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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/313deezy on 2024-11-22 09:19:00+00:00.
It wasn’t until the night of the storm that I started doubting Uncle Frank was really my uncle. He’d been around my whole life—a quiet, stoic man who smelled faintly of cigars and pine. When I was younger, he’d come to family gatherings, always standing in the background, smiling faintly while sipping his drink. My parents told me he was my dad’s older brother, and I didn’t question it. Why would I? Families are strange that way—sometimes people just show up and stay.
But that stormy night, alone in my parents' creaky old house, something changed.
It started with the power going out. A sharp crack of thunder shook the walls, and the lights blinked out, leaving me in thick, oppressive darkness. I lit a few candles and sat in the living room, scrolling through my phone until the battery began to die. The only sound was the wind howling outside, rattling the windows. I almost didn’t hear the knock at the door.
When I opened it, there he was—Uncle Frank. His face was pale, and his clothes were drenched.
“Storm knocked my car into the ditch,” he said, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. “Mind if I stay until it clears?”
Of course, I couldn’t say no. He was family—or so I thought.
As the hours crept by, something about Uncle Frank’s behavior unsettled me. He barely spoke, just sat in the armchair by the window, staring out into the darkness. His lips moved silently, as if he were muttering something to himself. I couldn’t shake the feeling he was… watching me, even when his eyes were fixed elsewhere.
Trying to distract myself, I rummaged through an old photo album, flipping through pictures of family vacations and holidays. Then I stopped. My finger hovered over an image of a Christmas gathering from ten years ago. There was Uncle Frank, standing in the background as always, wearing that same faint smile. But something was off. He looked exactly the same. Not similar—identical. Same face, same clothes, same posture.
I flipped to another page. A summer barbecue. Uncle Frank again, holding a beer, standing at the edge of the group. His hair hadn’t changed, nor had his lined face. He didn’t look older—or younger. He looked… frozen.
My heart started to race as I closed the album and glanced over at him. He was still sitting there, but now he was staring directly at me. His lips stopped moving.
“You’ve been looking at those pictures for a long time,” he said, his voice low and calm. Too calm.
I stammered something about how much I loved old family photos, but he didn’t respond. Instead, he stood up and walked toward the mantel above the fireplace. His movements were slow, deliberate.
“You know,” he said, picking up an old clock my mom loved, “this house used to belong to my brother.” He turned to face me, his smile stretching wider than I’d ever seen. “But I don’t have a brother. Never did.”
My stomach dropped. “What are you talking about? My dad—”
“Your dad doesn’t know me,” he interrupted. “Never did. I’m not part of your family, kiddo. Never have been.”
I tried to laugh, to brush it off as a joke, but the words wouldn’t come. My body felt cold. He stepped closer, and I noticed his skin was unnaturally pale, his eyes glassy and dull like a doll’s.
“You invited me in, though,” he continued, tilting his head. “And I’ve been waiting for that. A long, long time.”
The candles flickered, then went out, plunging the room into darkness. I scrambled for my phone, but it was dead. I couldn’t see him anymore, but I could hear him—his slow, deliberate footsteps coming closer.
“I’ve been here before, you know,” he whispered, his voice unnervingly close. “Every generation, I find a way back in. Just needed someone to let me in again.”
A sharp gust of wind blew through the house, slamming doors and sending papers flying. I stumbled backward, my heart hammering in my chest.
“Who are you?” I managed to choke out.
He laughed, a deep, guttural sound that didn’t belong to Uncle Frank—or to anything human.
“Not your uncle,” he said, his voice now layered with something otherworldly, something ancient. “Not even close.”
And then he was gone.
The storm ended the next morning, and when my parents came home, I told them everything. They laughed, of course, and said I must have been dreaming. But when I pulled out the photo album to show them the pictures of Uncle Frank, every image of him was gone.
All that remained were empty spaces where he’d once stood.