'What An Weird dream.'

Short story, what would you do in that situation?

"Your shoelace is untied," the voice said. Not from beside you—from inside your head. You blink down at your boots. The laces are snug, double-knotted.

The bedroom window is cracked open. A breeze should be rustling the curtains, but the fabric hangs stiff, like painted scenery. Your alarm clock reads 1:39 AM in dull red digits. The usual hum of the fridge downstairs is absent. So is the creak of the house settling. Just your breathing, uneven and too loud.

You step onto the landing. The floorboards don’t groan. Outside, the oak tree in the yard stands motionless, branches frozen mid-sway as if someone hit pause. No crickets. No distant cars. Even your footsteps sound muffled, like you’re walking on packed snow.

The streetlight casts a sharp, colorless glow. Shadows stretch toward you, elongating in a way that defies the angle of the light. One peels away from the gutter and inches forward, liquid and deliberate. You don’t run. You can’t look away.

Something glints in your peripheral vision—an empty swing set creaking with no wind to push it. The chains groan, slow and rhythmic, like a clock ticking backward. The air smells stale, dry, like old newspaper left in an attic. Static prickles against your skin, raising the hairs on your arms.

A whisper from behind: "Turn around.” You don’t. The ringing starts low, a mosquito whine buried deep in your eardrums. It climbs, sharpening into a needle-thin frequency that makes your teeth ache. The shadows at your feet ripple, pooling into shapes too jagged to be human.

Then—blink. The alarm clock reads 1:41 AM. Birds chirp outside. The oak tree sways, ordinary again. Your pulse hammers against your ribs. The untied shoelace lies coiled on the floor, undone. You're back in your bedroom and just woke up, what a weird dream..