It was just late afternoon, when the calm atmosphere of a neighbourhood was interrupted by noises. People looked out their windows and saw a moving truck backing into a driveway of one of the houses.

However they were unfazed. In a neighbourhood like that, it was alive. Everyone always knew.

The newcomer turned out to be a young woman. The moving in went off without a hitch. Tired, the girl sat sown on the porch and slowly drank fizzy lemonade to cool down.

She was started by a loud scrape and she whipped her head fast towards the direction of the sound. An old lady in a shawl was staring at the door, muttering incoherent words as she repeatedly scratched the door.

Startled the girl stood up, and she felt angry. She charged towards the old lady, yelling. The old lady stopped and turned to her, eyes distant yet oddly focused on her. The girl felt intense hatred as the lady charged towards her, making her flinch. When she reluctantly put down her hand, the woman was gone. Bewildered, she thought to herself that things might get better. She really couldn’t afford to move back out just yet.

The young girl sighed and walked towards the door, where she saw the clearly etched words, “BE CAREFUL”.

It was the next day and the girl was still shaken from the previous day’s ordeal. So much so, that she dropped a glass cup. She hurriedly swept it up and moved to throw it in a bin, when a voice echoed, saying not to. She turned around, but no one was there.

She tried to throw it away when the voice came back. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you” the voice sang, clearly mad. “Any glass broken in the house must be buried outside”

“Shut it!” the girl yelled, as she dumped the glass in anyway.

“Oh you poor foolish girl” the voice’s laughter kept increasing, making the girl nervous, till it vanished.

The girl went to bed tired and full after eating dinner. Chaos started seconds later. The ground started shaking violently. Multiple voices kept appearing and a violent wind tore through the house, leaving it without a roof. The girl screamed as she was thrown into a wall.

Her finger bled as she desperately tried to cling unto the ground, but it was futile. She looked out one of her windows and saw the figures of the now wide awake neighbours. She knew they were all smiling, though cloaked in darkness. Her cries for help were ignored as a force dragged her out of the house.

The house was rearranged like nothing happened