From the day they brought their baby home, the black dog named Muc suddenly became a constant guardian of the bedroom. At first, Son and his wife thought it was a good sign: the dog was protecting the baby, guarding the door. But after just three nights, their peace of mind was shattered.

On the fourth night, at exactly 2:13 a.m., Mic stiffened on all fours, his fur standing on end like needles, growling at the crib beside the bed. He didn’t bark or lunge, just growled, a long, staccato sound, as if someone were muffling his voice from the shadows. Sơn turned on the lamp and went to soothe him. The baby slept peacefully, lips twitching as if sucking, not crying at all. But Mic’s eyes were fixed under the bed. He crouched down, stretched, stuck his nose into the dusty, dark space, and hissed. Sơn knelt down, used his phone’s flashlight, and saw only a few boxes, spare diapers, and a thick, collected shadow like a bottomless pit.

On the fifth night, the same thing happened at 2:13. On the sixth, Sơn’s wife, Hân, woke with a start when she heard a scratching sound, slow, deliberate, like nails dragging on wood. “It must be mice,” she said, her voice shaking. Sơn moved the crib closer to the closet and set a trap in the corner. Still, Mic stared at the bed frame, letting out short grunts whenever the baby moved.

By the seventh night, Sơn decided not to sleep. He sat on the edge of the bed with the lights off, leaving only the hallway lamp casting a golden sliver into the room. His phone was ready to record.

At 1:58 a.m., a gust swept through the half-closed window, bringing the damp smell of the garden.
By 2:10, the house felt hollow, drained.
By 2:13, Mic leaped up, not growling immediately, but looking at Sơn, pressing his nose against his hand, urging him on with his eyes. Then he crept forward, as if on the lookout, and pointed his snout under the bed. His growl erupted, deep, drawn-out, preventing anything from coming out.

Son lifted the light on his phone. In that brief flash, he saw movement. Not a mouse. A hand, pale greenish, smeared with dirt, coiled like a spider. The beam flickered as his hand shook. Son stumbled backward, hitting the cabinet. Han sat up, asking panicked questions. The baby slept on, milk moistening its lips.

Son grabbed his son, shielded him behind his back, and grabbed an old baseball bat. Muc lunged under the bed, his growls turning into angry barks, claws scraping. From the darkness came a frozen scraping sound, then silence. The lights flickered. Something retreated inside, long and fast, leaving a trail of black dust.

Hân sobbed, urging him to call the police. Sơn’s shaking hands dialed. Within ten minutes, two officers arrived. One crouched, shining his flashlight as he moved boxes aside. Mic blocked the crib, baring his teeth. “Calm down,” the officer said evenly. “Let me check…” Under the bed was empty. Just churned dust, claw marks snaking across the floorboards.

The officer’s light stopped on a crack in the wall near the headboard: the wood had been cut just enough for a hand to reach. He tapped; it sounded hollow. “There’s a cavity. Did this house have renovations?”

Son shook his head. At that moment, the baby moaned. Muc’s eyes glittered; he moved his head toward the crack in the wall and grunted. From the darkness, a harsh, human whisper filtered out: “Shhh… don’t wake him…”

No one in the house slept after that whisper.

The youngest officer, Dũng, called for reinforcements. While he waited, he tore off the wooden baseboard at the base of the wall. Strangely, the nails were new, shiny against the old, weather-stained wood. “Someone tampered with this a month or two ago,” he said. Sơn’s throat went dry. He had bought the house from an elderly couple three months earlier. They had said they only repainted the living room and fixed the ceiling, not the bedroom.

With a crowbar, Dũng tore away the wood. Behind it was a hollow cavity, black as the throat of a cave. The damp stench mingled with another smell: spoiled milk and talcum powder. Mic pulled Sơn back, grunting. Hân grabbed the baby, his heart racing. Dũng shone his light inside.

“Anyone there?” Silence. But when the beam crossed, everyone saw: small baby items (a pacifier, a plastic spoon, a crumpled washcloth) and dozens of tally marks scratched into the wood, crisscrossed like a net.

When the backup team arrived, they inserted a small camera and attached a dirty cloth bundle. Inside was a thick, worn notebook with shaky feminine handwriting:
“Day 1: Sleep here. I hear her breath.”
“Day 7: The dog knows. He stands guard, but doesn’t bite.”
“Day 19: I must be quiet. I just want to touch her cheek, hear her cry closer. Don’t wake anyone.”

The entries were short, frantic, as if scribbled in the dark.

“Who lived here before?” an officer asked. Son vaguely remembered: three months ago, during the handover, an elderly couple had been accompanied by a young woman. She kept her head down, her hair covering half her face. The older woman had said, “She’s preoccupied, she doesn’t talk much.” At the time, they hadn’t paid attention.

The camera revealed more: the cavity ran along the wall, forming a narrow, hidden tunnel. In one place, there was a makeshift nest: a thin blanket, a pillowcase, and empty milk cans. On the floor, a new scribble: “Day 27: 2:13. Breathe harder.”

2:13: It’s the baby’s nighttime feeding time. Somehow, her son’s routine had been tracked, from within the walls.

“It’s not a ghost,” Dũng said grimly. “It’s a person.” Investigating further, they found broken window latches and dirty footprints on the rear roof. Someone had been coming and going until recently.

At dawn, Dũng advised: “Lock the room tonight. Leave the dog inside with one of us. We’ll see if it comes back.”

That night, at 2:13, the fabric covering the crack in the wall contracted. A thin, dirt-stained hand emerged. A gaunt face followed: sunken eyes, matted hair, cracked lips. But what caught their attention most was its gaze fixed on the crib, like thirst in human form.

She whispered again, “Shhh… don’t wake him up… I just want to look…”

It was the young woman, Vy, the niece of the house’s previous owners. She had lost her baby late in her pregnancy, fallen into a deep depression, and somehow made her way back to this house. For nearly a month, she had lived in the walls, clinging to the sound of a child’s breathing as her only tether to reality.

The officers gently coaxed her. Before leaving, Vy looked at the crib once more and whispered, “Shhh…”

Later, the hollow spaces were sealed and new floors were installed. Sơn and Hân installed cameras, but the real guardian remained Mic. He no longer grunted at 2:13. He simply lay beside the crib, sometimes snorting softly as if to say, ”  I’m here.”

A month later, at the hospital for vaccinations, Hân saw Vy outside, clean, hair tied neatly, holding a cloth doll, smiling slightly as he spoke to Officer Dũng. Hân didn’t come closer. She simply pressed her cheek against her baby, grateful for the sound of steady breathing and for the dog who had felt what no one else dared to face: sometimes the monsters under the bed aren’t evil, but simply pain with nowhere else to go.