A lifelong relationship with her boyfriend had come to an end. She found out he had been cheating on her with another girl someone much younger who didn't have a child. After a heated argument, she decided to leave the house with her daughter. Since the apartment was paid for by her boyfriend, she moved back in with her parents. Her dad was doing well financially, while her mom stayed home taking care of her younger siblings. However, her mother wanted nothing to do with her or her granddaughter because she had chosen her boyfriend over the family years ago. Her father, on the other hand, understood her situation and felt bad for his granddaughter. He gave them one week to find a place to stay, reminding her that she was a grown woman who could find a job.
With the small savings she had made and the extra money her father gave her to ensure the child didn't suffer, she found a cheap house to rent through an app on her phone. It wasn't much....two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, and a small basement....but it was better than living with her parents. As soon as she saw the house, she sensed something was odd. It stood far apart from the other houses and looked abandoned, as if it hadn't been maintained for ages. She finally understood why it was the cheapest option available.
When she entered, the house smelled of old, rotten flesh, and the air was thick with ancient dust. The manager who gave her the keys warned her about the condition. He told her she was the first person to ever want that house and urged her to reconsider for her own good. But with her budget, this was her only choice. She told the man she would move out as soon as she saved enough for a better place. With a worried expression, the man told her to be careful and to always watch her daughter closely. She found it strange but didn't think much of it.
She spent the whole day cleaning while her daughter played outside with her stuffies. It was an exhausting process doing it all alone, but she was determined. One thing caught her attention: an old closet in the bedroom with a mirror in the middle. Although the rest of the house was buried in dust, the wardrobe remained perfectly clean. Even the mirror was spotless, while the bed and the rest of the room were filthy. It seemed strange, but she carried on with her work.
When she finished, she took an Uber back to her parents' to collect the rest of her things. By the time she returned to the house, it was already dark. She noticed a light turned on in the upstairs bedroom, though she didn't remember leaving it on. The Uber driver looked at the house and asked if she really lived there. When she said yes, the driver told her to take her things and get out quickly; he wanted nothing to do with that house or anyone who lived there. He sped away the moment she stepped out.
Inside, she checked the upstairs room and the rest of the house, but no one was there. She neatly folded their clothes into the closet, put away the groceries, and made dinner. After bathing her daughter, they both went to sleep.
Later that night, she woke to the sound of scratching and clawing coming from inside the closet. Her daughter was sound asleep beside her, but she found her own body frozen. She couldn't move, scream, or form words. In the darkness, the sounds from the closet never faded. After a long while, the noise stopped and she could move again. She grabbed a shoe as her only weapon and slowly approached the closet. When she opened it, there was nothing inside only their neatly folded clothes. She convinced herself it was a dream and went back to sleep.
The next morning, she found the TV turned on. She remembered turning off all the lights and the TV the night before... or maybe she hadn't. After dropping her daughter at a distant daycare, she spent the day researching jobs, but the thought of the closet kept crossing her mind.
That evening, as they sat at the dining table, her daughter spoke up. "I heard sounds coming from the closet last night while I was sleeping. I didn't want to wake you up, so I hid under the blankets until it stopped."
The mother was shocked. She had been awake and frozen while she thought her daughter was sleeping. How could they both have heard it?
That night, it happened again. She was frozen as the scratching and clawing returned, followed by heavy banging, as if something wanted to be let out. She watched in horror as her daughter got off the bed like a sleepwalker and went to the closet. The girl opened it, and it was pitch black inside no clothes, just a void. The mother tried to scream her daughter's name, but she was paralyzed. In an instant, something grabbed the girl and pulled her into the closet. The door slammed shut and locked itself.
She screamed so loud she jolted awake, heart racing. Her daughter was safely sleeping in bed. The next morning, she decided to take all the clothes out of the closet, but she only found her own; her daughter's clothes were gone. She searched everywhere, but they had vanished. Determined, she dragged the old closet out of the room and down to the basement, locking the door behind it her daughter asked. She told her daughter it was just because it was old and creating dust.
Later that night, she had another dream. She saw the closet back in the bedroom, but this time, she was the one inside it. Her daughter stood outside the mirror with cold, black eyes. "Goodbye, Mommy," the girl said, locking the door from the outside.
She snapped her eyes open. The room was quiet, but her daughter was gone. She searched the room, then remembered the basement. She opened the basement door and approached the closet. Suddenly, the door behind her slammed shut and wouldn't budge. The lights went out. In the total darkness, she heard her own heavy breathing and the sound of something banging and scratching from inside the closet—louder than ever before. Then, the door behind her opened, and a sound not human, but hunting...began getting closer to her.
A week later, the police searched the house after a neighbor reported that the upstairs light had been on for days with no sign of life. They found food in the fridge and a neatly cleaned house. The closet was back in the bedroom. It was empty, except for deep scratch marks on the inside of the door and a small amount of a black-reddish liquid. No one ever found the mother, the daughter, or their belongings. Only the smell of rotten flesh lingered in the house, but the police could never find the source