I had a dream.

It was dusk—or maybe dawn. I couldn't tell for sure, but the sky around me had a faint whitish haze. I was standing at the entrance of a house I had never seen before. It had frosted glass sliding doors, the kind my elderly relatives used to have. To the left of the door was an old-fashioned doorbell button. I had no idea whose house it was, but in the dream, I pressed the button anyway.

Bzzzzzz...

An unwelcoming sound buzzed from behind the glass doors. At such an early, dark hour, no one could possibly be awake. Wondering why I had even pressed the button in the first place, I turned to leave. But my feet were frozen in place. A silhouette was visible through the frosted glass. I could tell a figure in pale sleepwear was slowly shuffling toward me. I couldn't see clearly, but it looked like an old person.

"Yes? Who is it?"

An old woman's voice called from inside, followed by the clanking sound of a lock being undone. Through the frosted glass, the faint outline of a face appeared. It was an old woman with short, stark-white hair. The sleepwear I thought was pale turned out to be a light sky blue.

I couldn't say a word in response to her call and just stood there, paralyzed. What should I do? Someone actually came to the door. At this hour, when it's still dark out. Doesn't this make me look like a prowler? What if she calls the police and I get suspected of something awful? What would I say? How would I talk my way out of this? In a split second, my mind raced. That's it—I'll pretend I was drunk and accidentally came to the wrong house. Let me go with that. As soon as the sliding door opens, I'll put on a shocked expression, bow deeply, apologize profusely, and run.

The moment I made up my mind, the door rattled open. I did my best to pull an astonished, startled expression as I looked at the old woman. She was staring right back at me with a deadpan face.

"Who are you?" "Oh, um—wait, that's strange. Isn't this Mr. ...'s house?"

"No, it isn't." "I-it seems I got the wrong house... I'm so sorry for disturbing you at this hour. I-I'll be on my way now." "Wait."

Her hand grabbed my left wrist. She was a tiny old woman, thin as a withered branch, but her grip was terrifyingly strong. With a strange, flat voice, she said, "That's a lie, isn't it?" as she squeezed my left wrist with an expressionless face. I could feel her nails digging into my skin. It hurt. Reflexively, I twisted my wrist to shake her off.

"Wait."

Showing her teeth, the old woman shrieked and lunged at me, scratching furiously. She caught my left wrist, which I had raised to shield my face. Her eyes were bulging, her teeth gritted, and her back arched as she let out a low, raspy hiss. The cold, blank expression from a moment ago was gone, replaced by pure ferocity. Desperate to escape from this lunatic, I took off running. I was terrified. "I told you to wait!" she rasped in a low, harsh voice as she leaped after me.

I had barely turned on my heel and taken five steps away from the entryway. A sharp pain shot through my dress shirt and jacket near my right flank. Her fingers dug right into my side. I forcefully tore myself away from the old woman clinging to me and managed to run for my life. As I broke free, I distinctly felt a fingernail—maybe her middle finger—snag against my side, gouging a deep, dragging scratch into my flesh.

"AAAGH!"

...I woke up with a loud shout. My family sat up in bed, startled. "Honey, what's wrong?" my wife asked. My kids were peering into my face too.

"Ah, sorry. Just had a horrible dream."

"What kind of dream?" "A dream where I went to a stranger's house in the middle of the night, rang the doorbell, and an angry old woman came out and scratched me." "Hmm, weird." "You drank too much. You still smell like alcohol." "Yeah... sorry, sorry."

I was drenched in cold sweat. Drops dripped down my forehead, and the back of my undershirt felt uncomfortably damp. That's when a sharp throbbing pain hit my side. Remembering the dream, I swallowed hard. Another drop of sweat rolled down my forehead. It couldn't be...

Fearfully, I checked my left wrist. As if someone had gripped it violently, my wrist was discolored like a bruise, with several short, parallel scratch marks running diagonally across it. Next, I had to check my side where the sharp pain was coming from. Trembling, I pulled up the top of my jinbei pajamas and hitched up my undershirt. A thick scratch, about two inches long, ran across my skin. Had I done this to myself in my sleep without realizing it? Could someone really manage to inflict such precise injuries on themselves in their sleep—in the exact same spots as in a dream—and sleep through the pain until morning?

Both were fresh, raw wounds that hurt terribly whenever my fingers touched them or fabric rubbed against them. The pain was so intense that until they fully scabbed over, I couldn't even take a proper bath and had to wipe myself down with a wet towel.

If that were all, it might have just been an unbelievable coincidence. But after that, a series of strange things began to happen.

First of all, the neighborhood cat started acting strange. The landlord's family lives right next door to our apartment building. Their cat is normally very affectionate and remembers us after the six years we've lived here. Whenever it sees us, it trots over, meows, and rubs against our legs; on good days, it even lets us pet its back (though my wife, who's allergic to cats, isn't thrilled when my daughters and I pet it). But the other day, when I saw it in the parking lot on the property, it just watched me from a distance and refused to come close. When I called its name and tried to step nearer, its ears flattened, its back arched, its eyes widened in a glare, and it hissed aggressively at me. Maybe it was just having a bad day, but it had never done that before. Seeing the cat hiss like that reminded me of the old woman's savage glare in my dream, and a chill ran down my spine.

Sometime later, I visited my regular doctor for an unrelated issue. I go about once a month for routine checkups on my diet and to get my prescription renewed. When it came time for the doctor to use the stethoscope, I lifted my undershirt, revealing the scratch mark.

"What happened here? That's a terrible injury." "I had a bad dream, and when I woke up, it was there. I guess I must have done it to myself in my sleep." "I see..." "I have one here too. Look, on my left wrist." "Was this one made at the same time?" "I think so."

"..."

The doctor suddenly went silent. After staring at the wounds in silence for a moment, he spoke, prefacing his words with, "I'm no expert, but..."

"...Mr. ..., do you keep a cat at home?" "Huh? No, we don't. My wife is allergic to cats, and besides, pets aren't allowed in our current apartment." "So it wasn't an animal, then?" "Right, I have no memory of being scratched by an animal." "Ah, my apologies. It's just... they really looked like wounds made by an animal. Well, I'll prescribe an ointment so they don't get infected."

Why did the doctor say "an animal"—and why "a cat" first? It felt eerie, so I didn't press the issue, and to this day, I still don't know why.

Finally, there's one last thing I can't explain.

I usually commute by car, which takes over an hour each way. Worried about my lack of exercise, I like to take leisurely walks around the neighborhood on my days off. That day, I went out to buy cigarettes. I chose a route I don't normally take and wandered around. And that's when I saw it.

Between a low, vacant building with an "Office Space for Lease" sign and an unpaved, weed-choked parking lot, there stood an old house. It was a street I almost never walked down. And yet, I recognized that old house instantly. It was undeniably the house from my dream—the one where I met the old woman in that hazy, ambiguous light between twilight and dawn. Did that mean what I saw and experienced wasn't a dream, but reality?

However, it was a street I couldn't possibly have stumbled onto on my way home from drinking. I had no memory of walking near here anytime recently. I cautiously approached the house. There didn't seem to be a nameplate. The sliding doors were made of frosted glass, identical to the ones in my dream. An old-fashioned doorbell was attached to the left of the door. The only difference from the dream was the yellow-and-black striped keep-out tape stretched around the entrance.

Looking at it, no one could be living here. I tried to convince myself of that. My chest felt tight and uneasy. I was scared. Terrified, but if I didn't check, I'd be too anxious to go home. Hesitantly, I reached out my left index finger toward the doorbell button. It didn't ring. There was no power. As twilight settled in, lights flickered on in the surrounding houses, but this place remained pitch-black. No cars were parked outside, and weeds grew wild across the lot. It was abandoned. This house was completely empty. And yet, at that twilight hour between day and night, I had come here and summoned that old woman. Who on earth was she? Feeling a gaze on me, I looked up. A scruffy black stray cat was staring intently at me with yellow eyes.

About two weeks have passed since then, but the scratches on my left wrist and right flank are still there.