E. Seneca

There’s a soft rustling at the window. This is normal, commonplace. You don’t turn a hair, don’t look up from the book at your nose. There’s no reason to, and the curtains are drawn, the light low and soft and comfortable. You’re too cozy to make any movements other than turning the page, even lifting your head being too much effort. It’s probably just the neighbor’s cat outside again, the one who keeps leaving dead mice and birds on your back door step; the poor thing is old and perhaps more than a bit forgetful.

There’s another rustle, and a hiss; a sad, wailing meow. It’s enough to make you pause and lift up your head, but you can’t see anything beyond the faint shimmer of the curtains as they waver slightly with the blowing of the air conditioning. It is the neighbor’s cat, isn’t it? Does it want to come inside? Maybe you should go let it in until morning comes, then you can go bring it over tomorrow.

Reluctantly, you stretch out one stiff leg, then another, then fumble for your lost bookmark under the chair. Even more reluctantly, you get to your feet, and that’s when there’s a shrill scratching at the window pane, making you freeze. It doesn’t sound like cat claws, not when it came from the middle of the window.

It’s only a few steps to the window, you tell yourself reasonably, just a few paces. There’s probably nothing there, and even if there is, the glass is thick. Nothing can get inside here. You’re perfectly safe inside the house, right?

With tentative steps, you approach the window, and with a sweaty palm, grip the edge of the curtain. You’re not entirely sure why you’re so nervous; is it because you’re home alone, because it’s so late, because it’s so quiet, because you have the strange and unsettling feeling that there’s something on the other side?

You waver with hesitation where you stand, then muster your courage and yank the curtain aside, peering out into the gloom, beyond the reflection of the lamp on the glass and your own uneasy face.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

You exhale slowly, irrationally annoyed with yourself for this paranoia. You let the curtain flutter back into place and turn back to your chair, only for something to twitch in your periphery on the outside. You pause, but when you look, there’s nothing there either.

There’s nothing, you insist. Nothing. But it suddenly seems like a good idea to turn up all the lights and retreat to the safety of upstairs, for reasons that you don’t want to think about.

There’s another scratching, and your blood turns to ice.