**"The Black-Eyed Child at My Door"**

The rain hammered against my windows like a thousand tiny fists, relentless and angry. I sat curled up on my couch, a book in one hand and a lukewarm cup of tea in the other, trying to ignore the storm outside. My house—a small, creaky thing at the edge of the woods—had always felt safe. Until that night.

Then came the knock.

Three soft, hesitant raps at the front door.

I froze. No one came out here, especially not in this weather. Setting my book down, I crept toward the door, my heart pounding. Through the peephole, I saw a small figure—a girl, no older than ten, drenched from head to toe. Her hair clung to her face, her clothes soaked through.

But it was her eyes that made my blood run cold.

Black. Completely black. No whites, no irises—just two endless pools of darkness.

"Please," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the storm. "Can I come in? I’m so cold."

Every instinct screamed at me to slam the door shut, to lock it and call the police. But then she shivered, her tiny frame trembling, and something inside me cracked.

I let her in.

That was my first mistake.

### **The Chill in the Air**

The moment she stepped inside, the temperature dropped. My breath fogged in front of me as I handed her a towel. She didn’t move to dry herself—just stood there, dripping onto the floor, staring at me with those unnatural eyes.

"What’s your name?" I asked, forcing a smile.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she tilted her head, as if listening to something I couldn’t hear.

"You shouldn’t have opened the door," she said finally.

A knot twisted in my stomach. "What do you mean?"

She smiled then, a slow, unsettling stretch of lips that didn’t reach her eyes. "Now they know you’re here."

### **The Whispers in the Dark**

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The house was too quiet, too still. Every creak of the floorboards made me jerk upright, my heart racing.

And then I heard it—the whispering.

Faint at first, like rustling leaves, but growing louder. Voices, dozens of them, murmuring just outside my bedroom door.

*"Let us in…"*

*"We’re so cold…"*

I clutched my blanket, my breath coming in short gasps. The doorknob rattled.

The black-eyed girl stood in the hallway, her head tilted at that same unnatural angle. Behind her, shadows moved—small figures, their eyes glinting in the dark.

"You shouldn’t have let me in," she repeated. "Now they want to meet you too."

### **The Truth in the Basement**

I don’t remember how I got there, but I woke up in the basement. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and something worse—something rotting.

The black-eyed child stood over me, her fingers brushing my forehead. Cold. So cold.

"They’re coming," she whispered.

The walls groaned. The floor trembled. And then I saw them—dozens of small, pale hands clawing through the cracks in the foundation, black-eyed faces pressing against the dirt.

They had been waiting.

Waiting for someone foolish enough to open the door.

### **The Last Thing I Heard**

As the first skeletal fingers closed around my ankles, the girl leaned down, her lips brushing my ear.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Now we won’t be lonely anymore."

The last thing I heard was laughter—childlike, gleeful—as the darkness swallowed me whole.

---

**Epilogue**

The police found my house empty. No signs of struggle. No footprints in the mud.

But if you listen closely on stormy nights, you might hear it—the soft, desperate knocking at the door.

And if you’re foolish enough to open it…

You’ll meet the black-eyed children too.