It was the Fourth of July. The narrator and her young daughter stood just outside the care facility where she worked, taking in the bursts of color exploding in the night sky. 



The second floor of the building housed two rooms, both vacant for the holiday as their occupants were away with family. The remaining residents, three in total, were confined to the ground floor due to mobility issues. Earlier that day, the narrator had gone upstairs to tidy up and crack open a few windows to let in the summer air. Everything had been peaceful—until the moment someone abruptly slammed one of the upstairs windows shut. It was the window directly above where she and her daughter stood. And it wasn’t a soft nudge either—it was aggressive. Startling. The kind of sound that makes the hair on your neck rise like it's reacting to something unseen.


But here’s the thing—there was no one up there.


All doors and windows downstairs were tightly secured. The only access to the second floor was through the main floor. Someone—or something—had closed that window. The narrator couldn’t shake the dread that crept over her.


Her job required overnight shifts, and thankfully, she was allowed to bring her daughter along. At just seven years old, the girl would sleep on the couch in the living room while her mother worked nearby. It seemed like a safe arrangement. Until one night, around 3 a.m., the child approached her mother in silence, unable to speak because her mouth was full of something. As she got closer, the narrator saw what it was—her daughter was pulling long strands of fishing line from her mouth. Four inches long. Multiple strands. One after another. The narrator helped pull the rest out, shocked by the sheer amount. When she finally asked what happened, her daughter simply said she woke up and it was already in her mouth.


Now the entity—or whatever was haunting that place—was targeting her child. That crossed a line.


There were other moments too, quieter but equally unsettling. Like the repeated episodes with a resident named Mrs. C—an elderly woman with dementia who once taught Sunday School. After dinner one night, the narrator was helping walk Mrs. C back to her room. As they passed the living room, the woman stopped in her tracks, beamed, and asked, “Who are all these people? Are they having a party?”


But the room was empty.


It happened again. And again. Each time Mrs. C would smile at an unseen gathering in that room, while the narrator saw absolutely nothing. And yet, her daughter slept there nightly.


The tension in that building seemed to grow over time, like pressure building inside a sealed jar. Then came the incident that broke everything.


There was a resident named R. Known for being wildly inappropriate, R had a crude sense of humor and a reputation to match. He’d call himself a “dirty old man” and had a habit of exposing himself, laughing like a mischievous schoolboy when staff scolded him. The narrator had grown used to his antics. On one particular night, she was in the room adjacent to R’s, changing a colostomy bag. The two rooms were connected by a bathroom, and she was focused on her task when R began yelling for help.


It wasn’t unusual—he did this almost every night. She shouted back that she’d be there in a minute. He yelled again, but she was just finishing up, so she hurried through the connecting bathroom and into R’s room.


What she saw made her freeze.


R was on the floor, his face smeared with what she first thought was chocolate. It was just after Christmas, after all, and he often kept sweets stashed away. Laughing nervously, she asked what he was up to and flipped on the light.


It wasn’t chocolate. It was blood.


Blood covered his face, the floor, the walls—it was everywhere. She rushed to help him back into bed, shaken and horrified. When she asked what happened, his reply chilled her to her core.


“A boy came into my room,” he said. “He beat me with a stick.”


She froze. There were no boys in the facility. None at all. They were in a remote part of Washington State, in a quiet little town. And the narrator had been in the next room the entire time. No sounds of a struggle, no signs of forced entry. Nothing. Yet R held onto his story. Even when the paramedics arrived, he repeated it word for word.


He never changed it.


But within hours, as he was being transported to the hospital, R died from his injuries. The police arrived quickly, and the questioning began. The narrator was visibly shaken, crying as they examined her clothes and arms for blood. She could feel their eyes on her—judging, accusing. It was terrifying. Despite knowing she had done nothing, she could tell they suspected her. In a place like that, with no witnesses and a bizarre story, she could’ve been facing a prison sentence… or worse.


But the staff eventually cleared her. There was no evidence linking her to the assault. And everyone—herself, R, even the resident she was helping—knew she wasn’t guilty. Still, the experience left a scar.


She’d always felt the presence of something else in that building. Over her three years working there, that feeling never really left. Sometimes it was subtle—a cold breath against the back of the neck. Other times, it was undeniable—windows slamming shut, invisible partygoers in the living room, fishing line mysteriously appearing in her daughter’s mouth.


But this? This was something darker.


Maybe it was a portal. A gateway to somewhere else. That was the only explanation that made sense anymore. Whatever haunted that place wasn’t just playing games—it was dangerous. It had already killed someone. And almost ruined her life in the process.


Two days later, after her friend—the owner of the facility and a high school bestie—found a replacement for her, the narrator handed in her resignation. She never looked back. Her next job couldn’t have been more different—she worked pulling green chain at a lumber mill.


No spirits. No late-night screams. No invisible boys with sticks.


Just the hum of machines, and the welcome silence of reality.