That night, she double-checked the locks anyway. Front door. Back door. The little latch above the kitchen window. Everything was secure. She told herself she was being paranoid. She told herself exhaustion did this—made your brain reach for threats so it could feel sharp again. But the next afternoon, it got stranger.
She came home from work and found a faint scuff on the wall by the downstairs bathroom—gray streaks at about waist height, like something hard had scraped and braced there. In the hallway mirror, a smeared corner where no one ever touched. And in the living room, the side table had shifted a few inches, just enough that Julie noticed.