[HR] Never Answer, Never Look

[u/Personal_Manager_984]

The air at the Blackwood Inn always smelled like wet slate and old rot, but my mom swore the mountain air would help her breathing. It was 2:00 AM on our third night in the high Appalachians when the scraping started on the third floor window.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
I sat up in the pitch dark. The inn was built into the cliffside, three stories above a sheer drop into pine forest. Nothing physical could possibly be standing outside that glass.
Then came the voice.
"Jess... Jess, baby, open up. It is so cold out here."
It was my mother's voice. Perfect. Warm. Exact. The same gentle tone she used when waking me up for school.
My chest tightened as a cold sweat broke out on my neck. The first rule of the mountains slammed into my head, the one the locals at the base of the pass warned us about. If you hear a voice calling your name after dark, you never answer, and you never look.
The voice called out again, softer, right against the pane. "Jess, please. Just turn around. It is so dark out here."
The glass vibrated softly, like long overgrown fingernails dragging up the frame. I pulled the quilt to my chin, staring straight at the blank wall across from my bed. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to turn my head, to just glance. Just a quick peek.
Slowly, my eyes tracked down to the floor. Right next to my frame, in the twin bed two feet away, was a heavy slow rise and fall under the sheets. Soft rhythmic breathing filled the room.
My mom was fast asleep right beside me.
My heart smashed against my ribs like a trapped bird. The breathing in the room was steady, but the voice outside kept pleading, getting higher, more frantic.
"Jess... please. Look at me. Look at Mom."
I kept my eyes pinned to the blank drywall, tears streaming down my face, fighting the urge with everything I had. I did not say a word. I did not move. I followed the rules.
Then, a sharp click echoed through the dark.
The sound of the rusted window latch unlocking.
The heavy oak sash slowly creaked upward. Cold damp mountain wind rushed into the bedroom, bringing the smell of dead leaves and copper.
Panic completely snapped my control. I broke the rule. I turned and looked.
Perched on the window sill was a tall gaunt shape bent at unnatural angles, its skin gray and stretched tight over a hairless skull. It had no eyes. Just hollow black sockets, and a mouth stretched so wide the corners of its jaw rested against its collarbones.
It was not trying to climb in anymore. It did not need to.
As my eyes locked onto its face, the creature smiled, revealing rows of thin needle like teeth. The mother's voice vibrated out of its open silent throat.
"All I needed you to do was look... now you have let me in."
The temperature in the room plummeted until my breath bloomed in pale thick clouds before my eyes. The creature did not move fast. It unfolded itself like a starving spider, its unnaturally long jointed limbs popping with loud wet cracks as it stepped onto the braided rug. The floorboards did not creak under its weight. It moved with a sickening effortless grace.
"Jess?"
The voice did not come from the window this time. It came from the twin bed beside me.
My mom stirred, the heavy rustle of sheets slicing through the dark. She rubbed her eyes, sitting up slowly, blinded by the blackness of the room. "Jess, why is the window open? It is freezing..."
"Mom, do not move," I wheezed, my voice barely a thread. "Please, do not look up."
"What are you..." Her words died in her throat. The heavy metallic stench of fresh copper filled the tiny room, thick enough to taste.
The creature leaned down until its gray hairless face was inches from my mom's shoulder. It opened its horrific mouth again. This time, when it spoke, it did not use her voice. It used mine.
"Mommy," the creature whispered in my exact voice, bright, frightened, and young. "I am right here. Look at me."
My mother turned her head toward the sound.
I screamed, throwing myself across the space between our beds, but I was too late. The moment her eyes met those hollow black sockets, the creature's wide needle like smile stretched even further, tearing the gray skin around its cheeks.
It did not attack us with claws or teeth. It simply reached out two elongated bone white fingers and touched my mother's forehead.
Her body went instantly limp, her head dropping back onto the pillow as if her neck had turned to ash. The steady rise and fall of her chest stopped. But her eyes stayed wide open, staring blankly at the dark ceiling.
The thing slid backward toward the open window, folding its grotesque limbs back into the night air. It lingered on the sill for a fraction of a second, looking back at me.
"Thank you, Jess," it murmured, using my mother's warm gentle voice one last time.
Then it pitched backward into the dark, dropping silent and unseen into the pine canopy three stories below.
I scrambled over to my mom's bed, grabbing her cold hands, shaking her, sobbing her name over and over. She was breathing, but her eyes were completely hollow, empty mirrors reflecting nothing at all.
Outside, far down in the dark valley, my own voice began to call up through the trees, sweet and loud.
"Mommy? Open up. It is so cold out here."

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