Midnight has passed, and in the stillness of these hours, the hauntings are never silent.

This is Real Ghost Stories Online.

After midnight.

Hannah learned early that bravery had categories.

There was the kind people praised, the kind that showed up in daylight. She had that.

She could keep her voice steady when someone else raised theirs. She could walk into unfamiliar

places alone. She could take on hard jobs, hard conversations, hard years, and come out looking

composed. Then there was the other kind of bravery, the kind that only

mattered at night when no one was watching and the room felt subtly wrong. Hannah never bragged about

that one because she wasn't sure she had it. Her first memory of fear didn't come from a horror

movie or a story told it a sleepover.

It came from her own bedroom when she was eight in a house.

Her mother insisted was safe because it had good locks in a nice neighborhood.

Her closet had no doors, just a sheer curtain that hung from a rod, soft and slightly translucent.

During the day it looked harmless like something chosen for style.

At night, with the room dark, it looked like a veil. That night, Hannah woke from a nightmare

so sharp it left her breath stuck halfway in. In the dream, a man-shaped shadow stepped

through the curtain as if the fabric were smoke. He didn't claw or lunge.

He simply walked to the side of her bed and stood there, head angled toward her face, patient and

quiet. She woke with a dream still stuck to her skin. She stared at the ceiling, waiting

for her heart to slow down enough to think. She told herself, it was only sleep.

The body did strange things when frightened.

...