Splatter —
The night was a black curtain, shrouding every corner of the city.
A rainy night was like a hazy melody; some found it to be a lullaby, representing a cool summer night where one could sleep without a care.
But for others, this melody… was inevitably a bit noisy and unsettling.
“All right, Tommy, that’s it for tonight’s bedtime story.”
In the cozy room, a blonde-haired mother closed the storybook and looked at the child on the bed with a gentle gaze.
“It’s time to sleep. You have to get up early for school tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
As the mother stood up and reached out to turn off the light, young Tommy suddenly called out again.
“Mom, can you pull the curtains shut?”
“I can, but… is something wrong?”
“There’s a monster… outside the window.”
“A monster?”
The mother frowned.
This was the fourth time this month she had heard her child say there was a monster outside the window.
She walked slowly to the window, reached out to open it, and braved the rain to poke her head out slightly to take a look.
Aside from the cars on the road, other apartment buildings, and the neighbors’ windows, she didn’t see anything else.
Besides, her home was on the thirteenth floor, and it was pouring rain outside.
What kind of thing could climb up to the thirteenth floor in the middle of a torrential downpour?
“Tommy, there’s nothing out there. Go to sleep.”
The mother closed the window and pulled the curtains shut.
Turning back, she saw her son clutching the quilt tightly, ready to hide himself inside at any moment.
The mother sighed softly, walked to Tommy’s side to say a few words of comfort, told him to rest early, and then turned off the light and walked out of the room.
The room was instantly plunged into darkness…
Young Tommy tried his best to close his eyes and sleep, but the sense of unease in his heart still made him unable to resist opening his eyes to look toward the window.
The window was closed and the curtains were drawn.
The only thing that could come in was that sliver of light from beneath the curtains.
***
“Did the boy talk about monsters again today?”
The husband, sitting in the living room reading the newspaper, asked his wife.
“Yes. I suspect he’s mistaking birds landing outside the window for monsters. After all, children this age are prone to fantasies.”
“Is it possible… that the child really did see a Guiyi?”
The moment the husband said those words, the atmosphere in the living room underwent a subtle change.
The wife’s movement of pouring water froze slightly, but she followed it with a somewhat forced laugh.
“Haha, how could that be? The officials only report two or three Guiyi incidents a month. It shouldn’t show up in our house.”
“Compared to other news, that’s already considered a high frequency.”
The husband put away the newspaper and took the glass of water his wife handed over.
“And the child has already mentioned monsters four times this month. I think it’s necessary to notify the Youxun Sentry Post to come and confirm. It’s free, anyway.”
“Hmm… that’s true. If the boy has another problem tonight and calls for us, we’ll notify the nearest Youxun Sentry Post.”
“Yeah, that’s the safest way.”
***
As midnight approached, the sound of rain did not stop; instead, it became even more pronounced.
Young Tommy curled up in his quilt to rest.
The sound of rain outside the window was like countless tiny claws scratching against the glass.
However, whether in a dream or in reality, he heard a strange… scraping sound.
It sounded like something wet, moving against the exterior wall.
He instinctively opened his eyes and poked his head out from under the quilt, staring deathly still at the curtains.
In the darkness, that heavy fabric remained motionless, and there was still the faint glimmer of the distant streetlights peeking through the bottom.
‘As long as it’s still there…’
Suddenly, that bit of light vanished.
It was as if something… was blocking the window.
Immediately after, the curtain itself seemed to be pulled by an invisible hand, sliding open to both sides.
The shhh of the fabric rubbing against the track was terrifyingly clear in the silent bedroom.
Tommy’s heart felt as if it were being squeezed by a cold hand.
His mouth was open, but he couldn’t make a sound.
He could only watch helplessly as the gap in the curtains grew wider and wider, gradually revealing the city’s night view blurred by the rain.
But… nothing could be seen outside the window.
Tommy didn’t dare lower his guard.
He had seen that monster…
He kept staring at the window, his eyes scanning back and forth, and then, in a certain moment, his eyes suddenly widened.
At the bottom edge of the window, there was another pair of eyes peering in at him.
Perhaps knowing it had been discovered, that silhouette slowly rose from below the windowsill.
It was pitch black and spindly, like a stretched and distorted humanoid shadow, clinging tightly to the outside of the glass.
Rain flowed over it, yet there was no sense of any droplets splashing off, as if that blackness could absorb everything.
Its “face”… was an entirely featureless, flat expanse of pale white, like a low-quality paper mask embedded at the top of that writhing mass of darkness.
Then, it raised its “hand.”
Perhaps it couldn’t be called a hand, just a thinner and longer segment of shadow.
Thud.
A soft sound, nearly inaudible amidst the rain, yet it felt like a heavy hammer striking Tommy’s heart.
That pale “face” was aimed directly at him, the shadow-palm pressed flat against the glass.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The tapping began…
The thing outside seemed to want to come in, but with its physique, it could easily have forced the window open.
“Ugh… hhh…” A broken sound escaped Tommy’s throat.
Extreme terror had frozen his body, and only his eyeballs were trembling violently.
He wanted to call for his father and mother, but the sound was stuck in his throat, unable to come out at all.
The “thing” outside the window seemed to sense his fear, and the rhythm of the tapping accelerated slightly.
Then, a low, non-human hissing sound pierced through the glass and the curtain of rain, drilling into Tommy’s ears and rubbing directly against his brain.
“Come… here…”
It was an absolutely non-human voice, low and raspy…
“I… will… give… hope…”
‘Run! I have to run!’
His survival instinct finally broke through the shackles of fear.
Tommy used all his strength to throw off the quilt, rolled off the bed, and scrambled toward the door on all fours.
The cold wooden floor stung his palms and knees, but he couldn’t feel it.
There was only one thought in his mind: ‘Get out of this room!’
He threw himself at the door, desperately standing on his tiptoes to reach the doorknob.
But that voice… it was still in his ear, as if at this very moment, it were right beside him.
“I… am… watching… you…”
Once, twice… he finally grabbed the cold metal and twisted hard.
The lock clicked; it was open.
Tommy pulled the door open and scrambled out into the relatively bright living room hallway.
His parents’ bedroom door was tightly shut, and it was quiet inside.
He didn’t dare stop, rushing straight to the master bedroom and pounding on the door with his small fists.
“Dad! Mom! The window… outside! It’s here! It’s really here!”
A sob-filled scream finally burst from his throat, sounding exceptionally sharp and piercing in the quiet house.
A few seconds later, the master bedroom door was thrown open.
His father, wearing pajamas, looked shocked and suspicious, while his mother followed behind, her face pale.
“Tommy? What’s wrong?”
His father knelt down and held his trembling shoulders.
“The window… black… white face… tapping…”
Tommy was incoherent, his finger pointing frantically toward his bedroom, his face covered in tears and snot.
The parents looked at each other, seeing the gravity in each other’s eyes.
The father immediately stood up and took a high-powered flashlight and a metal baseball bat from a drawer in the living room.
“Stay here and lock the door,” the father said quickly to the wife.
He looked at Tommy again.
“Baby, stay with Mom. Don’t come out no matter what you hear.”
The mother hugged Tommy tightly and pulled him into the master bedroom.
The father took a deep breath, raised the flashlight and the bat, and softened his footsteps as he walked toward the ajar door that led to Tommy’s bedroom.
The flashlight beam cut through the dimness of the hallway.
The father stepped to the side and used the bat to gently nudge the door open.
In the room, the curtains were wide open.
Outside the window, there was only the blurred night scene washed by rain.
Dense raindrops hammered against the glass, but besides that, there was nothing.
The floor, the window, the walls… there were no unusual water stains or traces.
It was as if everything that had just happened was truly just a child’s nightmare.
The father carefully checked the window latch; it was intact.
He then used the flashlight to carefully scan the exterior wall nearby.
At the height of the thirteenth floor, the smooth wall had no footholds for climbing.
He breathed a sigh of relief, but his brow remained tightly furrowed.
Returning to the living room, he looked at his wife, who was sitting on the sofa holding Tommy tightly, and said in a heavy voice, “The curtains are open, but there’s nothing outside.”
“Was it… a nightmare?”
The mother stroked Tommy’s still-shaking back.
Tommy shook his head desperately, sobbing too hard to speak.
The father silently walked over to his phone and dialed the number that every citizen knew by heart but hoped never to use.
A rhythmic ringing tone echoed through the silent living room.
“Hello, this is the District 7 Youxun Sentry Post. Please report your situation.”
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