The house on Hollow Road was never quiet, not truly. Even in the dead of night, when the world held its breath, a low hum pulsed through the walls - a vibration too faint to pinpoint, too persistent to ignore. Clara had noticed it the first night she moved in, a faint tremor in the air, like the house was exhaling something it had held for too long. She called it the simmering glitch, a private name for the unease that clung to her like damp clothes.It wasn't the creak of floorboards or the groan of old pipes. It was something else, something that flickered at the edge of her senses, like a word half-remembered. At first, she dismissed it as nerves - new house, new town, new start after the divorce. But the glitch had a rhythm, a cadence that seemed to shift when she wasn't looking. Lights dimmed for no reason. Her phone would hum with static, even when no one was on the line. Once, she swore she saw her shadow move before she did, a split-second delay that left her staring at the wall, heart hammering.Clara began to map it. She wasn't superstitious, but she was methodical. She noted the times the glitch stirred: 3:17 a.m., when the air grew thick and her dreams turned sharp. The corner of the living room, where the hum felt loudest, though no sound meter could prove it. The mirror in the upstairs hall, which seemed to hold her reflection a moment too long. She wrote it all down in a notebook, pages filling with dates, times, and fragments of unease. Glitch at 3:17 again. Felt watched. Mirror cold to the touch.She told no one. The neighbors already thought her odd, the city woman who'd bought the crumbling Victorian no one else wanted. They didn't know about the glitch, but they whispered about the house. About the family who'd lived there decades ago, the one that vanished without a trace. Clara overheard it at the general store: No bodies, no note, just gone. She didn't believe in ghosts, but she couldn't shake the feeling that the glitch was trying to tell her something - or warn her.One night, the hum grew louder, a low buzz that crawled under her skin. She followed it to the basement, a place she'd avoided since moving in. The air down there was heavy, stale, like it hadn't been breathed in years. Her flashlight caught the edges of old furniture, a cracked mirror leaning against the wall. The hum was deafening now, a pulse that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Clara's breath hitched as she saw it - a flicker in the mirror, not her reflection but something else. A shape, indistinct, shimmering like heat rising off asphalt. It moved closer, and the hum became a voice,princely, fragmented and urgent, whispering words she couldn't quite catch.She stumbled back, heart pounding, and the mirror went dark. The hum faded, but the air felt different now, charged with a presence she couldn't name. Clara didn't sleep that night. She sat at the kitchen table, notebook open, pen trembling in her hand. The glitch wasn't a fault in the house. It was something older, something trapped, something that had been waiting for her to listen.And now, it knew she was listening.The next morning, Clara tore through the house, searching for answers. She pried open the basement door again, her flashlight cutting through the gloom. The mirror stood where she'd left it, its surface dull and unreflective, as if it had swallowed the light. She hesitated, then touched it. The glass was ice-cold, and for a moment, she thought she saw her breath fog in the air. She pulled her hand back, her fingers tingling, and noticed something new: a faint outline on the floor, a rectangle of dustless wood, as if something heavy had been moved.She grabbed a crowbar from the toolbox and pried up the floorboards. Beneath them was a small, rusted metal box, its edges corroded. Her hands shook as she opened it. Inside was a bundle of papers - letters, yellowed and brittle, written in a tight, frantic script. The words were jumbled, but certain phrases stood out: It won't stop, the sound is everywhere, it sees us. There were names - Elizabeth, Thomas, Abigail - dates from 1973, and a final note, scrawled in desperation: We tried to leave. It wouldn't let us.Clara's stomach twisted. The family from the stories, the ones who vanished. She stuffed the papers into her pocket and ran upstairs, the hum rising again, louder now, like a swarm of invisible bees. She grabbed her notebook, flipping to her notes on the glitch. 3:17 a.m. Mirror cold. Watched. Her eyes darted to the clock. It was 2:58 a.m.She didn't wait. She ran to the front door, but the knob wouldn't turn. The air thickened, the hum now a roar in her ears. She spun around, and the lights flickered, casting the room in strobing shadows. The mirror from the upstairs hall was there, impossibly, standing in the corner of the living room. She hadn't moved it. She was sure of it.The hum became words, clear now, hissing from nowhere: You see me. Clara froze. In the mirror, the shape appeared again, sharper this time - a figure, tall and thin, its edges blurring like static. Its face was a smear of light, but its eyes were black, endless. It raised a hand, and the room shook, the walls vibrating with the glitch's pulse.Clara backed away, clutching the notebook. "What do you want?" she whispered.The figure tilted its head, as if puzzled. The voice crackled, a broken signal. You. The mirror glowed, and the figure stepped forward - not out of the mirror, but into it, the glass rippling like water. The hum stopped. Silence crushed the room.Clara ran. She didn't look back, didn't stop until she was outside, the cold night air burning her lungs. The house loomed behind her, dark and still, no hum, no light. She drove to the nearest motel, the letters and notebook on the seat beside her. At dawn, she read the papers again. The final note burned in her mind: It wouldn't let us.She never returned to Hollow Road. The house was sold, then abandoned again, its windows boarded up. But Clara kept the notebook, and sometimes, in the quiet of her new apartment, she'd wake at 3:17 a.m., certain she heard a faint hum, a simmering glitch that hadn't forgotten her.