Jamie was nine years old when he first realised the world was not as safe as his parents had promised.
He had always been a light sleeper. That night, hunger woke him—a gnawing, insistent emptiness in his belly. The house was silent, save for the rhythmic tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway. Careful not to make a sound, he slid out of bed and crept downstairs, drawn by the promise of leftover sweet and sour ribs.
He never made it to the kitchen.
As he padded past the living room, something caught his eye. A figure—hunched, gaunt—stood by the open refrigerator, bathed in its sterile glow. The stranger’s back was to him, shoulders twitching as he devoured whatever he could find. He moved with an unsettling urgency, stuffing food into his mouth like a starved animal. The light cast jagged shadows on the walls, twisting grotesquely with every flickering pulse of the dying bulb.
Jamie froze. The air thickened. He could hear the wet, slopping sounds of chewing, the laboured breath between mouthfuls. His own pulse hammered against his ribs. The thing in the kitchen—because Jamie knew, deep down, this was not just a man—tilted its head slightly, as if listening.
Jamie turned and fled.
He burst into his parents' room, breathless. "There's someone in the kitchen," he gasped. His voice sounded thin, fragile in the dark.
His father groaned, rubbing his face. "Jamie, it’s late—"
"Please! I saw him. He's eating our food."
With a sigh, his father relented, trudging downstairs. Jamie followed, gripping his mother’s hand. But when they reached the kitchen, the refrigerator door was shut. The room was empty. Not even a breadcrumb out of place.
"There's no one here, Jamie," his father said, irritation lacing his voice. "You had a bad dream. Go back to bed."
Jamie opened his mouth to protest but stopped. He knew what he had seen. He knew what he had heard.
The next few days were different. The house was the same, yet... not. The napkin holder was an inch off-centre. A mug sat in the sink with fresh coffee stains, though neither of his parents had used it. His mother brushed it off. "You're imagining things, sweetheart."
But Jamie wasn’t.
That night, he lay awake, staring at the ceiling. His room was dark, but the kind of dark that suggested something was lurking just beyond sight. He told himself it was his imagination, that shadows were just shadows.
Then he felt it. A prickle on the back of his neck. A shift in the air.
Slowly, he turned his head towards the ceiling vent. And saw the eyes.
They stared at him, unblinking. Black pits of hunger. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Then, in the faint sliver of moonlight, the thing behind the vent grinned.
Jamie screamed.
His parents came running, switching on the light. They saw nothing. The vent was empty, only the usual dust and cobwebs clinging to the edges. His mother cooed gentle reassurances; his father, annoyed, muttered something about childish nightmares. They didn't understand. They couldn't.
Then the smell came.
At first, it was faint—a whisper of rot, a suggestion of something wrong. Then it grew, thick and cloying, seeping into the walls, burrowing into their clothes. The flies arrived next, their fat, buzzing bodies clustering around the vents, their tiny white maggots dropping like rain onto Jamie’s bed.
His parents called for maintenance. A man arrived the next morning, tall and quiet, his uniform stained with old grease. He set up his ladder beneath the vent, pried it open, and peered inside with his torch.
What he found made him recoil.
The body was twisted within the ductwork, tangled like an abandoned marionette. Skin slack and grey, mouth open in a frozen scream. Sightless eyes—still open—stared blankly into the void. He had been there a long time. And yet, someone—or something—had been moving him.
The police came. The body was extracted. Questions swirled, but no answers came. Who was he? How had he got there? No records, no missing persons report that matched. A John Doe, the coroner said. Just another forgotten soul.
Jamie’s parents apologised profusely, their voices tight with guilt. They had dismissed him. Called him silly, accused him of making things up. But Jamie had known. He had always known.
That night, Jamie lay awake again, listening. Every creak of the house, every whisper of the wind, sent a chill through his bones. The body was gone, the vent was sealed, but he couldn't shake the feeling.
Because the house still felt... occupied.
And somewhere, in the dark, someone was still watching.
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