The Basement door has a big scratch

This happened during a sleepover when I was in middle school, and it's still one of the creepiest memories I have. My friend and I had convinced his parents to let us camp out in the finished basement instead of sleeping upstairs. We spent the evening playing video games, watching horror movies, and trying to stay awake as long as we could. Sometime after midnight, just as we were starting to drift off, we heard the basement door handle slowly jiggle. At first it sounded like someone trying the handle once or twice, so we assumed it was his older brother trying to scare us.

The noise kept happening every few minutes. Sometimes the handle would rattle gently, other times it would shake so hard it sounded like someone was trying to rip it off the door. We kept yelling, "Knock it off!" and laughing because we thought his brother was getting more determined to freak us out. Whoever was on the other side never responded. There were no footsteps, no voices, nothing except the sound of metal moving against metal. After nearly two hours of it happening on and off, we eventually stopped reacting altogether, convinced he'd get bored and leave.

The next morning, we mentioned it over breakfast, expecting his brother to admit he'd been messing with us. Instead, everyone looked confused. His parents told us he'd stayed at a friend's house that night and hadn't come home until early that morning. Thinking they were joking, we went downstairs to check the basement door. The moment we looked at it, neither of us said a word. The metal around the keyhole had been gouged apart with deep scratches, the strike plate was bent outward, and the guides around the lock looked like someone had spent hours trying to pry or force it open with a heavy tool. Those weren't marks you could make by shaking a doorknob.

The realization hit us all at once. While we were lying just a few feet away, laughing and yelling for my friend's brother to stop, there had actually been someone outside trying to get into the house. They heard our voices the entire time. They knew people were awake inside, yet they kept trying anyway. The only reason they never got in was because the lock held. Every time I think back on that night, I wonder what would have happened if we'd ignored the noise completely or if the door had been just a little weaker.