This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/damemaussade on 2024-09-23 21:40:55+00:00.
I moved into the house last month. It was one of those charming, old colonial homes, with creaking wooden floors and ivy creeping up the walls. A dream for someone like me who always loved the idea of history clinging to every corner. The realtor mentioned it was over a hundred years old, and though it needed some repairs, it felt like the perfect place to call my own.
The first night in the house was quiet, almost too quiet. It’s funny how you never notice the absence of sound until it’s gone. I didn’t hear the hum of cars in the distance, no people walking down the street, just pure silence. It should have been peaceful, but instead, it left me with a nagging feeling of unease.
It started on the third night. I was lying in bed, drifting between sleep and wakefulness, when I heard a faint scratching sound. I sat up, groggy, trying to figure out where it was coming from. I thought maybe it was just a mouse or some other rodent. Old houses are prone to pests, after all. But as I listened more closely, it sounded like something bigger. Something deliberate.
It was coming from the walls.
I tried to ignore it, telling myself that it was probably just an animal. Maybe a raccoon or a possum had gotten into the crawl space. But every night, the noise got worse. What started as a faint scratching soon turned into what sounded like whispering. It was so faint I couldn’t make out the words, but there was something disturbingly human about it.
I called an exterminator, thinking that whatever was in there needed to be dealt with. They came, searched the house, and found nothing. No signs of rodents, no nests, no entry points. They assured me there was nothing in the walls. But the sounds continued.
One night, the whispering grew louder. I sat up in bed, heart racing, straining to hear. I couldn’t deny it anymore—the voices were there, just behind the wall of my bedroom, and they were speaking. Words slurred together in low, guttural tones, too quiet to understand but unmistakably there.
Then, something tapped against the wall. It was slow, methodical, like someone knocking from the other side. I jumped out of bed and pressed my ear to the wall, trying to hear. The whispering stopped, and for a moment, there was silence again.
But then the wall shifted.
I don’t know how else to describe it. It felt like something inside the wall moved—something alive. I could feel the vibrations under my hand, like a deep, hidden pulse. My stomach churned, and I backed away slowly, afraid to look away but terrified of staying too close.
I hardly slept that night.
The next day, I called a contractor to check the walls, hoping it was just faulty wiring or some structural issue. He tore open part of the wall where I’d heard the noise, but all he found was the usual—wood, insulation, nothing out of the ordinary. He patched it up, and I pretended for a while that it was enough to make me feel safe.
That night, I decided to record the sounds. I left my phone on with a voice recording app running, propped up against the wall where the sounds had been the loudest. I lay in bed, the sheets pulled tight around me, and waited.
The whispering returned, but this time, it was clearer. The words still made no sense, like they were spoken in a language I couldn’t understand. But as I listened through the thin walls, I realized something horrifying: the voices weren’t just random—they were responding to me. They would grow louder when I moved, and quiet when I stayed still.
At one point, I couldn’t take it anymore. I shouted, “What do you want?”
The whispering stopped. For a moment, there was nothing but the pounding of my heart.
Then, a single word came through the wall. Clear as day.
“You.”
I froze. The air in the room felt thick and oppressive, like it was pressing in on me from all sides. I grabbed my phone, too scared to play back the recording, and ran out of the house.
I’ve been staying in a hotel ever since, but I can still hear the whispering in my dreams. I know I have to go back eventually—it's my home, after all. But I don’t know if I can. Because whatever is in the walls wants me, and I don’t know how to stop it.