The story
Sunday afternoons in Bogotá usually brought down a cold, lazy drizzle that practically forced you to stay indoors. For Julián and his sister Luisa, that time had become an almost religious ritual: they would brew fresh coffee, fluff the cushions in the living room, and tune into a television show that explored unexplained cases, possessions, and haunted houses. For two hours they let themselves get carried away by the mystery, fascinated by the unknown while little Camilo, Luisa's baby of just a few months, slept peacefully in his crib.
The problem wasn't the screen, but what seemed to stay behind in the house after turning it off. With the arrival of Monday, the home's atmosphere would turn heavy and unpleasant. The air felt burdensome in the lungs, taking on a harsh coldness that neither open windows nor the morning sun could chase away. At first, Julián tried to blame the heaviness on work fatigue or simple suggestion; after all, spending the afternoon listening to sinister stories put anyone on edge. Even so, the feeling of being accompanied by something invisible in the corners grew more palpable with every start of the week.
The entity, whatever it was, seemed to feed on the attention they had opened up to it. Julián would feel an ice-cold pressure on the back of his neck when walking down the hallway toward the kitchen, and the baby started waking up in desperate crying fits, pointing his little trembling hands toward completely empty corners. The doubt between shared hysteria and a real phenomenon gnawed at the siblings, until a Tuesday afternoon when the boundary of the psychological broke for good.
Luisa was in the bedroom changing the baby when a dry pop echoed in the living room, followed by a violent tinkling. Julián rushed to the spot fearing a window had given way to the wind, but the sight was baffling: the tempered glass shelf, firmly bolted to the wall next to the bookcase, had shattered into hundreds of pieces without anyone touching it. Before they could say a word, a second snap shook the hallway; the glass of an adjoining shelf broke instantly, pulverizing over the tiles.
There were no drafts, street vibrations, or sudden temperature changes. On the floor lay irrefutable proof that the house harbored a hostile force, and that the danger to the baby was no longer a fantasy.
Terrified for the creature's safety, they made a drastic decision. The following Sunday, the television screen stayed off. They replaced the dark stories with upbeat music, incense, and family conversations. As the days went by, the Monday heaviness faded and the strange cold didn't settle in the hallway again. Peace returned to the apartment, leaving only the bare walls with the marks of the broken brackets, like a mute reminder that some doors, once opened in the mind, allow horror to step into reality.
