This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/open737 on 2025-08-28 12:16:15+00:00.

I don’t know where to begin. This isn’t a single story — it’s years of things I can’t explain, and I’m writing it here because I don’t know who else would even believe me.

The first time I noticed it, I was nine. My parents had just moved us into an old house outside San Antonio. It was nothing creepy at first glance — just an aging two-story with creaky stairs and a backyard full of oak trees. But a week after moving in, I started waking up at exactly 3:17 AM every night. Always 3:17. No sound, no nightmare, I’d just… snap awake, heart racing, and feel like someone was standing in the corner of my room.

When I told my mom, she laughed and said it was just “the settling house noises.” But one night, when I got up the courage to look, I swear I saw the outline of a tall figure in the corner. Perfectly still, just watching.

That house was the beginning. Over the next few years, little things kept happening. My toys would end up lined neatly along the floor when I hadn’t touched them. Sometimes the basement light would be on when no one had gone down there. My dad got so mad he actually removed the bulb — but two nights later, the basement glowed faintly again, like the light was back, even though the fixture was empty.

We moved when I was 14. I thought leaving the house meant leaving whatever it was behind. But I was wrong.

In our new place, in Houston, it started small again. I’d hear someone whisper my name just as I was falling asleep. Not a dream. Clear, right in my ear. My younger sister once asked me why I was standing outside her bedroom at night — I hadn’t been.

At 17, I was sleeping one night when I woke to the sound of my desk chair rolling slowly across the floor. No one was there. Just the chair, moving like someone had shoved it, and stopping right next to my bed.

In college, I tried to ignore it, but my roommates started noticing things. My laptop would turn on in the middle of the night. They swore they saw someone walk past our open door when I was the only one home.

Now I’m 27. Different city, different apartment. It still hasn’t stopped. Last year, I installed a baby monitor in my living room after adopting a dog, just to check on him while I was out. One night, I opened the app and saw the camera feed. My dog was staring at the corner of the room — hackles raised, teeth bared — and for just a second, there was… something there. Tall. Too tall. Blacker than the shadows.

The feed glitched out immediately.

The worst part? Last week, I woke up at 3:17 AM again. After years of it being random, the exact time is back. And I swear I heard breathing, just inches from my ear.

I don’t know what this thing is. I don’t know what it wants. But I do know one thing: it doesn’t matter where I go, it always finds me.

And I’m terrified that one day, it’s going to stop just watching.