The Black Cat at the Window

Every night at exactly 2:13 a.m., a black cat appeared outside Mia's bedroom window.

It never meowed. It never moved. It simply sat in the flower bed, staring at her with bright yellow eyes. Her parents said it belonged to a neighbor, but Mia knew something was wrong. Each night, the cat looked a little larger. First it was the size of an ordinary house cat. Then it grew as large as a dog. By the seventh night, its head nearly reached the bottom of her window.

Unable to sleep, Mia searched old town records online and found stories about a creature that lived in the nearby forest, a wendigo that could disguise itself as lost animals to lure people outside. The stories claimed it always watched its victims for seven nights before calling them into the woods. That same night, Mia woke to a scratching sound on the glass. The cat was standing on two legs now, its claws dragging across the windowpane. It smiled, revealing rows of needle-like teeth.

Then she heard a soft meow from beneath her bed.

Frozen with fear, Mia slowly looked down. Two yellow eyes blinked back at her from the darkness. The thing at the window wasn't trying to get in.

It was trying to keep her from seeing what was already inside the room.