guess what? another story from english class...hooray!!!

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Vincent woke to the sound of breathing that wasn’t his own, a light, wet sound that fluttered from the hall like a curtain in the breeze; he probably wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t also heard the foreign footsteps following closely behind. He tried to turn toward it, but his traitorous body sat still, refusing to comply. All Vincent was allowed was to stare at the dark ceiling, swollen with shadow, while his chest lay pinned by an unseen force, breaths shallow and borrowed. From down the hall came the sound of the creaky stairs, each step complaining at the weight of heavy feet advancing from below. 

Vincent fixed his gaze on a hairline crack in the ceiling plaster, something the doctor told him to do. This powerlessness would pass if he just anchored himself, if he waited long enough.

The breathing in the hallway grew louder. It wasn’t rushed, like whoever was making it was in no hurry at all. Each inhale sounded thick, as though the very act of breathing caused discomfort. The exhales rattled faintly, the sound scraping against Vincent’s bones.

He felt his heart pounding in his chest, as if it were trying to tear through his ribs, desperate to be heard. He tried to swallow down his nerves but couldn’t. His tongue felt too large for his mouth, his jaw locked tight.

The footsteps reached the top of the stairs. 

The hallway floor groaned under the weight, the old boards protesting in ways Vincent had heard thousands of times before, usually under his own feet, or Lily’s, or the kids when they raced each other to their rooms. Hearing those sounds now, carried by something else, felt like a violation.

A shape passed the crack beneath his bedroom door, momentarily blocking the yellow glow of the nightlight they kept plugged for the children. Vincent forced his eyes toward the doorframe, willing it to come into focus, willing his body to move even an inch.

Nothing.

His thoughts scattered. Hallucinations, he insisted. Auditory hallucinations were commonplace with his condition. So were shadows. So were invented threats. The brain hated helplessness, so it filled that gap with monsters.

“Daddy?”

His daughter’s innocent voice slipped through the air with intimate familiarity, the word slightly slurred in her sleep-filled lips.

Cold terror burst through Vincent’s chest. The voice had come from Emma’s room. She wasn’t here. She wasn’t with him.

No, he tried to say, but the word remained behind his locked teeth.

From Emma’s room came the soft thump of movement, the rustle of blankets. A confused murmur followed, indistinct but horribly real. Vincent’s mind was reeling, grasping desperately for logic, for an explanation that no longer applied. Hallucinations weren’t supposed to be this real. They weren’t supposed to wake children. Footsteps moved again, padding softly toward his daughter’s room down the hall.

Vincent’s eyes burned. He tried blinking, as though that would somehow magically wake his body, force it to move, but even that small bit of mercy was denied. His gaze remained fixed on the ceiling as sounds echoed through him, each carving itself deeper into his memory. 

“Daddy…?” The voice was unsure now, fearful. The sound of a hand clapped over a mouth, a muffled scream behind it,  all but confirmed Vincent’s greatest terrors. The noise that followed was brief, ugly, final. 

Vincent shut his eyes, the sting of tears scorching even as he tried to tell himself this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. His chest convulsed uselessly as his tears spilled sideways into his hair. His mind screamed, begged, pleated at his body to move, but it remained still, a corpse feigning sleep. 

Time stretched into something viscous and cruel. Seconds elongated, twisted, like time itself had lost its meaning. Outside, the floor creaked again, this time moving away from Emma’s room. Toward the other bedroom. Toward Henry. 

Vincent strained hard, muscles quivering, refusing to obey. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, loud enough that he was sure Henry must hear it. He had to hear it, he had to wake up—

His voice carried down the hall instead. Groggy. Confused. He called out to Vincent exactly as Emma had, though his tone was more annoyed than hers had been.

A chair scraped, and something clattered to the floor; Henry’s desk lamp, maybe. Vincent heard him cry out before a pained whimper sounded, and silence filled his ears. He tried desperately to move, to call for help, but nothing. His eyes darted around the room, looking for something, anything. He finally noticed then that he was alone in bed. In his desperation to save his children, he hadn’t thought about his wife, who was usually sleeping soundly next to him, but now, as he squinted at his room, he couldn’t see her anywhere.

Vincent’s panic rose again, sharp enough to make his vision swim. The absence next to him was a wound all on its own. The sheets felt cool beneath him, undisturbed, as if Lily had never been there at all. He thought about the last thing she’d said to him, the weight of her hand on his chest, the soft ritual of goodnight that kept him anchored to the earth. He remembered her falling asleep, or at least he thought he did. Maybe she’d never been asleep at all, and had left Vincent alone the second he’d fallen under. 

There was a different set of footsteps, light and slow, coming up the stairs. He heard his name uttered. “Vincent? Is that you?” Lily’s languid voice filled his ears. The breathing in the other room hitched, and he heard a door being open and shut, before Lily screamed. Vincent strained so hard he thought he might tear himself apart from the inside, yet his muscles refused him. Lily’s desperate cries of his name echoed throughout the house, the sound ripping something vital from his chest. He imagined her standing in the hallway, wearing one of his old shirts. He imagined her face once she saw the wrong shape in the dark.

The struggle lasted longer this time. Vincent listened to every second, memorizing the cadence of fear, the abrupt silence that followed. Then there was the breathing again, only closer now. Footsteps approached his bedroom door and the doorhandle turned with an almost polite click. It opened slowly, hinges whispering. Soft light spilled in from the hall, pale and sickly. A shadow stretched across the floor, long and warped. Vincent started at it, certain that if he could only look hard enough, his body would remember how to move. The breathing paused and for a terrible moment Vincent thought the shadow leaned in closer, but something seemed to stop it. A sound—knocking—resonated from downstairs. The front door. The shadow was suddenly gone, and Vincent heard sprinting footsteps resonating down the hall and the stairs. The back door opened and shut just as quickly with a final, echoing thud and silence filled the house.

Vincent lay there, pinned beneath the silence like a living thing. He didn’t know how long passed. The ceiling crack blurred and sharpened again as his eyes refocused. His lungs burned. His heart stuttered. Somewhere deep inside, something fractured, and he knew it would never fit together again. And then, without warning, the weight vanished.

Vincent gasped, air tearing into his lungs as his body lurched forward, back in his control. His limbs jerked violently, muscles spasming in protest. A sound ripped out of him—raw, broken, barely human. He rolled out of bed and hit the floor hard, the pain sharp and grounding. He welcomed it, it meant he was awake. He was on his feet in seconds, legs unsteady but driven by a force that felt older than thought. He tore open the bedroom door and stumbled into the hall.

Emma’s door stood ajar. He knew before he reached it. Some part of him had already accepted the truth, and had already begun to mourn. Still, he stepped inside, whispering her name, voice shattering completely. The room answered with silence. Vincent staggered back into the hallway, his vision tunneling. He moved toward the stairs, each step heavier than the last, dread thick in his throat.

“Lily?” he called, though he no longer expected an answer. The air felt wrong, heavy and still. He turned around and stopped, frozen by what he saw. His world narrowed to a single, unbearable point.

Later, much later, there would be sirens, neighbors, questions he couldn’t answer. Hands and blankets on his shoulders as dawn crept through the windows, indifferent and cruel. But in Vincent’s mind, there was only him, standing in the ruins of his life, the house humming softly around him as if nothing had changed. When the sun finally painted the walls, Vincent found himself in his living room, staring at the yellow and black tape that now littered his house. He understood now what would haunt him most. He had not been asleep. He had heard it all. Had known. He had loved them enough to die for them, to kill for them, and still, his body had betrayed him when it mattered most. The events would be labeled a tragedy, a senseless violence that had cost him everything. People would call him lucky for having survived. But Vincent knew the truth would follow him into every sleepless night thereafter: 

He had been there.

Awake. Helpless. And no matter how many mornings came after, some part of him would always remain in bed on that night, staring at the ceiling, trapped forever between one breath and the next.