.
Minutes turned to hours and mallow turned back to his cat post for rest until the humans awoke.
The day grew long and quiet, with nothing eventful happening. The other cat Bonez decided to take a look under the door, and pulled out flowing hair from under it. He began to eat the hair, and unexpectedly got no trouble for it.
Mallow began Crying again, but the humans never were roused. They had slipped on their clothes, in the room, and hit their heads on the hard floor, killing them instantly. Mallow and Bonez would never be fed, except for the hair they could pull out under the door
