5-min FreeWrite: The Ear Brush of the Unseen

Ebele sat in the dimly lit room, the candle on her desk flickering as she wrote in her journal. The old house creaked around her, the kind of sound she had grown used to over the years.

She had lived here alone since Papa passed, but the walls held more than just echoes of the past.

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Tonight, the air was heavier. A strange stillness settled over the room, and for the first time in a long while, she felt… watched.

Then it came.

A featherlight ear brush, so faint she almost convinced herself it was nothing. A stray strand of hair, maybe. But then…

A breath.

Her hand froze over the page, her pulse hammering. Slowly, she turned, but there was nothing. There was just the weak glow from the candle with the heavy curtains drawn against the night.

She swallowed hard. “Papa?”

Silence.

A chill spread over her skin. Not from the cold, but from the way she knew, deep in her bones, that she was not alone.

The candle flickered again, this time as if in response. And then, soft and distant, she heard it.

A whisper.

Not from outside. Not from the wind.

From right beside her ear.

And so… she ran.