The story
In the early months of 2013, Julián made the decision to move his family into a modest apartment located on the second floor of a solid building in the heart of the Kennedy district in Bogotá. He was holding the hand of his wife, Marcela, and little Mateo, who was barely four years old. As they were just unloading the first boxes, the third-floor neighbors, a couple with tired looks and shifty eyes, approached them on the stairs to leave them a grim warning: they shouldn't move in there with such a small child; that place, they insisted with trembling voices, kept things that were not meant for innocents. Confident in the practicality of the rent and the need for a home of their own, Julián dismissed the words as mere neighborhood gossip.
Very soon, however, the very appearance of the place began to reveal its oppressive character. The home completely lacked a view of the public street, trapped deep within a compact block of brick and cement. Only a couple of meager skylights allowed the passage of a milky clarity that died by mid-afternoon, leaving the rooms plunged into a cold and perennial gloom. The Bogotá air felt denser in there, loaded with a smell of stagnant humidity that no ventilation managed to purify.
The first tangible warning happened in the deepest silence of the night. Julián woke up suddenly, immobilized by an inexplicable oppression in his chest. Right against his right earlobe, he felt a thick, warm, and rough breathing that didn't belong to Marcela. A second second later, a dry and violent fluttering shook the air a few centimeters from the ceiling, a frantic beating of invisible wings that tore through the blackness at exactly three in the morning. He turned on the lamp abruptly: the windowpanes were intact, the cracks closed, and there wasn't a trace of any bird in the room.
Terrified by the recurrence of the unease, Julián sought ecclesiastical help. He managed to get a visit from Father Luc, a Belgian priest with a stern look who had spent years on a mission in the capital. The clergyman arrived accompanied by a young acolyte who was carrying the liturgical books and a bronze holy water bucket. With sharp prayers uttered in a dry Latin, the religious man went through every corner of the property, sprinkling abundant holy water on the internal frames of all the bedroom doors and sealing the main entrance with a damp cross to contain any impurity.
But the rite didn't bring the promised calm; rather, it seemed to infuriate what lived within the walls. Starting from that blessing, the nighttime quietness turned openly hostile. Upon crossing the border of three in the morning, the corners began to exhale guttural moans and muffled growls, cavernous vibrations that seemed to burst from beneath the tiles and climbed up the walls until they shook the beds, while the family slept plunged into a heavy and abnormal lethargy.
The final confirmation of the nightmare arrived on a freezing night, close to two in the morning. Julián returned with his judgment slightly clouded by a few drinks after a social gathering. Prompted by thirst and hunger, he walked into the kitchen in the dark. The apartment was in a sepulchral silence, broken only by the metallic creak of the refrigerator. While he ate standing up under the weak bulb, the soft sound of barefoot steps on the living room floor interrupted his bite.
He peered out cautiously. From the shadowy threshold leading to the child's bedroom, he saw how a small tin toy car began to roll on its own, sliding slowly over the tiles until it stopped with a click against the tip of his shoes.
"Mateo?" Julián called in a trembling whisper, believing his son had gotten up sleepwalking.
The answer was a sing-song but deeply perverse little laugh that burst from the absolute darkness of the hallway. Immediately, another car was pushed hard from the hallway, crossing the living room at full speed until it crashed against the wall. The cold of fear shook off his drunkenness in a single blow. It wasn't Mateo. The invisible silhouette mocking him emitted a malignant, deformed, and cruel joy, unbecoming of any human being.
Then, from the void of the baseboard, the childish voice spoke with chilling clarity, dragging out each syllable with contempt: "What do you want? Why don't you leave?". Paralyzed by terror, Julián could barely grope his way back toward his bed. He didn't turn on the light or close his eyes again all night, knowing that the entity was watching them from the shadows, waiting for their next careless mistake.
