Don’t Look Away - Poem

Don’t Look Away

Ava had always liked her grandma’s house.

It smelled like cinnamon and old books, the curtains always danced with the breeze, and the garden had a lazy, magical feel—like it could bloom into something out of a fairy tale if you just believed hard enough. But today, the air was stale, the garden was still, and the house—quiet.

Not the good kind of quiet.

The kind that made your skin crawl, like someone had pressed a heavy hand on the back of your neck.

She'd come by after school like always. Her mom worked late, and Grandma couldn’t be alone. Not after the stroke. Her speech had nearly vanished. Now she communicated through small gestures, mostly her eyes. Her gaze was sharp, alert, sometimes more than it should be.

At first, Ava thought the silence was just... ordinary. Her grandmother sat in her usual recliner by the big bay window, a soft quilt draped over her legs. She didn’t smile, didn’t nod. Just stared out at the yard.

Ava sat cross-legged on the rug with her colored pencils. Cartoons played in the background, but the volume was low. Too low. Everything felt muffled.

She noticed it then—Grandma hadn’t taken her eyes off the yard. Her face was pale. Her lips barely moved, whispering something soundless.

“Grandma?” Ava said softly. “Are you okay?”

No response.

Just a slow, deliberate blink.

Ava followed her gaze to the window.

Nothing. Just the usual scene: brittle grass, an empty swing set swaying slightly, the woods beyond. The trees were skeletal, stripped bare by the season. Ava turned back to her drawing.

Tap.

She looked up.

Grandma hadn’t moved.

Tap tap.

She turned her head slowly toward the window.

Still nothing.

But something felt wrong. The trees. Had they always been that close?

No… the fence line. That was the edge. And now, someone was standing just beyond it. A man. Dressed in black, still as a shadow, face too far away to see clearly.

She blinked and looked at her grandmother. “Do you see him?”

Grandma blinked once. Yes.

“Who is he?”

No blink. Just wide, terrified eyes.

Ava swallowed hard. “Is he dangerous?”

One blink.

She looked again.

The man was closer.

But she hadn’t seen him move.

He was now at the gate, fingers curled around the iron bars, still watching. Not waving. Not calling out.

“Is he—has he been here before?”

Another blink. Yes.

She grabbed her phone, but her hands were shaking. She checked the time: 3:42 p.m. She considered calling her mom, or the police, or someone.

But when she looked up again, the man was no longer at the gate.

He was inside the yard.

Standing just a few feet from the window.

She screamed and scrambled backward, heart hammering in her chest.

Her grandmother gasped sharply—a dry, rattling sound—and lifted a trembling hand. She pointed not at the door, not at the phone… but at the photo shelf.

Ava stumbled toward it.

There was a picture, dusty with age. Her grandma, her grandpa—long dead—and another man. Younger, but tall, with sharp shoulders and a smile too wide.

His face was scratched out.

The glass over it was cracked.

She held the photo up. “Him?”

Her grandmother blinked once.

“Yes.”

“Who is he?!”

Nothing.

Grandma just looked at her. Then at the hallway. Then back to Ava.

Ava turned toward the hallway.

The cellar door sat slightly ajar.

“Hide?” Ava asked.

One blink.

The front doorknob rattled.

She turned back toward the window—

And the man was there. Right there.

His face was pressed to the glass, pale and featureless. His eyes were hollow, black pits. His lips stretched wide—not in a smile, but in something that used to be a smile.

And the glass… was cracking.

A single fracture traced outward from where his forehead met the window.

Grandma slammed her hand down on the chair, more movement than she’d shown in weeks. Her eyes blazed with urgency. Her lips trembled. “Go.”

The voice was hoarse. Dry as dust.

Ava ran.

The hallway stretched long, dimly lit, lined with framed photos that seemed to twist and lean as she passed. Her footsteps felt like they were echoing from somewhere else. She gripped the cellar door handle and flung it open, plunging down the steps.

She hit the cold concrete floor, gasping for breath.

She hadn’t shut the door.

Footsteps creaked on the floor above.

Then silence.

The basement was black. Ava reached for the pull cord and yanked it. A bare bulb lit the room in a dull yellow wash. Shadows stretched in every direction. Boxes, canned food, old furniture… but nowhere to hide except beneath the stairs.

She crawled in and curled tight, phone clutched to her chest.

The footsteps came again.

This time on the stairs.

But… slower.

Measured.

Then, they stopped halfway.

A pause.

Then the creak of bending wood.

Something leaned down.

A whisper, breathy and wet:

“I see you.”

And then…

Silence.

The bulb above flickered.

Then popped.

Darkness.

Nothing.

She stayed like that for hours. Long after the sounds stopped. Long after her phone died.

When she finally crept back upstairs, the house was still.

But the chair by the window was empty.

No sign of her grandmother. No trail. Just the photo, face scratched out, now sitting on the floor.

The window was no longer cracked.

It was gone. A hole, yawning open into the night air.