The room was swallowed by darkness, and Emily felt her breath hitch in her throat. She wanted to scream, to call for help, but no sound came out. Her body was frozen with fear, and her mind raced as the old man’s cold, raspy voice echoed in her ears.
Then, just as suddenly as the darkness had come, the room was bathed in light. Emily’s mother stood in the doorway, her face creased with concern.
“Emily, are you okay? I heard you thrashing around.”
Emily blinked, her heart pounding. She looked around—her room was empty. The old man was gone. There was no one standing at the foot of her bed, no whispering in the dark. Had it all been a dream?
“I… I think so,” Emily stammered, still shaken. She glanced at her bedside table, where the strange candy wrapper from the old man lay, crumpled and open. The note was gone.
Her mother sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her hair. “It was just a nightmare. You’re safe now.”
Emily nodded, but deep down, she wasn’t sure. She tried to convince herself it had been her imagination, that maybe the old man was nothing more than a figment of her subconscious, twisted by the stories she had heard about the house.
But as her mother turned to leave, Emily noticed something on the floor—a faint, dusty footprint, right where the old man had stood.
The next day, she and her friends returned to the mansion, determined to put the mystery to rest. But when they reached the end of the street, the house was gone. In its place was an empty lot, overgrown with weeds, as if no one had lived there for decades.
The old man was real. And now, so was the terrifying truth: he had come into her life because she had invited him.
From that day on, Emily never spoke about what happened that Halloween night. But every now and then, when the room went quiet and the air grew cold, she felt a familiar presence—watching her, waiting for the next invitation.
And she knew, deep down, that one day, he would return.