Lodging

I had to temporarily move in with my distant elderly aunt to lodge there after an accident happened in my family. This is a very old two-story small building, with yellowed wall plaster, and the stairs creak loudly when you step on them. The old lady said all the rooms on the second floor were locked, told me to only stay in the bedroom by the window on the first floor, and absolutely never go upstairs at midnight, nor knock on the doors on the second floor. The first few days were completely peaceful. The old lady didn't talk much, she made dinner for me every evening, and went back to her own room to rest early right after we finished eating. Around the fifth day of my stay, I started hearing sounds at night. It was a soft, intermittent knocking sound coming from the direction of the second floor, "Tap, tap...", with a very slow rhythm. I asked the old lady if there was something upstairs, she just shook her head with a dark face, said it was the wood of the old house expanding and contracting with temperature changes, told me not to overthink it and go to sleep early. After that day, the knocking sound appeared on time every night. Sometimes it was knocking on the floor, sometimes it sounded like the tiny scratching noise of nails scraping against wood. One night, I woke up feeling thirsty. By the moonlight, I saw a thin shadow swaying back and forth under my door. I held my breath and didn't dare move. After a while, the shadow disappeared. The next morning, I told the old lady about this, she stroked the top of my head after listening, smiled and said I was just having a nightmare. Two days later, I couldn't hold back my curiosity. When the old lady went out to buy groceries, I quietly walked to the stairway leading to the second floor. All the doors had rusted locks hanging on them, except for the innermost one, whose lock was loose, and it opened with a light push. The room was full of dust, and all the furniture was covered with white cloth. Right in the middle of the room stood a tall full-length mirror. I walked in front of the mirror and looked at myself. But the me in the mirror moved half a beat slower. I raised my hand, and the person in the mirror raised their hand a few seconds later. I stepped back one step, the person in the mirror didn't follow, they just stood there, looking at me quietly. I was so scared that I turned around and ran straight downstairs. As soon as I reached the first floor, I ran right into the old lady who came back carrying groceries. The old lady saw me coming down the stairs, the smile on her face vanished immediately. That night, the knocking sound never rang again. In the middle of the night, I felt someone sitting on the edge of my bed. The next day, the neighbors found that both the old lady and I had disappeared from this small building.