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"Where it Sits"

     Sleep escaped me as I slowly paced back and forth in the kitchen, stumbling with every few steps. I felt almost drunk with how disoriented I felt.
    It had been weeks since the eerie feeling crept over me.
    I would be attempting to sleep, much like most nights. I would listen to the crickets chirping outside, maybe the occasional car zooming by. It was almost soothing to hear the outside world as it made me feel less alone somehow. Like the world itself was at peace.
    But that's when I heard it. Call me paranoid, but my house was relatively new. Never had I heard the floorboards creak or any subtle thuds of the house settling. Yet, that one night, I could swear I heard something in the room with me. I could swear it sounded like maybe the rustling of clothes, or a soft creaking sound. It was subtle enough that I felt I needed to hold my breath to hear it, as even a single exhale would mask it.
    I would turn to face the sound, but could see nothing. I tried resting again, and still the sound came. Very slight, like the whispering wind was blowing softly against my window. But it didn't feel quite so distant.
    You know how when you're walking past a room and you can tell a TV is on by the silent ringing? There's no volume omitting from the speakers. In fact, the screen is just a plain still image with no sound. Yet, just by being close enough to the room without peering inside, you can tell its on? This was like that. A strange and unexplained sixth sense. Even through the silence you could just feel that something was in the room with you. Something that wasn't supposed to be there. Something that remained unmoving, but something as simple as the way the wind blows past it gives it shape, giving it away to your senses.
    This is what has been haunting me for the past few weeks. Something I could never prove and quite frankly never saw, never truly heard any proof that it was there. But I knew that it was. Somehow. Watching me. Or perhaps waiting for the perfect time to strike, to reveal itself to me so that I may never be able to rest easy again.
    Perhaps it loved this twisted game of leaving me too paranoid to sleep. It knew that I knew it was there. And it knew that not revealing itself was far scarier to me than ripping the bandage off and plastering its presence on the walls.
    But tonight I was going to catch it. Tonight, I would be turning on some cameras. I'd be using an audio recording to pick up any signs of it.
    And as I wrote out my plans, I heard it. That familiar subtle noise behind me. It must know. And it's not very happy about it...

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