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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Obvious-Secretary151 on 2024-11-14 02:21:02+00:00.

Every evening at precisely 10:00 p.m., the man appeared in the window across from mine.

I first noticed him on a foggy October night. I was pacing around my tiny apartment, trying to work out a problem for a client, when my gaze wandered to the old building across the street. Through the dim haze, I could just make out a figure, barely visible, framed in the dusty glass of an upstairs window.

At first, I thought nothing of it. He was probably just a neighbor, taking a quick look outside. But the next night, at exactly 10:00 p.m., there he was again, standing in that same spot, staring into the street. Something about the way he stood made my skin crawl. His face was barely visible, shrouded in shadow, but I could make out the pale outline of his eyes. He was watching me.

I closed the blinds that night, uneasy. But every evening after that, no matter how hard I tried to ignore him, I felt his presence. Curiosity—or perhaps a growing sense of dread—got the better of me. Each night, I would watch the clock, my heart pounding, until the hour struck ten.

And there he would be.

Days turned into weeks, and the man never missed a night. Always standing in the same spot, in the same eerie, unbroken silence. He never waved, never moved, just watched, as though waiting for something.

One night, I decided to wave to him. I wanted to see if he’d respond. As soon as the clock hit ten, I pulled back the blinds and raised my hand, hesitantly, toward the window.

His eyes met mine, and for a brief moment, I thought he was going to lift his own hand. Instead, his lips curled into a small, unsettling smile, revealing darkened, uneven teeth. My skin prickled. I quickly closed the blinds, trying to shake off the creeping chill that had settled over me.

That was the first night I heard him.

I had just started drifting off to sleep when a faint tapping echoed through my apartment. My eyes snapped open, heart hammering. The tapping was steady, deliberate, like someone lightly rapping their knuckles against glass. I lay frozen, listening, trying to place the sound.

Tap… tap… tap…

It was coming from my window.

Slowly, dreading what I might see, I turned toward it. Through the thin fabric of my blinds, I could make out a shadowy outline standing on the fire escape outside my apartment. A face pressed close to the glass, a wide, toothy smile just barely visible through the slats.

My blood ran cold.

I wanted to scream, but I was paralyzed. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping it was just my imagination, that the man in the window was only a trick of the light, a shadow cast by passing cars.

The tapping grew louder, more insistent.

Tap… tap… tap…

Somehow, I managed to bolt upright, grabbing my phone and dialling 911 with trembling fingers. The dispatcher answered, her voice a steady anchor in the dark. I whispered, terrified he might hear me, that there was someone on my fire escape.

Within minutes, I heard the wail of sirens. I didn’t dare open my eyes until I felt the reassuring presence of the police officers. They searched the fire escape, the alley, the entire building, but found nothing. No footprints, no fingerprints, nothing to indicate anyone had been there at all.

The officer suggested it was just a nightmare, a figment of my imagination. But I knew what I’d seen. I could still feel the weight of his gaze, the pressure of his face pressed against my window.

That night, I barely slept, the man’s smile haunting my every thought.

The next day, I tried to convince myself it was over, that he wouldn’t return. But as the clock struck ten, I found myself unable to resist looking out the window.

He was there, staring back at me from across the street. This time, he looked different. His face was somehow clearer, his features sharper, more defined. His eyes were glassy and dull, his skin pale and stretched tight over his bones. And there was something else. He was holding up a piece of paper against the glass.

It was a small, yellowed scrap, crinkled around the edges. I squinted, trying to read the faint, scrawled words.

“I’m watching.”

I stumbled back, heart racing. But when I looked again, the note was gone. The man was gone. The window across the street was empty, as though he had never been there at all.

For days, I waited, dreading the hour of ten o’clock. The silence gnawed at me, filling my mind with dread. But after a week, when he didn’t reappear, I began to hope that maybe it was over.

One night, weeks later, I was drifting off to sleep when a loud knock jolted me awake. I froze, straining my ears, praying I’d imagined it.

Knock… knock… knock…

The sound was coming from my front door.

My heart raced as I forced myself to get up, creeping slowly toward the door. As I got closer, I could hear something—a faint, rasping whisper, barely audible through the thick wood.

“Let me in.”

The whisper was dry, hollow, like dead leaves scraping against pavement. I backed away, shaking. I turned on every light in my apartment, trying to drown out the darkness, the growing terror that filled me.

The knocking continued, steady, rhythmic, unyielding.

“Let me in.”

Desperate, I dialed the police again, but by the time they arrived, the knocking had stopped. The officers looked at me with pity, clearly doubting my story. They left soon after, telling me to call if I had any more “trouble.”

For hours, I sat in silence, barely breathing, waiting for the knocking to start again.

But it didn’t. I never heard it again.

A few days later, I noticed the building across the street was empty. No lights, no movement. It was as though the place had been abandoned. Curious—and maybe a little desperate for closure—I went over to ask around, hoping to learn something about the man in the window.

The landlord, an elderly woman, looked at me with wide eyes when I mentioned him.

“No one’s lived there for months,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “The last tenant… well, he disappeared. The police never found him. The only thing they found in the apartment was a note left on his window. It said, ‘I’m watching.’”

Her words chilled me to the core. That night, as I lay in bed, I realized something.

I could still feel his eyes on me, watching from somewhere unseen, waiting for the moment I’d let him in.