There's something that has been troubling me lately.

It always happens after I get home from work. I'm an office worker, but since I work at a cram school, my shift doesn't start until early afternoon. In return, I never get home until after midnight. Yesterday was no exception—I'm pretty sure it was past 12:30 AM when I got back.

Trying not to wake my wife and daughters, I gently opened the heavy iron front door and locked it from the inside. I set my wallet and keys on the entryway cabinet, then tiptoed quietly into the living room. When I switched jobs, I moved into a company-leased apartment. It was about ten years old when we moved in, so it must be around fifteen years old now. My wife complains sometimes that city gas is expensive, but the interior is clean, and the kids and I like the place well enough.

I took off my tie and changed from my suit into sleepwear. For someone like me, whose daily schedule barely overlaps with my family's on weekdays, this was practically my only quiet moment of relaxation all day. At least, it used to be—until these creepy occurrences started recently.

I get more than enough fluorescent lighting at work, so I hate bright rooms; I only turn on the kitchen light and the desk lamp. I put on some soothing music, pour myself a drink, and browse through the books on my shelf at the small desk that serves as my study. That is my simple pleasure.

When it comes to reading, I'm practically an omnivore and will read almost anything, but lately I've taken a liking to weird fiction and horror stories. I prefer the older stuff. Edogawa Ranpo is great, but my personal favorite these days is Yumeno Kyusaku. Some of you might have read his novel Dogra Magra. In Yumeno's work, "somnambulism"—what we now call sleepwalking—often makes an appearance.

Could that be what is tormenting my family and me as well?

I usually drink and flip through pages until three or four in the morning, but as it gets close to dawn and I grow sleepy, I brush my teeth and get ready for bed. Lately, this is the time of night that fills me with the deepest dread.

After brushing my teeth and using the bathroom, I rely on the light from my cell phone to crawl into my futon. Leaving the living room, you pass the entryway to find the family bedroom in the back. We don't have fancy beds. All four of us sleep on futons laid out on the floor. Facing into the room, my oldest daughter sleeps on the left. I sleep next to her, and my youngest daughter and wife sleep on the right. The kids are getting big, so it's getting a bit cramped, but I still think it's a blessing that we can all sleep together like this.

The small screen of my phone cast a faint glow, dimly illuminating the bedroom. I had to do this, otherwise I'd end up stepping on one—or on bad nights, both—of my kids, so I needed just enough light to see without waking anyone up. As I crouched near my pillow to crawl into bed, the thought "Not again..." flashed through my mind, and I froze on the spot.

The phone light on my left illuminated my oldest daughter. But she wasn't sleeping peacefully in her futon. With her back to the wall, she was sitting upright on her knees, facing straight toward me. Her eyes seemed half-open, but I couldn't bring myself to look her in the face.

On my right, the light revealed a strange sight that I had now grown unnervingly accustomed to. My wife was sitting upright on her knees in the back, facing me. And in front of her, my youngest daughter was sitting neatly on her knees as well.

The first time I saw it, I was so terrified that the thought of waking them never even crossed my mind; I just pulled the futon over my head and trembled. Later on, I summoned up the courage to call out, "Hey, what's wrong, everyone? Are you awake? Hey, what is this? Stop it, you're scaring me," but I've never gotten a response.

I assumed tonight would be no different. Still, I tried speaking up just in case: "Again? Dad's going to sleep now. If you girls stay up doing that, you'll oversleep tomorrow." But when I saw the whites of my youngest daughter's half-lidded eyes reflecting the light of my phone, I reached my absolute limit.

Yet, creepy as all this was, if it were simply a matter of the same thing happening over and over, I wouldn't have bothered putting together such a long story for you all to read. The reason I felt compelled to write this down today is because when I came home tonight, my wife was unusually still awake, and she spoke to me.

She started asking me strange questions out of nowhere, like "Have you been sleeping lately?" or "Has anything bad happened at work?" I answered, "Nothing in particular." I couldn't very well bring myself to tell her the truth: that I wasn't sleeping well because almost every night at dawn, she and the kids were sitting bolt upright on their futons with their eyes rolled back.

My wife still had a strange look on her face, as if she had more to say, so I asked her what was wrong. Hesitantly choosing her words, she told me something that made my blood run cold.

"You always stay up late, don't you? So I figure you get into bed pretty late, but... around dawn, it's like you're having a nightmare or something..."

"At dawn? I usually just get into bed around dawn. Did something happen?"

"Yeah, it's hard to explain... but our oldest daughter said she was scared too, so I felt like I had to tell you. You see... every day at dawn, you're sitting upright on your futon. No matter how much she or I try to wake you up when we notice, you won't wake up. You don't do anything, but you just sit there silently with your eyes half-open, and it's... kind of creepy..."

...For a while, I was rendered speechless.

That's nonsense—you guys are the ones sitting upright on your knees facing me with your eyes rolled back at dawn. I finally managed to tell my wife the truth, but she insisted that wasn't possible and that I must be having bad dreams.

It seemed like our conversation was going nowhere, but then my wife spoke up: "I have proof." Pulling out her phone, she said, "I recorded a video." The timestamp on the screen showed it was recorded early this morning.

The screen was pitch-black, making it hard to see what was shown. I could hear my oldest daughter calling out to someone: "Hey, Dad... Dad!" Then my wife's voice: "Turn on the light, sweetie."

The screen flashed bright white for a moment, and what was captured there was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, me—sitting neatly upright on my knees.