Rania calls her grandmother every Sunday evening, same time, same routine, ever since her grandfather passed away and her grandmother started living alone. Lately, something in these calls feels subtly wrong, a fraction of a second off, like watching a video that hasn’t quite finished loading properly. Rania can’t explain it. She also can’t stop noticing it.
Table of Contents
Part 1: Sunday Calls
Rania had called her grandmother every Sunday evening for the past two years, ever since her grandfather’s passing had left the older woman living alone in the same house they’d shared for nearly fifty years.
The calls followed a comfortable, familiar rhythm: her grandmother sitting in her favorite armchair in the hallway, an antique mirror mounted on the wall behind her, the same worn floral wallpaper visible in the background week after week.
“How’s everything this week, Grandma?” Rania asked during a fairly ordinary Sunday call, settling back against her own couch.
“Quiet, as always,” her grandmother said, smiling warmly. “This old house doesn’t make much noise these days, just me rattling around in it.”
Rania laughed softly, the familiar comfort of their weekly routine settling over her exactly as it always did. It was only after they’d said their goodbyes that evening, reviewing the call briefly in her mind, that something felt oddly, indefinably off.
Part 2: The Delay
The following Sunday, Rania noticed it more clearly: a slight, almost imperceptible delay between her grandmother’s words and her lips actually moving to form them, like watching a poorly synced video.
“Is your internet connection alright?” Rania asked. “Your video seems slightly delayed tonight.”
Her grandmother glanced at her own screen, confused. “Looks perfectly normal from here,” she said. “Maybe it’s something on your end, dear.”
Rania dismissed it as a technical glitch, though the small unease lingered uncomfortably at the edges of her thoughts for the rest of the evening.
By the third week, the delay had become impossible to ignore entirely, her grandmother’s expressions shifting a fraction of a second after her actual words, an unsettling, subtle mismatch that made Rania’s skin prickle slightly each time she noticed it.
“Grandma, has anyone been by to check on you lately?” Rania asked carefully, unsure exactly how to voice her growing unease. “Any visitors, or repairs, anything unusual at all?”
“Just me and this quiet old house,” her grandmother said, her voice as warm and familiar as ever, though something about her expression, delayed as it now clearly was, felt harder to fully read than usual.
Part 3: The Reflection
It was during their fourth call that Rania noticed something considerably more disturbing than a simple video delay.
Behind her grandmother, in the antique hallway mirror that had hung on that wall for as long as Rania could remember, she caught a brief, flickering glimpse of movement, a shape shifting slightly in the reflection, though her grandmother herself sat perfectly still in her armchair.
“Grandma,” Rania said slowly, her heart beginning to pound. “Is someone else in the house with you right now?”
Her grandmother’s expression, delayed as always, shifted into confusion a beat too late. “Just me, dear,” she said. “Why would you—”
The call disconnected abruptly, the screen freezing on her grandmother’s slightly delayed, confused expression before going completely black.
Rania called back immediately, her hands trembling slightly. Her grandmother answered normally, without any apparent delay this time.
“We got disconnected,” her grandmother said, sounding entirely unbothered. “You were asking me something, I think? I’m afraid I’ve already forgotten what.”
Part 4: What the Mirror Showed
Rania decided, without fully articulating her reasoning even to herself, to visit her grandmother in person the following weekend rather than simply calling.
The house looked exactly as it always had, warm and familiar, her grandmother greeting her at the door with her usual gentle smile, seemingly perfectly fine, no signs of distress or unusual visitors anywhere in sight.
“You didn’t need to drive all this way, dear,” her grandmother said, settling them both into the kitchen with tea. “I’m perfectly alright, I promise.”
Walking through the hallway later that evening, Rania noticed the antique mirror had been carefully covered with a soft cloth, something she’d never once seen in all her previous visits.
“Grandma,” she asked carefully, “why is the mirror covered?”
Her grandmother paused for a long moment before answering, her expression suddenly harder to read than Rania had ever noticed it being in person. “Old houses hold onto things sometimes,” she said quietly. “I started feeling like someone was standing just behind my reflection lately, watching, whenever I passed by. Silly, probably. But I feel better with it covered, so covered it stays.”
Rania stood in the hallway for a long moment, staring at the softly draped cloth, remembering the brief, flickering shape she’d glimpsed during their video call days earlier.
She didn’t ask her grandmother to uncover it. Some things, she decided, quietly and without fully examining why, were better left exactly as her grandmother had chosen to leave them.
The End
Key Vocabulary
| Word | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | (here) a regular, repeated pattern in how something happens. | “Their weekly calls had settled into a comfortable rhythm.” |
| Indefinably | in a way that is hard to describe or explain clearly. | “The room felt indefinably different after the renovation.” |
| Prickle | a slight stinging or tingling feeling, often from fear or cold. | “A prickle of unease ran down her spine.” |
| Disturbing | causing worry, fear, or discomfort. | “The disturbing news kept him awake all night.” |
| Articulate | (here) to express something clearly in words or thoughts. | “She struggled to articulate exactly why she felt uneasy.” |
| Draped | covered loosely with cloth or fabric. | “A white sheet was draped over the old furniture.” |
Quick Check
- What routine has Rania followed with her grandmother for the past two years?
- What strange thing does Rania first notice during their video calls?
- What does Rania briefly see in the mirror behind her grandmother during the fourth call?
- What does Rania discover about the mirror when she visits her grandmother in person?
- Why do you think Rania decides not to ask her grandmother to uncover the mirror? Would you have asked more questions in her situation?
Enjoyed this eerie tale? Continue the suspense with The Door at 3:03 AM: A B1 Horror Story.
