The story
In the dim light of dawn in Viedma, Mateo woke up to the sound of his own clock ticking between 4 and 5 in the morning. He had to finish a report and, as always, left the lamp on over the worn wooden table. The air in the room was still, but a damp feeling made his skin crawl. Suddenly, an intense cold slid beneath his feet, as if an invisible current of snow were crossing the floor. Mateo felt something brush against the soles of his feet, but when he turned his gaze he saw nothing.
A barely perceptible whisper slipped through the creaks of the house. When he looked up, a dark, dense mass had formed in the opposite corner of the room. It wasn't a shadow cast by the light, but rather a thick blotch that moved with a supernatural slowness, without human or animal features. The temperature dropped even further, Mateo's breath turned to vapor, and the silence became an internal roar. He tried to speak, to scream, but his throat locked up as if an invisible hand were squeezing his tongue.
The man, trembling, dragged himself to the door and threw it open. The outside air carried the smell of wet earth and the distant crow of a rooster. The shadow didn't follow him; it stayed floating, dense like spilled ink, and then dissipated like fog at the first ray of dawn light. Mateo closed the window, turned on the heater, and, with bated breath, promised himself never to work in the early morning hours again.
A week later, the family had moved to the finca, a small country farm that Mateo's grandmother had inherited in the fields of the province. The country house, with its white walls and red tile roof, was surrounded by the rustle of willow trees and the scent of freshly cut grass. His wife, Lucía, slept in one room and the grandmother, Doña Elena, in another, both separated by a narrow hallway.
It was around 2 in the morning when Mateo, alone in his room, heard a sound like bones cracking against the wooden floorboards. The noise repeated, slow, as if something were dragging its limbs across the floor. His heart was pounding hard, and a drop of cold sweat ran down his forehead. Turning his head, he saw a second shadow approaching, more elongated, with blurry edges that blended into the darkness of the room.
The entity glided toward him, trying to push him, but Mateo didn't feel any physical resistance; it was as if the air itself had turned into a wall. The temperature dropped again, and the cracking sound turned into a hammering against the door and the roof tiles, as if a giant hand were drumming against the house.
Desperate, Mateo tried to recite a prayer his mother had taught him as children. However, his tongue grew heavy, the verses got tangled, and only a muffled whisper came out. The shadow stopped a few inches from his face, and for an instant it seemed to observe him with an intent that was not benevolent.
With a final effort, Mateo closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and, as if an internal current were driving him, struck a hard blow against the door. The sound echoed through the house and the shadow vanished in a burst of freezing air that left behind a sepulchral stillness.
When the morning light began to filter through the window, Mateo found himself alone, with the bed unmade and sweat still beading on his forehead. Lucía woke up hearing the commotion and, upon seeing her husband's expression, knew that something had happened. Doña Elena, upon hearing the story, crossed her fingers and muttered an old regional prayer, like someone asking the wind to carry far away what does not belong to the living.
Since that day, Mateo never worked at night again and, when the wind blows through the trees of the finca, he remembers the coldness of those shadows and the certainty that, in the darkest corners, presences lurk that only fear can reveal.
