The 4:44 Alarm

The 4:44 Alarm

(by Theodore Homuth)

The first time it happened, Evan thought it was coincidence.

4:44 a.m. — red digits glaring in the dark like a wound. He rolled over, groggy, half-dreaming, and listened. The house held its breath around him. Wind tapped at the windowpane. Somewhere in the walls, old wood creaked.

He checked the locks anyway.

Front door — latched.

Back door — latched.

Garage — sealed.

Windows — tight.

He went back to bed, shivering at the absurdity of it. What kind of man wakes up before dawn just to touch cold metal and convince himself it’s still locked?

By the fifth night, he stopped asking that question.

It started after the break-in two streets over. A family gone for the weekend, their home gutted: jewelry, electronics, even the kid’s video game console. The thought gnawed at him — how fragile safety really was.

His wife, Mara, told him to let it go. “We’re fine, Evan. We’ve got alarms, cameras, neighbors. You can’t control everything.”

But at 4:44 a.m., his body disagreed. Every muscle hummed awake, electric and sure. He slipped from bed, careful not to wake her, and checked the locks again.

Each click of the deadbolt steadied him, the sound like a heartbeat.

Locked. Safe. Locked. Safe.

He’d return to bed calm, blanketed by the quiet pride of a man doing what he must. The next morning, he’d forget it happened.

Weeks passed. Then months.

The alarm became a fixture, a secret pact between him and time itself. 4:44 — an hour no one sane would choose, yet somehow it chose him. He even turned off his phone alarm; he didn’t need it anymore. His mind knew.

Mara noticed the hollows beneath his eyes.

“You’re not sleeping,” she said.

“I’m fine,” he lied.

“You’re doing that thing again, aren’t you? With the doors?”

He laughed it off. “Just once in a while.”

But “once in a while” had grown into ritual. He couldn’t rest without it — the circuit through every room, the metal clicks, the whispered mantra: Locked. Safe. Locked. Safe.

Sometimes, he swore he saw the front door handle twitch before he reached it. Sometimes, the hallway light flickered. Sometimes, the air itself felt aware.

One night, he woke and found the clock frozen at 4:44.

No blinking, no hum. Just the numbers, still and perfect, as if time itself were holding its breath.

He smiled grimly. “Guess I broke the damn thing.”

He made his rounds anyway. The front door resisted — a tiny drag, like someone pulling on the other side. He pressed harder. Locked.

The window by the staircase — cracked open.

He stared at it. He could’ve sworn he’d sealed it earlier that evening. The night air bled through, cold and metallic. He closed it, locked it, and double-checked. Three times. Four.

Then he returned to the bedroom.

Mara’s side was empty.

At first, he thought she’d gone to the bathroom. But the light wasn’t on. The door was open. The silence pressed closer.

“Mara?”

No answer.

He checked the house again, moving faster now. The locks gleamed in the dim light — solid, unbroken, mocking him.

“Mara!”

Nothing.

Then he saw the front door. It was open.

Wide open.

A gust of cold air swept through, smelling faintly of soil and static. He stumbled to it, heart thudding, and slammed it shut. Locked it. Checked it. Checked it again.

When he turned back, the living room wasn’t his living room anymore.

It looked the same — couch, lamp, rug — but off, as if someone had rearranged the molecules slightly wrong. The lamp’s cord stretched in the wrong direction. The painting hung an inch higher. The family photo on the mantel — his wife’s face blurred, her smile wiped clean.

He blinked. The photo returned to normal.

The clock on the wall ticked. 4:44. Still.

After that night, something shifted.

He stopped trying to explain the noises to Mara. The door creaks, the distant whispering, the way the air rippled faintly at the edges of his vision — these belonged to the hour now. His ritual was no longer about safety. It was about obedience.

He couldn’t skip it. Once, he tried — forced himself to stay in bed.

His body rebelled.

A pounding rose in his skull until he was gasping, drenched in sweat, clawing at the sheets. When he finally stood and touched the first lock, the pain vanished instantly. He laughed with relief and terror.

That’s when he knew: it wasn’t paranoia. It was purpose. The house wanted him to check.

A week later, Mara left.

“I can’t do this anymore, Evan. You’re… changing.”

He didn’t follow her to the door. He just watched, heart hammering, as she turned the knob — his knob — and stepped outside.

The door clicked shut.

Locked. Safe.

He exhaled. Everything was quiet again.

Now, he lives alone, and the ritual owns him completely.

He doesn’t need the clock anymore. He wakes before it, sensing the moment coming — a shift in the air, the low hum of pressure in his skull.

4:44. The hour when everything holds still.

He walks the circuit in silence. Front door. Back door. Windows. Basement. Attic. Sometimes there are extra doors now, ones he doesn’t remember installing. He checks them too, because if he doesn’t — he feels it watching him through the walls.

Once, he found one of those new doors open. A dark stairwell behind it. Whispering. He shut it fast and locked it tight.

The next night, another appeared.

Now, there are many.

This morning, he woke before dawn to find every lock already turned.

Every door wide open.

He rose from bed, trembling, his breath frosting in the air. The house waited, vast and silent.

He walked through it, touching each handle, each bolt, each chain — all undone, as if someone had come through and reversed every motion he’d ever made.

He tried to relock the front door, but the key wouldn’t fit. The hole had changed shape, jagged like teeth.

The clock on the wall blinked.

4:44. 4:44. 4:44.

The sound grew louder, pulsing, until it wasn’t ticking anymore but breathing.

He turned toward the hallway — and saw her.

Mara. Standing there, pale, eyes black as absence. Her lips moved soundlessly. Behind her, the house stretched impossibly far, door after door after door, all leading nowhere.

He reached out a shaking hand.

“Mara?”

Her voice came at last, soft as the creak of a hinge:

“You forgot to check the last one.”

The lights died.

The clock stopped.

And somewhere, deep inside the walls, a new lock clicked shut.

Locked. Safe. Locked. Safe.

That was the last thought Evan ever had.

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