Case File 003 — Field Report, Agent Nocturne
Location: Miller’s Hollow, outskirts of County Darnell
Date: [REDACTED]
Status: Active Observation / Partial Containment
The first call came from a night-shift nurse. She said her house wouldn’t sleep when she did.
When she left for work, her neighbors reported lights moving behind the curtains—slow, deliberate, like someone pacing the rooms. When she returned at dawn, she’d find chairs dragged to new corners, the clock reset to the wrong hour, her sheets still warm as if she’d just risen.
She lived alone.
I arrived on a Wednesday, the air too still for winter. The house was a narrow two-story thing, sunken a little into the earth. The ground around it felt soft, like breathing soil.
Inside, it smelled faintly of rain and static. Dust motes hung suspended longer than they should, as if gravity hadn’t been informed of its duties. I set up an observation cam in the kitchen, a recorder in the hall. Then I asked her to rest.
She said she could only sleep between 10 a.m. and noon. Any earlier, and the dreams caught up to her. Any later, and something else did.
When she finally drifted off, the house exhaled. Floorboards tightened. Air vents sighed. My watch stopped for seven minutes. I didn’t notice until it restarted — seven minutes later — with a recording of footsteps that weren’t mine.
Playback shows a figure moving from the bedroom to the front door. Same height, same build as the nurse. She opens the door, steps outside. But no door in the footage actually opens.
The timestamps loop. She leaves the house again and again. The same motion, same pause, same invisible exit. A looped dream rendered in walls and plaster.
I tried to speak to the house. Dead End protocol says buildings that exhibit sentience should be addressed with respect. So I said, You don’t have to keep dreaming. She’s awake now.
Something shifted—like an exhale through floorboards. The living room light dimmed. Then the upstairs door closed, gently, as if not to wake anyone.
The nurse is stable but refuses to return. Says she can still hear it dreaming from miles away. She called last night to say it’s getting faster, like it’s trying to wake itself.
Filed under: Architectural Possession / Unconscious Constructs
Addendum: Recommend 24-hour surveillance. I’ll return when it stops dreaming—or when it starts calling names.
End log.
Comments ()