29 Jan Beneath the Floor

Part I

It started with the rug.

Mark had inherited the house six months ago. It wasn’t in terrible condition, but it needed work. After their father passed, his sister Sarah refused to take it. She said it felt too heavy, though she never explained what she meant. The responsibility fell to him, and he was fine with that. He had always been more sentimental than Sarah. Restoring the house felt like a way to stay connected—to their childhood, and maybe even to their father.

The house wasn’t huge, but it was old. The floorboards creaked, the windows stuck, and the whole place smelled faintly of dust and time. Still, it had charm. His favorite spot was the living room, a cozy space with faded wallpaper and a massive old rug that had been there for as long as he could remember. That rug was the first thing he decided to replace.

It was heavier than he expected. He had to yank it several times to peel it off the floor, and when he finally did, he saw the trapdoor.

It was square, about three feet across, reinforced with iron bands that were rusted and pitted. The wood looked ancient, almost petrified, with strange symbols etched into its surface—jagged, intersecting lines that didn’t form anything recognizable. He didn’t remember the trapdoor being there when they were kids, but then again, the rug had always been in that spot.

At first, he assumed it led to a cellar, but something about it felt… off. Maybe it was the cold draft seeping through the edges, or the faint smell of damp earth. Or maybe it was the whisper.

It was so faint he thought he’d imagined it—a soft, fleeting sound, like someone sighing just out of earshot. He crouched down and pressed his ear to the wood. Nothing. Just silence.

He shook his head and laughed at himself. It’s an old house. Old houses make noises. Still, he couldn’t shake the unease the trapdoor gave him.

The next morning, he texted Chris, his oldest friend, and asked him to come by. Chris had been helping with the renovations, and a second opinion wouldn’t hurt. When he arrived, Mark led him straight to the living room.

“Check this out,” he said, pointing to the trapdoor.

Chris frowned, kneeling to inspect it. “That’s weird,” he muttered, running his fingers over the iron bands. “You sure you didn’t know this was here?”

“Nope. Pretty sure it’s a secret passage to Narnia, though,” Mark joked, trying to ignore the prickling sensation on the back of his neck.

Chris snorted. “Yeah, or a serial killer’s basement.”

Mark handed him a crowbar, and they spent the next half-hour trying to pry the door open. It didn’t budge. The wood felt almost fused to the frame, as if it had grown into the iron. Chris stepped back, wiping sweat from his brow.

“Maybe it’s just sealed shut,” he said. “Could’ve been nailed down ages ago.”

“Maybe,” Mark said, though he didn’t believe it.

Chris left after lunch, promising to look up ways to unseal old wood. Mark stayed in the living room, staring at the trapdoor. That uneasy feeling hadn’t gone away.

Over the next week, he worked on other parts of the house, but his thoughts kept drifting back to the trapdoor. At night, he started hearing noises—soft, indistinct murmurs that seemed to come from below.

At first, he dismissed them as imagination. Maybe it was just the wind, or the house settling. But the more he listened, the more certain he became that the sounds were deliberate. Not random creaking or groaning. Whispers.

He recorded them with his phone one night, hoping to prove to himself they weren’t real. But when he played the recording back, all he heard was static.

Sarah came by the following weekend to drop off a box of Dad’s old photo albums. She hadn’t set foot in the house since the funeral, and she looked uncomfortable the entire time she was there.

“I don’t know how you’re doing this,” she said, setting the box down on the kitchen counter. “Living here, I mean. It feels… heavy.”

“There it is again,” Mark said, half-laughing. “What does that even mean?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just… I never liked this house. Especially not that living room.”

“The living room?” Mark raised an eyebrow.

She hesitated. “Do you remember when we were kids, and I used to say I heard things at night? Like voices?”

“Vaguely.”

“They came from that room.” She glanced toward the living room doorway, then shook her head. “Forget it. I’m being stupid. You’ve got enough on your plate without me dragging up old crap.”

Mark wanted to ask more, but she left before he could.

That night, he dreamt of the trapdoor.

In the dream, he was standing in the living room, staring down at it. The symbols on the wood glowed faintly, pulsing gently. Slowly, the door creaked open, revealing a gaping void beneath. It wasn’t a cellar. It wasn’t even a hole. It was nothingness—an endless, black expanse filled with faint shapes writhing just beyond the edge of visibility.

And then the whispers started.

They were louder than before, layered and overlapping, like dozens of voices speaking at once. He couldn’t understand the words, but he felt them—cold and sharp, piercing through his skull.

He woke with a start, on the verge of a panic attack. The murmurs were still there, faint but unmistakable, seeping through the floorboards.

Part II

The whispers grew louder after that dream.

At first, they were faint murmurs that Mark could ignore, but over the next few nights, they became sharper, more distinct. He could make out individual voices, though he couldn’t understand what they were saying. The words were foreign, twisted in a way that made them feel wrong, as though they weren’t meant for human ears.

He told himself it was stress. Renovating a house was a massive undertaking, and his sleep schedule was erratic. But the more he heard those voices, the harder it became to rationalize.

By the third night, he wasn’t sleeping at all.

Chris stopped by again the next morning. He took one look at Mark and frowned. “You look awful.”

“Thanks,” Mark muttered.

“Still messing with that trapdoor?”

Mark hesitated before nodding. “It’s… weird. I’ve been hearing things. Like whispers. I thought maybe it was the wind, but—”

“Whoa, hold up,” Chris interrupted, raising a hand. “You’re saying the trapdoor is talking to you?”

“It’s not talking. It’s just… noises. You’d hear it too if you stayed here overnight.”

Chris shook his head, laughing. “You’re losing it, man. It’s an old house. Pipes creak, wood shifts, the wind gets in. That’s all it is.”

“I’m not imagining this,” Mark said, his voice firmer than he intended.

Chris raised his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. Tell you what—I’ll stay the night. We’ll camp out in the living room, and if I hear anything, I’ll believe you. Deal?”

* * * * * *

That night, they dragged blankets into the living room and set up on the floor. Chris brought a six-pack, and for a while, it felt like old times—just the two of them hanging out, shooting the breeze.

But as the hours stretched on, the mood shifted. The air grew colder, the way it does before a thunderstorm. Chris noticed it, too, checking the windows to make sure they were shut.

Around midnight, the whispers started.

At first, they were so faint that Chris didn’t hear them. When Mark pointed it out, he still looked skeptical. But as the minutes passed, the sound grew louder.

Chris sat up. “What the hell is that?” he said.

Mark didn’t answer. He was too focused, trying to pick out words, phrases—anything that made sense.

“Is someone outside?” Chris asked, his voice tight.

“No,” Mark said. “It’s coming from the trapdoor.”

They both stared at it. The iron bands seemed to glisten faintly in the dim light, and for a moment, Mark thought he saw the symbols shift, as if writhing beneath the surface.

Chris stood and grabbed the crowbar from the corner of the room. “Alright, screw this. Let’s open it.”

“Chris, wait—”

Before Mark could stop him, Chris jammed the crowbar into the seam of the trapdoor and heaved. The wood groaned, but the door didn’t budge. He tried again, putting his full weight into it, but the crowbar slipped free and clattered to the floor.

“It’s stuck,” Chris muttered, rubbing his hands.

“It’s more than that,” Mark said. “It’s sealed. Like… fused shut.”

Chris shook his head. “I don’t know, man. Maybe it’s not worth messing with. Whatever’s down there, it’s been sealed for a reason.”

“You’re the one who wanted to open it.”

“Yeah, well, now I don’t.”

Chris didn’t spend the night after that. He left in a hurry, muttering something about having work in the morning, and told Mark to call him if he needed anything.

Mark didn’t call.

The whispers didn’t stop.

If anything, they grew louder. By the fifth night, he could hear them even when he wasn’t in the living room. They followed him into the kitchen, the hallway, his bedroom. The house hummed with unseen voices.

He started recording them again, this time using his laptop. He set the microphone on the floor next to the trapdoor and let it run for hours. When he played the audio back, his stomach twisted.

There was nothing. Just static.

He tried boosting the volume, filtering out background noise, even slowing it down. No whispers, no voices—just a faint, rhythmic hum that sounded like breathing.

* * * * * *

The nightmares returned, more vivid than before.

He dreamt of the trapdoor again. The symbols glowed, casting the room in an eerie blue light. The whispers were deafening, a chorus of voices calling his name, urging him to open the door.

This time, he listened.

He reached down, gripped the iron ring embedded in the wood, and pulled. The door opened with a low, guttural groan, and he stared into the void.

It was the same as before: endless blackness, shifting forms twisting in the dark. But this time, one of them reached out to him. A hand—if it could be called that—emerged from the void, its fingers impossibly long and thin, each one tipped with jagged claws.

He woke up screaming.

The voices were still there, louder than ever, seeping through the walls, pressing into his skull.

He couldn’t ignore it anymore.

The next morning, he started researching the house, hoping to find some record of the trapdoor. He combed through property records, blueprints, and historical archives, but there was nothing. No mention of a cellar. No record of renovations.

It was as if the trapdoor didn’t exist.

Frustrated, he took photos of the symbols and posted them on forums, hoping someone might recognize them. Most of the replies were jokes, but one caught his attention:

“Those look like warding runes. You sure you want to mess with that?”

Warding runes. The phrase stuck with him.

If the trapdoor was sealed with runes, then someone had put them there deliberately. Someone had gone to great lengths to keep whatever was below contained.

But why? And for how long?

The questions gnawed at him, driving him deeper into obsession. He couldn’t focus on anything else. Every time he tried to distract himself, the whispers pulled him back, reminding him of the trapdoor, of the void, of the things waiting in the dark.

By the time the sun set, he knew what he had to do.

Part III

The house felt different now.

Mark couldn’t explain it, but the air seemed heavier. Every creak of the floorboards, every groan of the walls felt deliberate, like the house was breathing—alive, watching. He told himself it was just in his head, a side effect of too many sleepless nights. But deep down, he knew better.

It wasn’t just the whispers anymore.

The first time he noticed something move, he was in the kitchen. He had set his coffee mug down on the counter and turned to grab his phone from the table. When he turned back, the mug was gone.

He found it minutes later on the floor by the trapdoor.

At first, he convinced himself he had carried it there without realizing. But the more he thought about it, the less sense it made. He stared at the trapdoor, his chest tight, waiting for something to happen. The house was silent except for the faint murmur of the whispers, so soft he could almost pretend they weren’t there.

Almost.

The next night, it got worse.

He had just gotten into bed when he heard a noise—a soft thump, like something heavy being dragged across the floor. It was faint but unmistakable, and it was coming from the living room.

He stayed frozen for what felt like hours, straining to listen. The sound came again, louder this time.

His stomach churned as he climbed out of bed and grabbed the baseball bat he had kept since high school. He told himself it was nothing—a raccoon, maybe, or a branch scraping against the window.

But when he reached the living room, he knew that wasn’t true.

The furniture had moved.

The couch, the coffee table, even the old armchair—everything had shifted a few inches closer to the trapdoor. He stood there, bat in hand, his mind racing. The whispers were louder now, layered and overlapping, almost like laughter.

He backed out of the room and locked himself in his bedroom. But he didn’t sleep.

* * * * * *

The next morning, Sarah called.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Her voice was tight, concerned.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Mark replied, forcing a laugh.

“Chris called me,” she said. “He said you’re acting… strange.”

“Chris is overreacting.”

“Maybe,” she admitted. “But I’m worried about you too. You haven’t been answering my texts, and when I came by last week—” She trailed off.

“What?” Mark pressed.

“It felt wrong,” she said quietly. “The house. I can’t explain it, but something isn’t right there. I think you should leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” Mark said, sharper than he intended.

She hesitated. “What’s going on? You can tell me.”

He wanted to. He wanted to tell her everything—the whispers, the trapdoor, the nightmares. But he knew how it would sound.

“I’m fine,” he lied. “Just tired.”

“Call me if you need anything,” she said after a long pause.

* * * * * *

That night, the trapdoor changed.

Mark had been avoiding the living room as much as possible, but the whispers made that difficult. They weren’t just coming from the trapdoor anymore—they followed him, seeping through the walls, echoing in his head.

By midnight, he gave up trying to sleep and went to the living room. The furniture was back in place, but the trapdoor…

It was glowing.

Faintly, almost imperceptibly, the symbols carved into the wood pulsed with a dim, blue light. He crouched down, staring at them, his breath unsteady. The whispers grew louder the closer he got, and for the first time, he thought he understood them.

“Open.”

He scrambled back, breathing hard. His hands trembled as he pressed them to his ears, but it didn’t help. The voices were inside his head now, filling every corner of his mind.

“Open. Open. Open.”

He grabbed the crowbar and brought it down on the trapdoor with all the strength he could muster. The sound echoed through the house, and for a moment, the murmuring stopped.

But the trapdoor didn’t budge.

He started noticing other things. Shadows that moved when they shouldn’t. A cold breeze that swept through the house, even with all the windows shut. The faint sound of footsteps at night, always leading toward the living room.

He told himself it was stress. Lack of sleep. Anything but what he knew, deep down, was true.

A few days later, Sarah showed up unannounced.

She took one look at him and paled. “Mark… you look like a corpse.”

“Thanks,” he muttered, stepping aside to let her in.

The moment she entered the house, her expression changed. She looked around, brow furrowed, her movements stiff.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Do you feel that?” she replied.

“Feel what?”

She didn’t answer. She just walked into the living room, her eyes locking onto the trapdoor. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s nothing,” he said quickly.

Sarah shook her head. “Mark, that’s not nothing,” she said, pointing to the faintly glowing symbols. “What is this? Why is it glowing?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve tried everything to open it, but—”

“Open it?” Her voice rose. “Why would you want to open it?”

“I… I just need to know what’s down there.”

Sarah turned to him, her face pale. “You need to leave,” she said. “Now. Whatever this is, it’s bad. You can feel it, can’t you? The house—it’s wrong.”

“I can’t just leave,” Mark said. “This is my house. My responsibility.”

“No, it’s not!” she snapped. “Mark, this isn’t normal. It’s not safe. Please, come and stay with me for a while. We can figure this out together.”

He wanted to believe her. He wanted to walk away, to pretend the whispers and the trapdoor didn’t exist.

But he couldn’t.

“I’m fine,” he said.

Sarah stared at him for a long time, searching his face. Finally, she sighed. “Call me if you change your mind.”

That night, he dreamt of the trapdoor again.

This time, the void wasn’t empty.

The shapes he had seen before were clearer now—grotesque, writhing forms that shifted and merged like living clay. One of them turned toward him, its face—or what passed for a face—stretching into an impossibly wide grin.

Its voice was a low, guttural rumble.

“Open.”

Mark woke drenched in sweat, the whispers echoing in his ears.

Part IV

The trapdoor was consuming him.

Mark spent hours sitting by it, staring at the etched symbols, watching for any changes. The glowing had become constant now—faint but unrelenting. Every time he left the room, it felt like it was calling him back, murmuring in the voice of an old friend he couldn’t quite place.

He started avoiding Chris and Sarah entirely. They wouldn’t understand—they couldn’t. They hadn’t seen the things he’d seen, hadn’t felt the pull of the trapdoor like he did.

When his phone buzzed with a text or call, he ignored it. He didn’t need anyone telling him he was losing it.

The whispers were louder now, no matter where he went in the house. At times, they felt so close it was as if someone was standing just behind him, murmuring directly into his ear. Once, he spun around, expecting to see someone there, but there was nothing—only empty space.

He barely slept. The nightmares wouldn’t let him.

One night, he dreamed he was in the void again, surrounded by those grotesque, shifting forms. They pressed closer this time, their mouths moving in sync as they whispered a single word:

“Open.”

He woke with a jolt. The voices remained, ever-present, louder than ever. They didn’t stop, even when he clamped his hands over his ears.

That morning, he made the decision.

If the trapdoor wouldn’t open, he’d force it.

He grabbed a sledgehammer from the garage and went to work, bringing it down on the wood with everything he had. The house echoed with the sound of each impact, and for a moment, the whispers seemed to falter, growing softer, almost hesitant.

But the trapdoor didn’t give.

No matter how hard he hit it, the wood wouldn’t crack, the iron bands wouldn’t bend. It was as if the entire thing was impervious to force, as if it existed outside the physical rules of this world.

By the time he stopped, his arms ached and his hands were blistered. He sank to the floor, panting, staring at the door in frustration.

The whispers returned, louder now, almost mocking.

That night, the house turned on him.

He was sitting in the living room, staring at the trapdoor, when the temperature in the room suddenly plummeted.

Then the lights went out.

He sat there in the dark, paralyzed with fear. The whispers were deafening now, a chaotic jumble of voices that overlapped and clashed, forming a sound that was almost like laughter.

Mark scrambled to his feet, fumbling for the flashlight he had left on the coffee table. As he clicked it on, the beam swept across the room—

And landed on a shadow.

It was tall, abnormally tall, standing in the far corner of the room. Its shape was wrong, its edges blurry and indistinct, as if it were only half-formed.

He stared, unable to move, as the shadow slowly turned toward him.

Two pinpricks of light appeared where its eyes should have been, and for a moment, he thought he heard it speak—not in words, but in a deep, guttural rumble that resonated in his bones.

He blinked—and it was gone.

After that, he couldn’t convince himself he was imagining things.

Whatever was in the house—whatever was under the trapdoor—it was real.

* * * * * *

Mark became obsessed. He stopped eating, stopped sleeping, stopped answering the phone.

His days blurred together, each one spent in a haze of whispers, shadows, and cold, suffocating dread.

One night, he decided to try something different.

He remembered the comment on the forum about warding runes and decided to do some research. He spent hours scouring the internet, looking up symbols, rituals—anything that might help him understand what he was dealing with.

Most of it was nonsense—new-age garbage about energy fields and chakras. But eventually, he found a thread about ancient sealing rituals—the kind used to trap malevolent entities.

The symbols matched.

According to the thread, the runes were meant to bind whatever was beneath the door, to keep it contained.

But they were also fragile.

If the seal was tampered with too much, it could weaken—and eventually break.

Mark stared at the trapdoor, his stomach twisting. Had he already done too much?

The whispers seemed to answer, growing louder, more insistent.

* * * * * *

By the time Sarah showed up again, Mark was a wreck.

She let herself in after he ignored her calls for over a week.

When she saw him, her face went pale.

“Mark,” she said, her voice trembling. “What the hell is going on?”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

She walked into the living room, stopping short when she saw the trapdoor, its symbols glowing brighter than ever.

Her stomach churned.

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“I had to,” Mark said, his voice hoarse.

“You had to?” she snapped. “Mark, look at yourself! You’re not sleeping, you’re not eating—you’re destroying yourself over this!”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “It’s not just a door. There’s something down there. Something that… needs me.”

She stared at him, her expression a mix of fear and disbelief. “You’re scaring me.”

Mark’s eyes darkened.

“Good,” he said.

Sarah took a step back, her hands shaking.

“I can’t do this,” she said. “I’m calling someone—Chris, the police, anyone who can help.”

Mark didn’t stop her as she left.

* * * * * *

That night, Mark dreamed of the void again.

This time, it wasn’t just a dream.

He was standing in the living room, the trapdoor open at his feet.

The void stretched out before him, an endless expanse of darkness filled with those writhing, grotesque forms.

One of them rose to meet him, its shape shifting as it moved.

It didn’t have a face—but he could feel its gaze on him.

Cold. Heavy. Filled with something he couldn’t name.

It reached out, its fingers impossibly long, tipped with jagged claws.

And then—it touched his chest.

Mark woke up gasping. The whispers were louder than ever, filling the room, the house, his head.

“Open,” they said.

This time, he knew he would.

Part V

The trapdoor wouldn’t wait any longer.

Mark knew it the moment he woke from the latest dream, the sensation of that thing’s touch still burning in his chest.

The house hummed with energy now, alive with something ancient and impossible. The murmurs no longer came and went—they were constant, surrounding him, seeping into his mind.

He couldn’t fight it anymore–didn’t want to.

That night, he sat by the trapdoor, staring at the glowing runes, bright now. The whispers had grown clearer, too, forming words and phrases that he could almost understand.

They weren’t just calling to him. They were pleading.

Mark reached out, running his fingers over the rough wood. The surface was warm, almost hot, and the symbols seemed to writhe under his touch.

A strange sense of calm settled over him. He felt as if he’d finally found his purpose.

The next thing he knew, the lights went out.

The house fell into darkness, but the trapdoor’s glow remained, casting eerie shadows that danced along the walls. A cold breeze swept past him, carrying with it the faint smell of damp earth and decay.

The whispers increased in intensity until they were deafening, and the house seemed to tremble beneath him.

Mark stood, his legs shaky, and gripped the iron ring embedded in the wood.

The moment he touched it, the voices stopped.

The silence was worse.

He hesitated, his fingers tightening around the ring. A voice in the back of his mind screamed at him to stop, to leave the house and never come back.

But it was too late.

With a deep breath, he pulled.

The trapdoor groaned, the wood splintering as it finally gave way. A wave of cold air burst from below, extinguishing the glow of the runes and plunging the room into darkness.

Mark grabbed the flashlight from the floor and aimed it at the opening—but the beam didn’t reach the bottom.

All he saw was blackness—an endless, yawning void that seemed to swallow the light.

Then the shapes began to move.

At first, they were just shifting shadows at the edge of the darkness. But as he stared, they became clearer, their forms grotesque and unnatural. They writhed and twisted, merging and separating in ways that made his stomach churn.

One of them rose higher than the others, its body stretching unnaturally. It had no face—but he felt its gaze settle on him, heavy and unrelenting.

The whispers returned, louder than ever—but this time, they weren’t coming from the void. They were coming from inside his head.

“Come,” they said.

Mark took a step back, his hands trembling. “What… what are you?” he whispered.

The thing tilted its head, as if it were considering the question.

Then it reached out, its elongated fingers tipped with jagged claws.

“Come,” it said again.

Mark didn’t know how long he stood there, frozen in place.

Time didn’t seem to exist at that moment—the world outside the living room felt distant and unreal.

The thing moved closer, its body undulating as it crossed the threshold of the trapdoor.

It didn’t leave the void completely—but its presence filled the room.

Mark couldn’t breathe.

He stumbled back, tripping over the coffee table and landing hard on the floor. The flashlight slipped from his hand, rolling away, its erratic beam slicing across the walls.

The thing reached for him, its claws brushing against his leg. The touch was ice-cold, burning through his skin like fire.

He screamed.

Somehow, he managed to crawl away, dragging himself toward the hallway. His hands slipped on the wooden floor, his limbs weak and uncooperative.

The whispers followed him, growing louder, more frantic.

“Don’t run,” they said. “Stay.”

Mark reached the doorway and pulled himself into the hall, slamming the door shut behind him.

For a moment, the voices stopped.

The house was silent again.

But then the pounding started.

It wasn’t coming from the walls or the ceiling. It was coming from the trapdoor.

The sound reverberated through the house, shaking the floor beneath him.

Mark pressed his back against the door, trying desperately to regain his composure.

The whispers returned, layered and chaotic, drowning out his thoughts.

The thing wasn’t just calling to him anymore. It was angry.

He could feel its rage, its frustration, as it pressed against the only barrier separating it from him.

The pounding grew louder and more desperate, and the wood began to splinter under the force.

He knew it wouldn’t hold for long.

Mark stumbled to his feet and ran to the kitchen, grabbing the heaviest piece of furniture he could find—the old oak table.

He dragged it into the hallway, pushing it against the door, reinforcing it as best he could.

The pounding continued, each impact rattling the table and sending vibrations through the floor.

He didn’t know what to do. His mind raced, his thoughts a jumble of panic and terror.

And then—just as suddenly as it had started, the pounding stopped.

Mark stood there, waiting for something—anything—to happen.

He edged toward the door, placing his ear against the wood.

The whispers were faint again, barely audible. He took a deep breath and pushed the table aside, opening the door just a crack.

The living room was empty.

The trapdoor was closed.

Mark didn’t sleep that night. He couldn’t.

He sat in the kitchen, staring at the doorway to the living room, waiting for the whispers to return. They didn’t.

But the silence wasn’t comforting. It felt like the calm before the storm, a brief reprieve before something worse.

He didn’t know how much longer he could take this.

Part VI

The house was silent when Sarah arrived the next morning.

She banged on the door for several minutes before finally letting herself in.

Her footsteps echoed in the empty hallway as she called out, her voice tight with concern.

“Mark?”

No answer.

The kitchen was empty, the coffee still cold in the pot. The living room looked undisturbed, save for the faint marks on the floor where furniture had been dragged.

The trapdoor sat in the middle of the room, closed and silent, the runes no longer glowing.

But the air felt wrong.

“Mark, if you’re here, say something!” she called, stepping closer to the trapdoor.

She froze as she heard it: faint murmurs, rising and falling in a rhythmic cadence. They seemed to come from everywhere at once, yet nowhere at all.

“Mark?” she called softly, her voice trembling.

The whispers grew louder.

Chris arrived not long after. Sarah had called him in a panic, telling him something was wrong.

Together, they searched the house from top to bottom, but there was no sign of Mark.

His keys were still on the kitchen counter. His phone sat on the coffee table. It was as if he had vanished into thin air.

Chris stared at the trapdoor, his jaw tight. “What the hell is that?”

Sarah shook her head. “I don’t know.”

The murmurs continued to build, filling the room with an otherworldly hum.

Chris rubbed the back of his neck, clearly uneasy. “We should call the cops,” he said.

Sarah hesitated. “I know… But what are we going to tell them, Chris? That my brother disappeared into a… a glowing trapdoor? They’ll think we’re insane.”

Chris didn’t respond. He just stared at the trapdoor, his expression impossible to read.

They stayed in the house for hours, waiting for something to happen. But the whispers didn’t change. The trapdoor didn’t move.

Finally, as the sun began to set, Sarah stood. “I’m going to check upstairs again, and then we’ll call the police, okay?”

Chris nodded but didn’t move. He was still staring at the trapdoor, his arms crossed over his chest.

As Sarah’s footsteps faded, the murmurs grew softer, almost imperceptible.

Chris leaned down, pressing his ear to the wood. “Mark?” he asked.

The whispers stopped. For a moment, the house was completely silent.

And then, a voice spoke.

“Come.”

Chris stumbled back, his face pale. “Sarah!” he called.

She came running, her eyes wide with alarm. “What? What happened?”

Chris’s voice shook. “It spoke,” he said. “It said—”

The trapdoor creaked.

Neither of them moved as the sound echoed through the room.

The creaking grew louder, the wood groaning as if under immense pressure.

And then—it stopped.

The trapdoor didn’t open. But the whispers returned, louder than before, overlapping and chaotic, forming words they couldn’t understand.

Sarah grabbed Chris’s arm, her grip tight. “We need to leave!” she rasped. “Now!”

Chris nodded, his eyes still locked on the trapdoor.

* * * * * *

The police arrived the next day, responding to Sarah’s report of a missing person.

They combed through the house, searching for clues.

But they found nothing.

No signs of foul play.

No evidence of where Mark had gone.

One officer noticed the trapdoor and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.

The wood was solid, the iron bands rusted but intact.

It looked as if it hadn’t been touched in decades.

“It’s probably just a sealed-off cellar,” the officer said, brushing it off.

But Sarah couldn’t stop staring at it.

The whispers were faint now, barely audible…

But she could still hear them.

* * * * * *

Weeks passed.

The house sat empty.

Chris and Sarah tried to keep their distance, but the silence weighed on them.

They couldn’t stop thinking about the trapdoor. About the whispers. About the way the house seemed to breathe around them.

One night, Sarah drove back to the house. She told herself it was just to grab some of Mark’s things, but she knew that wasn’t the truth.

When she stepped inside, the whispers greeted her.

She found herself in the living room, standing over the trapdoor. It looked the same as before—worn, rusted, unremarkable.

But the air around it felt alive, vibrating with something she couldn’t see.

She crouched down, straining her ears.

The whispers grew louder. More distinct.

“Open,” they said.

She shot to her feet.

“No,” she cried, backing away. “No, I won’t—”

The trapdoor creaked.

The following day, the house was empty again.

Chris called Sarah several times, but she didn’t answer.

When he went to check on her, her car was still parked in the driveway.

The keys were still in the ignition.

Inside, the house was silent.

The trapdoor was closed.

* * * * * *

The house remains empty now.

Its windows dark. Its walls silent.

But if you listen closely, standing just outside, you can hear it.

The whispers.

Calling.

Waiting.