It had been raining for days, the kind of relentless rain that seeps into your thoughts and turns everything heavy. The gutters outside my apartment overflowed in uneven rhythms, and the sky never quite brightened past a dull metallic gray. That evening I sat alone in my kitchen, stirring a cup of tea that had long since gone cold, watching the steamless surface circle beneath my spoon. I couldn’t explain the unease pressing against my ribs. It wasn’t dramatic, not sharp enough to name—just a steady pulse of something wrong. The house felt too quiet.

Even the cat, who usually sprawled lazily across the windowsill, seemed restless, tail twitching as rain streaked the glass. I remember thinking that nights like this make people do desperate things. I had no idea how literal that thought would become. When the doorbell rang, it sliced through the stillness like a blade. The sound was abrupt, insistent, wrong for that hour. No one visits me late at night without calling first. I stood slowly, my heart already pounding. The cat darted under the couch. I crossed the hallway and pressed my eye to the peephole. What I saw made my breath vanish.