A shadow outside my window. then the murders started.

I wasn't going to post this but it's been stuck in my head for years so here we go.

We lived in this quiet residential neighborhood in Seoul. The kind of street where nothing ever happens. Until it did.

It was the start of summer. I was in my room doing homework late at night when I heard something outside my window. Figured it was wind, maybe a cat. But the sound kept getting clearer. I opened the window and looked out.

There was a shadow at the end of the alley. Just. standing there.

I told myself it was just someone passing by and went back to my desk. But I couldn't sleep that night. Something felt wrong and I couldn't shake it.

Next morning the news was reporting a murder. A middle-aged man. Lived a few blocks away. Time of death? Late the previous night.

I got chills. I thought about that shadow.

A few days later cops showed up at our door doing neighbor interviews. I told them what I saw. They took it seriously, asked me to describe it in detail. All I could remember was that the figure was tall and wearing dark clothes. That was it.

Rumors spread fast. People started locking their doors before sunset, stopped going out at night. But the case just went cold. No leads. Nothing.

Then a few weeks later. I heard footsteps outside my window again.

Not random noise. actual footsteps.

I opened the window and TWO EYES were staring back at me from the dark. I screamed, ran back into my room, locked the door. Didn't sleep at all.

Next morning. another murder. Two blocks away this time.

I called the police again. Same thing. No answers.

The whole neighborhood was spiraling. People were furious at the cops, everyone beefing up their own security. But the murders kept happening.

The third victim was our next-door neighbor.

I snapped. I climbed out my window and ran after the shadow. I know. I KNOW. But I was not thinking straight.

I chased it through the alley. I was getting closer, I could almost see who it was, and then I hit the end of the alley and it was just... gone. No trace. Nothing. I stood there out of breath staring at an empty dead end.

Came home and told my parents everything. They tried to calm me down but they were scared too, you could tell. We locked every door and window and I promised not to do anything like that again.

But then the fourth victim.

It was my little sibling.

We were all in shock. Police still had nothing. I had nothing. I genuinely could not see a way through it.

But I didn't give up. I started working with the police to investigate the area myself. And that's when I found something. There was an abandoned house near us, and people had been saying they heard weird sounds coming from it.

We went in with the cops. The place looked like it'd been empty for years from the outside but inside there were signs of recent use. Tools. Evidence. The kind of stuff that makes your stomach drop when you realize someone had been living in there, watching.

Police tracked him down fast after that. Caught him.

He was someone from the neighborhood. Mentally unstable. Didn't remember any of it.

The street went quiet again after that. And honestly things went mostly back to normal.

But I still think about that shadow. The one I saw at the end of the alley that first night. Before any of this happened. Before I knew what it meant.