Come in.

Leave your expectations at the door.

Within these pages are stories inspired by ordinary moments, unexpected questions, and the mysteries hidden in everyday life. Some will make you smile. Others may leave you unsettled. A few may even cause you to pause and reflect.

Whatever you find here, I hope each story stays with you long after you’ve finished reading.

Welcome.

THE FLICKERING HALLWAY

Night shift had a rhythm to it.

Pass medications.

Answer call lights.

Check on residents.

Repeat. Day in and day out.

It was just after midnight when the hallway lights began to flicker.

And in a moment, the hallway went completely dark.

I waited for the backup lights to come on.

But Nothing.

As I looked on, I saw the blank stares from the nurses at the nursing station. The lights were on where they were.

I began walking towards them.

Halfway down the hallway

something bumped into me.

Hard enough that I turned around expecting someone to apologize.

Yet no one was there.

By the time I reached the nurse’s station, the lights came back on as if nothing had happened.

Later that night, the stories started.

One nurse pulled out security footage from her home.

A white figure moved across her living room while she was at work.

Another nurse shared something a resident had told her.

“There was a little boy in the hallway.”

The resident wasn’t afraid.

But they said every time they saw him

someone on the unit passed away soon after.

I never forgot that conversation.

Especially after what happened in the hallway.

• • •

• •

A Familiar Stranger

I was staying at my mom’s house that night.
The room was freezing.
I remember pulling the blanket tighter around me.
Then I saw my mom walk past the bedroom door.
“Can you turn the heat up?” I asked.
She nodded.
And kept walking.
I rolled over expecting the room to warm up.
It never did.
The next morning I mentioned it to her.
She looked confused.
“I never walked past your room.”
I laughed at first.
Then I stopped.
Because I knew exactly what I had seen.
Or at least…
I thought I did

•

THE DISTRACTION

Have you ever felt like something was trying to convince you to surrender what already belonged to you?

Not through force. Not through fear.

But through distraction.

I woke up, but not completely.

Reality and dreaming overlapped, my mind tried to decide what was real and what was only passing through.

That was when I heard it.

Footsteps and movement in the kitchen.

The sound of cabinets opening and closing.

I assumed it was my mother.

Then I saw her.

A woman standing at the kitchen sink.

Her back was turned toward me.

Then she spoke.

“Are you sure this is yours?”

I answered yes.

The question came again.

“Are you sure?”

The third time she asked, something inside of me grew irritated.

Why does she keep asking me the same thing?

But then everything shifted.

I realized I wasn’t standing in the kitchen.

I was still in my room.

The kitchen wasn’t the place where the encounter was happening.

It was the distraction.

And when I recognized that, I saw it.

A figure standing over me.

Its attention wasn’t on my face.

It was focused on my hand.

Trying to take something from me.

Not aggressively. Not violently.

Quietly.

Because sometimes the easiest things to steal are the things we stop paying attention to.

Then I saw what it was reaching for.

A scroll.

And beside it sat a spider.

Small.

Patient.

Waiting.

I reached out and grabbed the scroll back.

The moment I did, everything shattered.