The sound came at exactly 2:47 a.m.
A soft thump above the ceiling. Then another. Slow. Rhythmic. Like someone pacing.
Elias sat upright in bed, his body already drenched in cold sweat before his brain registered the noise. He held his breath, heart thudding beneath his ribs. The house—his house—had only one floor. That was something he had confirmed multiple times, both before and after moving in. No second story. No attic. Just a single-level structure built in the late '60s with creaking wood floors and thin walls.
So why did the ceiling groan under the weight of someone walking overhead?
He waited, listening. Another step.
And then… a soft dragging sound. As if something heavy was being pulled across the floor above a ceiling that shouldn't exist.
It took him ten full minutes to summon the courage to get out of bed. The silence had returned by then, but it was the kind of silence that hummed with menace—like the air was holding its breath, waiting for him to move.
He took a flashlight from the drawer and slowly walked toward the hallway.
The antique mirror was still cracked, splintered in a spiderweb of impossible lines. But this time, it didn't reflect him. Not at all.
It showed an empty hallway.
Even though he was standing right in front of it.
He turned away.
Something made him glance upward.
There it was again. Faint. Just enough to make his skin crawl.
A creak directly above him.
He followed the sound.
It led him to the end of the hallway, near the laundry room—an area he rarely used. The light flickered as he entered. The air smelled… off. Dusty. Ancient, almost, like a space sealed too long.
The ceiling here had a faint outline he had never noticed before.
He stared at it.
A square indentation, thin and subtle, barely visible against the plaster.
A trapdoor.
His breath caught.
He grabbed the broom from the corner and nudged the square gently.
Nothing.
He pushed harder.
A sudden shift.
The trapdoor sprang open slightly, dislodging a puff of thick dust that rained down like ash. He stumbled back, coughing.
There was a ladder tucked inside the ceiling. Old. Wooden. It creaked as he pulled it down.
His hands trembled.
There shouldn't be an attic.
But the opening gaped above him like a mouth—waiting.
He turned on the flashlight, aimed it upward, and climbed.
Each rung of the ladder groaned under his weight. As his head breached the attic, the beam of light cut through thick cobwebs and stagnant air. It was colder up here. The air heavier.
The first thing he saw was a mattress.
Old. Stained. Sunk in the middle from long use.
Someone had lived here.
And not just years ago. Recently.
There were impressions in the dust—footprints. A blanket tossed near the corner. A small wooden chair beside the mattress with a chipped ceramic cup still half-full with something dark.
He stepped further in, sweeping the flashlight over the walls.
That's when he saw the writing.
Dozens of names scrawled across the wooden boards in charcoal, blood, or something in between. Some were smudged. Others deeply etched.
One name repeated, over and over.
Elias.
Sometimes followed by a date. Sometimes by a single line scratched underneath, like a desperate prayer.
He always comes back.
Elias stared at the words, his stomach churning.
He stepped closer to the wall and touched one of the carvings.
The wood felt warm.
He turned to leave, but his light caught something new—a mirror.
Not standing like the antique one downstairs, but small, square, and set into the wall like a window. Its frame was jagged, broken, as if it had been forced into place.
Inside it, something shifted.
His reflection was sitting on the mattress.
But Elias was standing.
The reflection looked up and smiled.
There were two shadows behind it.
Elias stepped back, nearly tripping over a loose floorboard.
The mirror cracked down the middle.
He ran.
---
Back in the hallway, he slammed the trapdoor shut and pulled the string ladder up behind him.
He pushed a cabinet beneath it for good measure.
It wasn't enough.
The silence around him felt like a scream held in a fist.
He returned to his bedroom and locked the door. Not because it would help—but because it was all he could do.
His hands shook as he grabbed his phone.
He scrolled through his notes and began typing everything he saw. Every word from the attic wall. The mirror. The footsteps.
He needed documentation. Evidence. Something solid that reminded him he wasn't insane.
As he typed, the screen flickered.
His notes app closed on its own.
A new notification appeared.
New contact added: The Woman Upstairs
He stared at it.
Then, the phone began to ring.
No name. Just the attic icon from the contacts list.
He let it ring. Let it go to voicemail.
Then checked the message.
There was no audio.
Just silence.
Until the last second.
A breath.
And a voice.
"I liked watching you sleep."
Elias threw the phone across the room.
---
The next day, he bought several locks from the hardware store. Screws. Nails. Chains. He boarded the trapdoor shut.
He considered calling the police. But what would he say? That his reflection spoke to him? That someone—possibly himself—had been living in an attic that shouldn't exist?
Instead, he pulled out the property documents.
No attic listed.
He checked the blueprints. The original ones from the city archives he had kept in a drawer.
No second floor. No storage space.
The space above his ceiling wasn't on any map.
And yet… it was there.
He looked at the names he had written down.
Elias.
Again and again.
But one of them was different.
Not carved in blood. Not burned into wood.
Written in black ink, almost like a signature.
Elias Marrow.
He froze.
Marrow.
That wasn't his name.
He checked his birth certificate.
It wasn't there.
He looked at his ID.
Just the first name: Elias.
No surname.
No origin.
No history.
Like someone had cut his identity from paper and pasted it in.
His skin crawled.
Who was he?
---
That night, the footsteps returned.
Not above him.
Behind the walls.
The boards rattled.
He tried to sleep.
But something kept whispering his name.
Over and over.
Sometimes it was a voice like his own.
Sometimes it was a woman's.
Low. Gentle. And filled with pity.
"I'm sorry. You don't belong here."