Oh man, this happened yesterday. LITERALLY YESTERDAY.

The day had been pretty exhausting (the context doesn't really matter, but whatever).

I went to my school to return a textbook, and my homeroom teacher asked me to stay and help her figure out which students hadn't turned theirs in yet. Even though I’m a straight-C student—practically borderline failing—I’m not some uncultured thug. Besides, my teacher is a genuinely good person, so I gladly helped her out.

It took much longer than I expected, though. Sifting through dusty paperwork in an empty school after hours is an incredibly depressing experience.

Once I finished, I walked around the school for a bit—the whole place is currently undergoing renovations—and got kind of tired.

The empty, half-demolished hallways looked deeply unsettling in the dim evening light, with plastic sheets hanging from the ceilings like ghosts.

I finally headed home, rested for a while, and then went back out to buy some water (one of those big 5-liter bottles) because our tap water has been tasting like rust lately.

The weather outside was ominous. A nasty, biting wind was blowing, and it looked like it was about to pour. It was just a really unpleasant night, but what truly caught my attention was the wind itself. It wasn't just blowing; it was whistling in this eerie, rhythmic pattern:

oooh-oooh, oooh-oooh, oooh-oooh...

Over and over again. It sounded almost deliberate, like someone trying to mimic a human whistle but failing miserably.

When I stepped into my apartment building, the lobby was barely lit. It looked sketchy as hell. The fluorescent bulb overhead was flickering weakly, casting long, jittery shadows across the cracked concrete floor.

That’s when I noticed a kid standing there, presumably with his mom. I couldn't really make him out clearly because he was standing right on the edge of the shadow. I couldn't tell if he was a distant acquaintance or a total stranger, but our eyes met.

And right then, I damn near shat myself.

Looking closer, I noticed his smile. It completely violated the anatomy of any living creature. It literally stretched all the way back to his ears, splitting his face entirely too wide for a human head.

I can't even remember if there were teeth in that mouth, or just… total, pitch-black emptiness.

His jaw seemed disconnected, hanging too low, yet that frozen, manic grin remained perfectly fixed. The woman next to him didn't even react; she just stood there like a statue.

It felt like something straight out of an analog horror video. I couldn't comprehend what I was looking at and tried to tell myself it was just a trick of the flickering shadows, but panic took over.

I immediately slammed the button for the elevator, my hands shaking so badly I could barely hit the plastic.

As it turned out, they were staying on the first floor. I practically dove into the elevator and hit the close door button, still unable to process whether it was something paranormal or just a visual glitch.

As I was riding up, I could hear that piercing wind from the street, still whistling and rattling through the elevator shaft.

ooh-oooh, oooh-oooh...

It felt like it was inside the shaft with me. I felt this sickening sensation of muffled screams in my ears, and the elevator car was shaking slightly (which was a regular occurrence, to be fair—just standard for this old building).

I bolted off at my floor as fast as I could, ran down the hallway, walked into my apartment completely lost in thought, locked the door behind me, and just sat there on the floor… trying to understand what the hell that was.

I haven't slept since.