Sarah couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong with the curtains in her new apartment. They moved when there was no breeze, rippling like living things in the still air.

“You’re being paranoid,” her roommate Jenny said, not looking up from her phone. “They’re just regular curtains.”

But Sarah knew better. Late at night, she’d wake to find them drawn tight even though she’d left them open. Sometimes she caught glimpses of faces in their folds - twisted, agonized expressions that vanished when she looked directly at them.

“I think they’re… alive,” Sarah whispered one evening as she and Jenny sat in the living room. The white fabric undulated softly behind them.

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Not this again. They’re just curtains, Sarah. Regular polyester curtains from Target.”

“Then why do they move on their own? Why do I hear… whispers coming from them at night?”

“It’s just the wind. Or the neighbors. Or your imagination working overtime.” Jenny stood up and walked to the window. “Look, I’ll show you-”

“Don’t touch them!” Sarah cried, but it was too late.

As Jenny’s hand brushed the fabric, it came alive, wrapping around her arm like a python. She screamed as more folds of material engulfed her, muffling her cries. Sarah watched in horror as her friend was dragged through the billowing white mass, disappearing completely.

The curtains settled back into place, pristine and innocent-looking. Only Jenny’s phone remained on the floor where she’d dropped it.

Sarah ran to the door, but found it wouldn’t budge. The windows too were sealed shut. She was trapped.

“Please,” she whimpered, pressing herself against the far wall. “What do you want?”

A voice like rustling leaves answered: “We are nature’s curtains. The veil between worlds. And you… you were chosen.”

“Chosen? For what?”

“To join us. To become part of the barrier. It was always meant to be this way.”

Sarah noticed the fabric beginning to spread across the walls and ceiling like growing vines. There was nowhere left to run.

“Jenny… is she…?”

“She is with us now. As you will be. It is your destiny.”

As the living curtains descended upon her, Sarah understood at last. Some fates couldn’t be escaped, no matter how hard you tried. The last thing she saw was her own reflection in the window - her face joining countless others in the rippling folds of white, another soul caught between worlds, forever part of nature’s eternal curtain.

When the police finally investigated the disappearances weeks later, they found only empty rooms and gently swaying curtains. If they listened closely, they might have heard faint whispers in the still air. But of course, that was surely just their imagination.