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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/wordmule_ on 2024-10-20 10:38:06+00:00.
I always considered myself lucky that my parents let me do whatever I wanted with my room. They thought it was important for my space to be mine. My only responsibility was to keep it somewhat organized. But if I wanted to draw on the walls? Sure, go ahead. If I wanted to rearrange it every week? No problem.
My dad was military, so we moved around a lot. I must’ve had dozens of rooms growing up, each one unique. Not all of them were to my liking, but my favorite was in an apartment above a restaurant. The room was massive, with a great view of the river and the restaurant patio. Best of all, there was a big walk-in closet. It was so big, I sometimes slept in there—it felt like my own secret hideout.
Even now, I wish I had that room. I’d probably still sleep in the closet just for the nostalgia.
My least favorite room, though, was in a farmhouse we rented in Nevada. It belonged to some weirdo landlord who always seemed too friendly. He had this big plastic smile, and he was thin in a sickly way, like Reverend Kane from Poltergeist 2.
God, that guy freaked me out.
But honestly, the landlord wasn’t even the worst part about living there.
The house itself was terrifying—on the verge of collapse. Holes in the ceiling, rats scurrying inside the walls, old water pipes groaning and clanking in the night. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the rats were kicking up asbestos and poisoning us all.
Oh, and bats. They’d fly out of the ceiling holes sometimes and terrorize us in the middle of the night.
To this day, I’m still scared of bats.
But even that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the upstairs room. My room.
It was small, barely big enough for my things. But my parents helped me make it work. There was a window with a view of the farm—and the landlord’s house. I had no desire to look at it, so I always kept the blinds shut.
The room had one of those crawl spaces in the wall, the kind you open to access insulation or store things. I hated it. It reminded me of Coraline, a movie that terrified me as a kid, even though I still love it. I couldn’t shake the thought of some creature crawling out of that little door.
My dad, sensing my unease, nailed a piece of wood over it and hung a black curtain to hide it from view. That was enough to ease my fears—at least for a while.
One afternoon, while my parents were out shopping, I was alone in the house. I stayed in my room, as the rest of the place always felt even creepier when I was by myself. I was sitting at my desk, drawing by the window, when I heard a faint scratching noise. I brushed it off as the usual rats in the walls, as I’d gotten used to hearing them scurrying about.
But the sound persisted. It was rhythmic, deliberate. Three quick scratches at a time. The more I ignored it, the louder it became.
Annoyed, I turned down my CD player and yelled, “Hey! Knock it off!”
As soon as the words left my mouth, there was a loud bang, like something had slammed into the wall. The whole room shook. My heart leaped into my throat.
I spun around in my chair, scanning the room. The sound seemed to have come from behind the curtain—the crawl space door. I stared at it, my skin crawling. Then the scratching started again, only this time it didn’t stop. The sound grew louder, more frantic.
I bolted out of the room and ran outside to sit on the porch. I didn’t go back in until my parents returned.
When they got home, I told them what had happened. To my relief, they said they’d already decided we were moving soon. The house was too unsafe to stay in much longer.
For the last two weeks there, I refused to sleep in my room. I stayed with my parents, too scared to even go upstairs. On moving day, my dad took down the curtain and removed the wood that covered the crawl space door.
Before we left, I decided to take one last look. I don’t know why—I guess part of me needed to see for myself that there was nothing to fear.
I pulled open the door to the crawl space.
What I saw inside still haunts me to this day.
Scratches. Dozens of deep, jagged scratches carved into the wood from the inside—like someone with only three fingernails had clawed at the door in desperation. And in the center of it all, crudely etched into the wood, were three chilling words:
“I see you.”