Last Night

Last night I woke to hear a strange sound, it was coming from somewhere in the house, it was loud, rhythmical and hypnotic to a point, it sounded like breathing, it was steady, yet unlike what I know to be normal breathing, it was somehow pulsating, throbbing. Everyone else slept through it, and any attempts to wake them the sound stopped immediately, it was for my ears only. I was unsure if I should get up and investigate, whether I would have seen source for this strange sound, in the end I did not, I lay there listening and wondering what it was, feeling safe. When it stopped it did so by fading out slowly, as if it had opened a door and was drifting away, slowly back into the night.