Night Person
Andy was widely known throughout the four-storey apartment complex for his strange yet oddly impressive sleepwalking episodes. Everyone in the building had their own version of a story about him, and over the years those tales had become something of a shared folklore among the tenants. If you lived there long enough, you eventually saw him in action.
During these midnight wanderings, Andy wasn’t the kind of sleepwalker who merely shuffled around in his pajamas muttering nonsense. No Andy worked. He was often seen sweeping the hallways, taking out the trash, tightening loose door hinges, or, most astonishingly, repairing faulty wiring in the old building’s electrical boxes. His hands moved with quick precision, almost mechanical in their accuracy, and yet his eyes remained glassy, unfocused, as though he were somewhere far away in a dream.
Despite the helpfulness of these nocturnal chores, there was something about it that unsettled people. The way he moved fast, silent, and with a strength that didn’t seem to match his lean frame made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Some swore they’d seen him lift heavy furniture, shift it to a different corner of his apartment, then slide it back into place, all without a single grunt or scrape of wood on the floor. And somehow, he managed to do it without waking anyone except the few unlucky souls who happened to be up late enough to witness it.
The unspoken rule in the building was simple: never interrupt Andy when he was sleepwalking. Whether it was superstition, self-preservation, or just the weird sense that you’d be crossing some invisible boundary, everyone followed it. Everyone… except for two curious teenagers on the third floor who thought the whole thing was just an overblown myth. They had heard the stories for months the whispered warnings from older tenants, the knowing looks exchanged whenever Andy was mentioned. But the boys were bored, and boredom in a place like that often led to trouble. One Saturday night, they decided they would see for themselves what would happen if they broke the rule.
It was well past midnight when they set their plan into motion. They sat cross-legged in the dimly lit hallway outside their apartment, armed with a flashlight, a phone camera, and more confidence than sense. The building was quiet except for the faint humming of the old pipes in the walls.
Just after 1:00 a.m., Andy’s door creaked open. Slowly, almost ceremoniously, he stepped out. He was wearing an old, threadbare T-shirt and faded pajama bottoms. His head tilted slightly forward, mouth partially open, a low snore escaping his throat. His eyes were half-lidded, but the way his body moved suggested that he could feel every object in the hallway without seeing it.
The boys exchanged a quick grin. This was it. They sprang into his path. One of them waved the flashlight in Andy’s face, firing off questions in a rapid, teasing voice.
“Hey, Andy! Where you going? You fixing the wiring again? You even know what time it is?”
The other poked him lightly in the shoulder, then harder, giggling.
“Wake up, man! You’re creeping everyone out.”
Andy didn’t speak. He didn’t blink. He simply kept walking forward, like they weren’t there at all. The boys kept up their taunting until, without warning, Andy’s hand shot out. It happened faster than either of them could react. With a swift, precise motion, he caught the first boy’s hand and bent his fingers backward until a sickening crack filled the hallway. Before the second could even cry out, Andy’s other arm twisted sharply, locking around his elbow and wrenching it until the joint gave a loud, wet pop.
Both boys collapsed to the floor, gasping in shock. Andy stepped over them with the same slow, steady pace he’d had before, his face completely blank, his snore unchanged. He disappeared around the corner, leaving the two groaning in pain, clutching their injuries.
They didn’t dare scream. They didn’t dare make enough noise for anyone else to hear. Somehow, instinct told them that drawing attention might make things worse. Instead, they crawled back to their apartment, biting their lips to keep from crying out, their pride wounded almost as badly as their bodies.
When morning came, the sun streamed weakly through the dusty hallway windows. The boys emerged, moving stiffly, each holding an ice pack one over his mangled fingers, the other cradling his dislocated arm in a makeshift sling. They shuffled toward the stairs, intent on heading to the hospital, when they spotted Andy standing at the building’s entrance, jingling his keys and whistling. He smiled brightly when he saw them.
“Morning, guys! What happened to you two?”
The boys froze. Andy’s tone was cheerful, his eyes warm, his posture relaxed. There wasn’t the slightest hint that he remembered anything from the night before. They glanced at each other, their silent exchange communicating what they both already knew: no one would believe the truth.
“We, uh… injured ourselves trying to move the fridge,”
One mumbled. Andy’s eyebrows rose in sympathy.
“Ah, heavy stuff, that. You’ve gotta lift with your knees, boys.”
They nodded weakly. Andy clapped one of them on the shoulder gently this time and headed off toward the corner store, humming. As they stepped outside, still stunned, the sound of laughter echoed from behind them. They turned to see the old woman from the apartment directly across from Andy’s. She leaned against her doorway, a cigarette between her fingers, her eyes full of amused pity.
“You idiots,”
She said, chuckling.
“You tried to mess with Andy while he was sleepwalking, didn’t you?”
Neither boy responded, but their silence was enough.
“You’re lucky,”
She continued, taking a drag.
“You should’ve seen what he did to me last month.”
They stared at her, wide-eyed, but she only smiled a slow, knowing smile and retreated into her apartment, closing the door behind her. After that day, the boys never spoke about it again. But from then on, whenever Andy’s door creaked open in the small hours of the night, they stayed far, far out of his way. And in that old apartment complex, the unspoken rule became louder than ever:
You can watch Andy sleepwalk.
But you never, ever touch him.
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