horror story: the day I made eye contact with her

"There's something messed up about eyes... once you meet them, you can't forget them."

He said that, then stirred his ramen broth like he wasn't dropping the creepiest thing I'd ever heard. I just shrugged. Figured it was nonsense.

but then I saw those eyes too.

---

Last winter I was doing a working holiday visa in Hamburg, Germany. Small hostel, old building, cozy enough. The kind of place backpackers and short-term travelers cycle through constantly.

The hostel had one rule that nobody ever explained.

"Never open the curtains in room 302."

Just. Don't. No reason given. That's it.

First day there, I got assigned to clean that room. The curtains were halfway open already. Gray German sky outside. And across the street, standing completely still.

A woman.

Black coat. Short bob. A face that looked... dried out somehow. She was staring directly at the window. At room 302. At ME.

We made eye contact.

I yanked the curtain shut and got out of there. And that night. THAT NIGHT. The nightmares started.

---

Every dream, same alley. Narrow, curved, always foggy. Dream-me walking like someone's behind me, always ending up at a dead end. And she was there.

She never said my name. But she was absolutely talking to me.

"You saw me. You can't forget me now."

---

Weird stuff kept happening after that. One morning a guest who'd stayed in 302 came to check out looking completely pale.

"Someone was watching me from the window all night... from inside. I was alone in there, I know I was."

I went up to check. There were faint handprints on the glass. And in the middle of them, a smear that looked like someone had drawn an eye.

That evening I finally asked the owner about it. He didn't say a word, just took me down to the basement storage. There was an old photograph.

The building that used to stand on that spot before the hostel was built. During wartime, a foreign woman had been staying there. When the city got bombed and the building collapsed, she was the last one found inside.

She'd gone blind, apparently. From staring out the window for too long. Just... froze like that.

---

That night I dreamed again. This time she was reaching her hand out toward me.

"Now it's your turn to see."

I woke up. Pre-dawn. The window was open a crack.

And through the curtains.

Those eyes.

She wasn't in the dream anymore. She was outside. Looking at me. In real life.

---

I left the hostel pretty much immediately after that. Flew back to Korea, tried to forget the whole thing.

but last night.

there were handprints on my bedroom window.

And someone came back into my dreams.

"You made eye contact with me, remember."