After Midnight

It’s 2:47 a.m., and the house is the quietest it’s been in months. Not the kind of quiet you get during the day when people are just in other rooms, but the kind that swells and presses against your ears like a held breath.

I’m awake because I heard it again—the scraping.

The first time it happened, last Tuesday, I was scrolling my phone in bed, blue light spilling across the cracked plaster walls. I thought it was nothing—maybe the old heater kicking on, or pipes settling. But pipes don’t pause mid-echo. The heater doesn’t hold a breath. And the sound returned again and again, slow and deliberate, like something dragging against wood.

Each night it grows closer. Each night it scratches longer, louder, and now I’m not sure I’m imagining it anymore.

I sit up, pulling the thin blanket tight around my shoulders. Moonlight filters through the blinds, slicing my bedroom into bars of silver and shadow. The air feels thick, heavy with waiting.

Scrape.

Pause.

Scrape.

It’s coming from the attic.

Our house is small—two bedrooms, a living room with peeling wallpaper, and an attic door in the hallway. That door has always been a thing I never wanted to open. A narrow ladder tucks away behind it, leading to a cramped, dark space where the landlord said they stored old insulation and forgotten junk.

The attic light bulb has long since burned out. So when I see the faintest glow leaking beneath that door now, my stomach drops.

My hands tremble as I swing my legs out of bed. The cold carpet prickles my bare feet. I grab my phone, flashlight on, stepping into the hallway. The house feels different here. Not just quiet—but watching.

The scraping stops.

A silence so sharp it slices right through me.

I squint at the attic door. A thin line of light shimmers like a secret waiting to spill out. The bulb shouldn’t work. It can’t.

The house creaks—a slow, groaning sound like bones shifting under skin.

I swallow the lump in my throat and edge closer. The old floorboard moans underfoot.

I can smell something now. Something coppery, like blood warmed by sunlight, metallic and sharp in the damp air.

My fingers twitch near the doorknob, cold and slick. The light flickers once, then steadies.

It’s alive.

Or something alive is behind that door.

I want to run. I want to close my eyes and pretend none of this is happening. But I don’t.

Because every night it’s getting closer.

Because the scraping isn’t just a sound anymore. It’s a message.

I reach for the knob.

It turns—not by me.

The door creaks open two inches.

I drop my phone. The flashlight spins across the carpet, casting wild shadows up the walls. My feet scramble backward, heart hammering in my ears.

From the dark space beyond, something leans forward.

Not a face. Not quite. Just a shape—a curve, a shoulder, something still and wrong, like a photograph blurred in all the places it shouldn’t be.

The attic light flickers again, dimming and brightening in slow, uneven pulses. Like breathing.

Scrape.

This time the sound is on the ladder, close enough to see the chipped paint and rusted screws beneath the dim light.

I run.

The bedroom door slams behind me, the lock clicking tight. My back presses against it, chest heaving, listening.

The scraping stops.

Silence drapes over the house like a wet blanket.

I don’t remember falling asleep. But when I open my eyes, it’s 5:32 a.m. Pale gray light leaks into my room, washing the shadows away like regret.

I lie there, heart still racing, trying to convince myself it was just a nightmare. That the light was a trick of my flashlight, the scraping a loose board.

But when I step into the hallway, something new waits for me.

A slow, steady drip.

The smell is worse now—thick, coppery, unmistakable.

It seeps from the attic door, staining the frame dark and wet.

And I know.

It’s not the pipes.

Not the heater.

It’s something else. Something that’s been waiting up there.

I sit on the floor, leaning back against the wall, breath shallow. The house hums with the quiet promise of dawn, but the attic door is a wound that won’t heal.

I stare at the stain creeping down the wood and fight the urge to look away.

What is waiting up there?

I know I should call someone. The landlord. The police. Anyone. But my fingers freeze on the phone screen.

Because part of me already knows the answer.

The scraping. The light. The smell.

It’s not human.

And it’s been watching me all this time.

The idea twists in my gut, sour and cold. Like poison.

I can’t stay here.

But I can’t leave, either.

I stand, knees aching, and force myself toward the door.

My hand shakes on the knob, pulling it open just enough to slip inside.

The ladder creaks beneath my weight. Dust motes swim in the weak beam of my flashlight.

The attic smells like rust and old wood and something deeper—rotting and wet.

I climb up, each rung groaning under me, until I reach the small room beyond.

It’s cluttered with boxes and broken furniture, everything coated in a fine film of dust.

And in the corner—where the light should be dark—there’s a shape.

Something curled in shadows, waiting.

It moves.

Slow. Deliberate.

A hand, pale and thin, reaching out.

I stumble back, breath catching.

The scraping starts again—this time all around me, echoing in the cramped space, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once.

I drop my flashlight.

Darkness swallows me.

And I hear a voice.

Not words. Just a rasp, like dry leaves scraping against glass.

A warning.

I run—falling down the ladder, heart slamming, lungs burning.

I reach the floor, slam the door shut, lock it.

The house is quiet again.

But I know it’s still waiting.

Waiting for me to come back.

The sun hasn’t risen yet. But I’m wide awake, and I know sleep won’t come again tonight.

Not until I find a way to stop the scraping.