When I got home, my neighbor confronted me: “It’s always so loud in your house during the day!”

“That’s impossible,” I replied. “No one should be inside.”

But she insisted: “I heard a man scream.”

The next day, I pretended to go to work and hid under my bed. Hours passed – then a voice spoke in my bedroom, and I froze…

When I got home that Wednesday afternoon, my neighbor, Mrs. Halvorsen, was standing on her porch with her arms crossed, looking considerably more annoyed than usual. “It’s so noisy in your house during the day, Marcus,” she complained. “Someone’s yelling in there.”

“That’s impossible,” I said, balancing my shopping bags. “I live alone and I’m at work all day.”

She shook her head vigorously. “Yes, there is someone. This afternoon I heard shouting again. A man’s voice. I knocked, but no one answered.”

Her persistence unsettled me, but I forced myself to laugh. “Probably the television. I sometimes leave it on to deter burglars.”

However, when I entered the house, the air felt strange—as if the house were holding its breath. I put down the groceries and went from room to room. Everything was exactly where I had left it. No open windows. No signs of a break-in. No footprints on the parquet floor. Nothing was missing. I told myself that my neighbor had simply misheard and pushed the thought away.

I hardly slept that night.

The next morning, after pacing restlessly in the kitchen for half an hour, I made a decision. I called my boss, said I felt ill, and stayed home. At 7:45 a.m., I opened the garage door, drove my car out just far enough for the neighbors to see, turned off the engine, and quietly pushed it back in. I returned through the side door, quickly went into my bedroom, and slipped under the bed, pulling the covers down just enough to conceal myself. My heart was pounding so loudly I was afraid it would give me away.

Minutes dragged on into hours. The silence lay heavy and oppressive over the house. Around 11:20 a.m., just as I began to doubt my sanity, I heard the unmistakable sound of the front door opening.

Slowly. Carefully. Familiarly.

Footsteps moved through the hallway with the confident composure of someone who believed they belonged there. Shoes scraped lightly across the floor—a rhythm I recognized but couldn’t immediately place. My breath caught in my throat.

Then the footsteps entered my bedroom.

A man’s voice – deep, irritated – muttered: “You always leave such a mess, Marcus…”

I felt ice cold.

He knew my name.

And the voice sounded incredibly familiar.

I froze, every muscle tensing in fear, as the shadow of his legs slid across the room – and stopped right next to the bed.

Lying beneath the bed, I forced myself to remain still as each shallow breath stirred dust into my throat. The man in my bedroom moved with unsettling confidence, opening drawers and shifting objects as if he had memorized every inch of my room. His voice—calm yet irritated—stirred memories I couldn’t quite grasp.

A dresser drawer slammed shut, and he muttered, “You’re always hiding things in different places, Marcus…”

My skin tingled. How did he know what I was doing?

He went to the wardrobe and pushed the door open. Clothes hangers clanked softly. From my spot under the bed, all I could see were his boots—brown leather, worn, but recently polished. Not a panicked burglar. No hurry. No caution. He moved like someone returning home after a long absence.

I needed to understand who he was. Inch by inch, I moved closer to the edge of the bed to get a better look. He reached up to the top shelf and took a blue box I didn’t recognize. He opened it, whispered something in an accent I couldn’t place, and continued rummaging through it.

Then my phone vibrated in my pocket.

The sound was barely audible, but to me it was like an explosion. He froze instantly. My breath caught in my throat.

He slowly squatted down. His boots turned towards the bed.

Then his fingers appeared, reached for the ceiling and lifted it to look underneath.

I rolled to the other side and jumped up. He rushed forward, knocking over a lamp as I staggered backward. When he stood up, I finally saw his face clearly.

He resembled me. Not perfectly—his jaw was broader, his nose slightly crooked, his hair thicker—but the resemblance was enough to make my stomach clench. He looked at me with a strange mixture of anger and resignation.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said calmly.

“Who are you?” I demanded, holding the lamp like a weapon.

“My name is Adrian,” he replied, raising his hands. “I didn’t want you to find out like this.”

“What are you doing in my house?”

“I used to live here. Only during the day. You’re gone for hours. You never notice.”

My heart was racing. “You’ve been living here for months?”

“Yes,” he admitted quietly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You broke into my house!”

“I didn’t break in.”

“What does that mean?”

He hesitated, looked into the hallway. “I have a key.”

A cold shiver ran down my spine. “Where did you get a key to my house?”

He swallowed hard, then answered with shocking simplicity: “From your father.”

“My father died when I was nineteen,” I said, still holding the lamp.

Adrian nodded. “I know.”

“How could he give you a key then?”

He exhaled slowly and sat down on the edge of the bed, without a trace of fear. “Because he was also my father.”

For a moment, the words didn’t register. They felt impossible, like a puzzle piece from the wrong box. I stared at him, waiting for sarcasm or some sign that he was crazy. But his expression remained calm.

“You’re lying,” I said firmly.

“No.” He opened the blue box he had taken earlier. “Your father left this behind. He wanted you to find it one day.”

Inside were old, worn, yellowed letters, all in my father’s handwriting. I opened the first one. It wasn’t addressed to my mother, but to a woman named Elena. My chest tightened as I read it. The next letter revealed more—a hidden relationship, a son, a life my father had kept from us.

A son named Adrian Keller.

“Why didn’t he tell me that?” I whispered.

Adrian shrugged in a strangely gentle way. “Maybe he wanted to protect your mother. Or you. Families get complicated. He did what he thought was right.”

“But why now? Why sneak into my house?”

He rubbed his forehead. “It wasn’t meant to be this way. Six months ago I lost my job. My apartment was unsafe. I had nowhere to go. I turned to relatives, but no one believed me. This house… it was the closest thing I had left of him.”

I tried to process his words. None of it excused what he had done, but the despair in his voice was genuine.

“You could have talked to me,” I said.

Adrian gave a hollow laugh. “To step on your door and say, ‘Hey, I’m your brother you never knew about’? I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

We sat in tense silence. The anger inside me slowly transformed into confusion, sadness, and a strange, reluctant empathy.

“You can’t stay in my house,” I finally said.

“I know.”

“But you don’t have to disappear either.” I swallowed. “If you’re telling the truth, I want to know everything. About him. About everything.”

Adrian’s eyes softened. That defensive, hard look he had worn since our first meeting finally crumbled.

“That’s what I would want,” he said quietly.

So we talked – about our father, about our childhood, about the strange parallel paths our lives had taken. It didn’t erase the fear and the intrusion. But it revealed something unexpected.

Not an intruder.

A brother.

Someone who had been alone for far too long – just like me.