When I was a little girl, going downstairs alone after midnight was strictly forbidden. My family lived in a picturesque, quiet town, where life seemed to move at a leisurely pace. Yet, my childhood dreams were anything but sedate. I yearned for the bustling energy of the city, a life filled with excitement and constant motion.
At home, it was just my parents, my twin sister, and me. Both my parents were underpaid teachers, and they’d instilled in us the values of hard work and gratitude. Our upbringing was modest, and we were taught that every dollar was earned through effort. Despite our limited means, my parents had managed to save up over the years, allowing us to reside in a relatively large house in a prestigious neighborhood. The houses in our area were quite impressive, and I remember once going online to discover their prices, and I was truly taken aback.
My parents, in their wisdom, seemed to know a secret about “winning” at life, and I was determined to learn from them. Of all the rules they instilled in my sister and me, one stood out as the most mysterious and strictly enforced:
“If you’re heading downstairs after midnight, you must bring someone with you.”
They repeated this rule often. At the dinner table, before we left for school, and even if they heard footsteps in the hallway during the night, one of them would get out of bed and accompany us to our destination. It always struck me as strange because there was hardly any reason for us to venture downstairs after midnight. Our bedrooms, the living room, the kitchen, and everything we needed were all on the upper floor. Downstairs was mostly a games room and storage areas, with little reason to be there late at night.
My sister and I would occasionally question this rule. “Why do we have this rule? What happens if we break it?” We’d inquire. However, our parents would deflect our questions, change the subject, or offer vague responses like, “We’ll tell you when you’re older, dear.”
As I grew older, I found it increasingly peculiar that our whole family slept upstairs in a large two-story house. I became more and more curious about what exactly was happening downstairs, but my inquiries were met with silence.
On my twentieth birthday, my curiosity reached a tipping point, and I decided to stage a situation that would force a late-night trip downstairs. “Mom, I left my laptop in the games room, and I need it to polish up an essay due tomorrow,” I informed her. I could sense her skepticism as she questioned why I had left the assignment until the last minute and whether I could finish it early the next morning. However, I managed to assuage her doubts with a flurry of excuses and the promise of sleeplessness if I didn’t complete the essay that night.
We descended the small staircase and arrived at the door leading to the downstairs area. Before opening it, my mom turned to me and said, “Okay. He’s likely going to latch onto me. Make sure I don’t open the door to the backyard, okay? Make sure I’m with you at all times. You can pull me if you need to.”
I thought she was joking until she opened the door. The downstairs area comprised a small living room, a compact kitchen, and a hallway leading to the games room and storage area. I turned toward the hallway, thinking my mom would follow. Instead, I watched her just standing there, shivering, her gaze fixed on the large window in the kitchen. This window offered a glimpse of our expansive, mostly empty backyard.
Confused, I looked at my mom as she continued to stare. Then, slowly, she started walking towards the door leading to the backyard. “Mom! What are you—” I began, but my words were cut off.
That’s when I saw him. He was pressed against the window from the outside, his face obscured by the darkness, except for his wide-open eyes, unnaturally wide. His gaze was otherworldly, intense, and excited.
My mom continued moving towards the door, and I had to act swiftly. I grabbed her as hard as I could and pulled her away from the door, back to the staircase leading upstairs. As we retreated, I closed the door behind us.
It took my mom a moment to snap out of it. She spent another minute trying to open the door to the downstairs area, as if she were compelled to return to where she had been walking. Finally, she managed to regain control of herself.
“What the heck was that?!” I asked, my voice trembling.
“Did you get your laptop, dear?” my mom replied, her reaction an odd mix of annoyance, concern, and fear. It was as if she didn’t want to discuss what had just transpired.
“Mom, what was that outside the window?” I persisted.
Mom’s responses were cryptic and evasive. She mentioned that terrible things happened when they talked about him too much, and as long as they went downstairs in pairs after midnight, everything would be fine.
And that was it. I continued to press my parents for answers, but they deflected my questions. They would say things like, “We just wanted to make sure we could give you and your sister a comfortable upbringing,” or “That isn’t how this works, dear.” My frustration grew as I found no satisfactory answers.
For two years, I adhered to the rule of going downstairs in pairs, and we had thankfully never encountered any issues. However, my persistent efforts to convince my parents that we should consider downsizing and moving somewhere else were met with the same deflections and enigmatic responses. They always insisted that as long as we played it safe after midnight, everything would be okay.
This brings me to why I’m writing this today. My parents have been away visiting family in another state for the past week, and my sister left earlier in the evening to spend the night at her best friend’s house. I’m home alone for the first time in ages.
I’m not usually one to keep my phone on me. It can take me hours, if not days, to respond to text messages because I’ve always been lazy about it. Tonight, however, I glanced at my phone and saw a missed text message from my sister. “Hey! I might’ve accidentally left the downstairs door open. Just an FYI—please close it whenever you get a sec.” She sent that message four hours ago, and I didn’t notice it until ten minutes