Too Late
Lena moved carefully down the stairs, one hand trailing along the cool wood of the banister, her socks making no sound against the carpeted steps. Her head was heavy with the slow pull of morning, her eyes still adjusting to the pale light that seeped through the curtains. It was Sunday, the kind of Sunday that usually meant comfort—warm breakfasts, the low murmur of her mother in the kitchen, the faint hiss of the coffee machine.
The scent of syrup hung in the air, sweet and familiar, mixed with the deeper, grounding aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Somewhere below, the soft scrape of a fork against a plate reached her ears. It felt ordinary, like any other weekend. Yet, in a way she couldn’t quite name, there was something slightly… hollow about it.
Her foot was just about to touch the bottom step when movement erupted from the shadows to her left. The hallway closet door burst open with a sudden, jerking force, and a hand—pale, trembling, and urgent—shot out to seize her wrist.
The grip was firm, desperate in a way that made her knees lock. She was yanked sideways, stumbling into the dark confines of the closet before she could even gasp. In the dimness, her eyes caught the outline of a face—her mother’s face, framed by loose strands of hair, her eyes wide with a fierce, urgent command. The air inside the closet smelled faintly of cedar and mothballs, a sharp contrast to the warm scent of breakfast lingering outside.
The expression on her mother’s face was not the calm, soft look she was used to—it was tight, wary, and filled with a silent urgency. The cold pressure of that hand seemed to vibrate with warning, urging her away from the direction she had been heading.
The kitchen sound came again, sharper this time. It was her mother’s voice, but stretched in a strange way, the syllables pulled too long, as though someone were trying to replicate them from memory. The tone was wrong. There was a hollowness under the words, like air moving through an empty shell.
A plate clinked in the kitchen. The faint tap of something metallic against the counter echoed out, measured and deliberate. The smell of syrup seemed stronger now, but layered beneath it was something else—a faintly sour note, like fruit left too long in the sun.
She could hear the soft shift of something moving toward the doorway that led into the hall. A dragging step. A creak of the old wooden threshold. The sound of humming began—low, familiar, but not right. It was the lullaby her mother used to sing to her at night, the one that had made her feel safe as a child. Yet here, in the dim light filtering from the stairwell, it was wrong. Too slow. The tune bent in places, like something pressing its shape into the melody without understanding what it meant.
Lena’s pulse was loud in her ears. She moved backward, her hand fumbling along the closet wall until she felt the thin panel of the back wall. But before she could think to push or hide further, her mother—if it was truly her mother—shoved her hard toward the stairs. The motion was abrupt and urgent, leaving no room for hesitation.
Her feet scrambled against the carpeted steps as she clutched the banister, nearly tripping in her haste to climb. The hallway behind her seemed to swell with a slow, creeping presence, the air thickening as the humming drew nearer. She didn’t dare look back.
By the time she reached the landing, her breath was ragged. She darted into the upstairs bathroom, slammed the door shut, and twisted the lock until it clicked into place. The cold tile floor met her knees as she slid down against the wall, clutching herself in the dim, filtered light from the small window.
The sound of her heartbeat seemed too loud in the silence. She fumbled for her phone in her pajama pocket, her fingers clumsy with fear. The screen’s glow painted her face pale blue. She began to type in the emergency number, but before she could press call, the device buzzed in her hand. A message had arrived. It was from her mother.
The words sat on the screen, so mundane they almost didn’t register at first: Went to church. Didn’t wake you. You looked so tired last night. Be home by noon.
Her stomach turned cold.
The implications were instant, sharp, and unavoidable. If her mother was gone, truly gone, then what was in the kitchen? The house was still again. Too still. No footsteps, no clink of plates, no false humming. Just the soft groan of the old building settling.
She sat there, phone still in her hand, her thoughts chasing themselves in tight circles. Maybe the message was a trick, she told herself. Maybe the thing downstairs had sent it. But the text sounded exactly like her mother—warm, casual, without the slightest hint of menace.
Then, as though sensing her fragile moment of doubt, the silence broke. From far below, soft enough to almost be missed, came a voice. Not a call, not a song. Just a whisper. The words were shaped carefully, with deliberate intent.
“She should have taken you along with her.”
The whisper seemed to drift up the stairs like smoke, curling under the bathroom door, threading through the air until it pressed against her ears. Her skin prickled as though the very walls had leaned closer to listen to her reaction. She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She simply sat there, every muscle rigid, her mind locked in the cold realization that the thing in her home not only knew she was there—but knew exactly why she was alone.
Outside, the day continued in ignorant peace. But inside, in the quiet spaces between the walls, something else waited—patient, aware, and impossibly close.
