寂静之夜

第 2 部分

Lucy woke up from a nightmare, her heart pounding and cold sweat soaking through her clothes.

Lately, she had been having the same dream over and over: she pushed her husband off the rooftop, and in an instant, their bodies switched places, and she was the one falling. The feeling of weightlessness was so real that she thought she had truly died, her soul plunging into an unknown space.

She struggled to sit up. Outside, lightning flashed and thunder roared, the curtains flapping wildly in the wind. She sat there dazed for a long while before finally confirming that she was indeed awake.

But she distinctly remembered closing the windows before bed. In the early spring, when the central heating had just been turned off, it was the coldest time of the year. She always slept with the heater on. Who could have opened the window?

A chill ran down her spine. This wasn't the first time something strange had happened.

Two months ago, on an ordinary morning, she went to make coffee and found the coffee machine already on, with warm coffee still in it. She froze. Ever since her husband's death, she rarely used the coffee machine, preferring to brew a hand-poured cup herself for the ritual of it. She checked the machine—there was no timer set, and no one else had been in the apartment. That warm coffee seemed to prove that someone, or something, had entered her life without her knowing.

Though unsettled, she tried to convince herself it was just a random mistake. But a few days later, something new happened. She found a half-full glass of water on the table when she woke up, even though she never drank water after ten at night to avoid puffiness around her eyes.

Terrified, she immediately contacted the building's management to check the security footage. However, the building housed several small companies, and apart from the lobby and elevators, there were no cameras in the common areas. She reviewed the footage but found no clues.

She could tell the building manager was being polite but clearly didn't believe her, thinking she was overly paranoid.

The following week passed without incident, and Lucy nearly forgot about the eerie occurrences. She began to relax, thinking life was finally getting back to normal. But just as she started to breathe easier, a sudden strange event turned her world upside down again.

One morning, she woke up feeling someone's eyes on her. She opened her eyes to see a familiar watch on her bedside table—her late husband's most cherished item, which she had packed away in the attic. How did it end up here?

Fear gripped her as she screamed and fell out of bed, her heart racing. When she finally calmed down and looked again, the watch was still there, lying silently as if it had never left.

Lucy couldn't take it anymore and called the police with trembling hands.

The officers arrived promptly and conducted a thorough search of her home. The doors and windows were intact, with no signs of forced entry. They reviewed the security footage from that day, but there were no suspicious individuals entering or leaving the building. In the end, the police, trying to be helpful, suggested she might have been sleepwalking and retrieved the watch herself, recommending she see a psychologist.

Despite her certainty that she hadn't sleepwalked, she had no way to refute their explanation. There was no physical harm, no missing property—just the mysterious appearance of a watch. Without concrete evidence, the police couldn't open a case.

After the officers left, Lucy stayed awake all night. Her anxiety lasted an entire week, during which she saw her reflection in the mirror grow more and more haggard, with sunken eyes and hair falling out in clumps. She knew she was on the verge of a breakdown if this continued.