A Breath Before Dusk

It was late in the afternoon on a Friday. I was working on my desk as usual.

The sunset was beautifully warm of cinnamon and orange, bleeding into everything—my desk, the papers, even my hands. The cool air smelled of the dried English lavender I didn't trim away on my porch—I let them wither exactly where they were growing, a good specimen for my observation.

Knock, knock, knock.

Without any footsteps or prior warnings, my space was intruded by uninvited gestures of modern civility. I didn’t move at first. I tried to think I’d imagined it.

Knock, knock, knock.

It didn't sound like a prank, or twigs hitting the door frame by accident. I

pushed my chair back, rubbing the stiffness from my neck. The room

creaked with me, the old floorboards sighing in complaint. I wasn’t

expecting anyone. I wasn’t expecting anything, really, except another long

night with this half-finished project. I took a deep breath, and finally

decided to get up to take a look.

“Who is it?” I called.

No answer.

I opened the door anyway. The air outside hit cold against my face. There

was no one there. Just the garden and the orange light spilling across the

fence. I looked left, right, even down the path to the gate. Empty. The brass

sun twisted once more, lazy and soundless.

Back at my desk, the cursor blinked where I’d left it, waiting.

I tried to type a few lines but couldn’t focus. My eyes drifted to the shelf

above my desk—the very first dictionary Grandpa bought for me over the

years when I was a little girl. It was carefully wrapped with craft paper. On

there Grandpa wrote in his calligraphy, of the title of the book, as well as

his blessings.

I picked up the dictionary. The paper cover was textured with a delicate,

natural fibre scent. For a moment, the room seemed to breathe with me. I

could almost hear the ringing of his bike as he went to pick me up from

school, the weight of his hand around mine as we crossed the street to the

market. He always told me to hold on, tight, or to the corner of his coat, as

though I would drift away.

Something dropped from the shelf behind—a clatter, sharp and sudden. I

jumped, the dictionary slipping from my grip. It flipped open, showing the

bookmark inside, with the same calligraphy Grandpa wrote for me.

My heart was pounding before my focus sharpened.

And then came the third knock.

Louder this time.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

The sound echoed through the house, slow and measured, as if whoever

stood outside knew exactly how long to wait between each strike.

I swallowed hard. “Who’s there?”

No answer.

The silence stretched until it became its own sound—the low hum of

stillness that fills the space where life should be. I could feel the walls

breathing again, that faint pulsing hum behind the plaster.

“Grandpa?”

The word left my mouth before I could stop it. Yes, I hoped.

As soon as I said it, the air shifted. A faint smell—newspaper and brewed

tea—bloomed in the room, the scent of his coat. My eyes flicked toward the

shelf where his photograph had fallen. The glass had cracked, slicing a

white line across his face.

I took a step back, heart hammering.

When I looked down again, the image inside it had changed. Grandpa’s

smile was gone. In his place stood a child—a girl, maybe twelve, hair in

uneven braids, a birthmark like spilled red ink on her left cheek. She

looked familiar in a way that made my chest tighten.

I blinked hard. The image snapped back—just Grandpa, smiling faintly, as

if nothing had happened.

My hands were shaking. Escaping the room was all I could think of.

But when I turned, my reflection in the window glass wasn’t mine. A

smaller face stared back—hers—eyes wide and frightened, breathing fog

onto the glass from the other side.

The knock came again.

Harder.

I spun, but the door was farther away than it should’ve been—the hallway

stretching longer than the house allowed. The sound came from every

direction, multiplied, overlapping.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Stop it!” I shouted. “I said stop!”

And there she was.

The girl from the photo.

She stood a few feet away, barefoot, hugging a stuffed bear so worn its

seams were splitting. Her lips moved soundlessly, eyes darting to the corners where the shadows seemed to breathe.

I froze.

The fluorescent lights flickering above, the white, tiled walls and concrete floor, and her, staring back at me, lost, and trembling, like me.

She turned and ran so fast that I could barely catch my breath as I followed.

Her feet slapped against the polished, concrete ground, high-pitched in the hallway.

The light changed.

It wasn’t the school anymore. It was a kitchen. My grandmother’s kitchen,

concrete plaster floor, lime green wall protection paint above the waist, the

faint smell of soap and boiled milk. The Old Grandfather clock on the wall

ticked once, then froze.

“Hello?” My voice cracked. The girl wasn’t there. Just the chair she’d

knocked over and the faint creak of the back door swaying in a wind that

didn’t exist.

I turned, and the door behind me was gone. In its place stood another

doorway, leading into a bedroom I hadn’t seen in decades.

Then—knock.

From the closet.

I turned slowly. The doorknob quivered. Another knock. Louder.

“Stop it,” I whispered. “Stop.”

The door flew open.

Not with force, but with stillness—as if the world inhaled and forgot to

exhale. Inside was another room, impossibly. A living room this time, lights

dim, furniture rearranged in wrong angles, frames crooked, the floor

rippling faintly like a reflection on water.

“They’re coming,” she whispered. Her voice was small, flat, like a memory

spoken underwater.

“Who’s coming?”

The walls behind her shuddered. Something dark pressed against the wall

from the inside—not shapes, not faces, just movement. The surface buckled

and split, and from the cracks, black stems began to grow. Thin, thorned,

glistening with something that might have been sap or blood.

The girl screamed.

I ran down, grabbing her hand. It was small, clammy, trembling. We

turned and ran again, bursting through a door into another room—a living

room, a hallway, a classroom—I couldn’t tell anymore.

Each space bled into the next. The floorboards turned to tiles, to timber,

dirt, to water. Windows led nowhere. Doors opened back into the same

place we’d just fled.

My breath came in gasps. “We have to get out!”

“There is no way out,” she cried, pulling free.

And in her voice, I heard my own.

I fell to my knees. The air was thick with dust and engulfing coldness.

The girl tried to run for the doorway, shaking. “We have to keep running or

they will take us!”

“No,” I said, my voice trembling but certain, while I grabbed her shoulders.

“Not this time.”

She stared at me, confused, terrified.

“They’ll find us.”

“Yes,” I said, standing slowly, reaching out my hand. “But I’m done

running.”

The shadows rippled. The stems along the walls twitched, sensing

movement.

I took her hand. Her skin was cold, fragile, real.

“We are home,” I said.