Elena had always known her grandmother’s house was strange. A sprawling Victorian on the outskirts of town, its peeling paint and leaning chimneys looked out of place amidst the suburban sprawl. After her grandmother passed, the house fell to Elena, the last of the family line.
Cleaning it out was a daunting task. Each room was crammed with dusty relics and faded photographs of ancestors with hard, unsmiling faces. But it wasn’t until her third day there that she found the door.
It was hidden behind a faded tapestry in the upstairs hallway. A narrow, wooden door no taller than a child, with a rusted iron handle. It hadn’t been on the house plans she’d found, and none of the family ever mentioned a room there.
Curiosity won out. She pulled open the door, a waft of cold, stale air brushing against her skin. A steep staircase spiraled downward into darkness.
She fetched a flashlight. Its weak beam flickered as she stepped onto the stairs, the wooden boards groaning under her weight. The deeper she went, the colder it became. The air smelled of earth and rot.
At the bottom was a small room, barely larger than a walk-in closet. Its walls were made of stone, the ceiling low enough that Elena had to duck. Old, decayed furniture lined one side: a narrow cot, a crooked bookshelf, and a small desk.
On the desk lay a single item: a leather-bound journal, cracked with age. The name etched on the front sent a chill down her spine.
MARGARET LANE
Her grandmother’s name.
Heart pounding, she opened the journal. The first pages were filled with neat, looping handwriting, recounting ordinary days. But as she turned the pages, the tone shifted.
“I hear them at night. The scratching, the whispering through the walls. I told Mother but she won’t listen. She says it’s the house settling. But I know better.”
Elena swallowed. The entries grew increasingly frantic.
“They come when it’s dark. Their voices in the walls. Sometimes I see them — pale faces in the mirror, eyes like pits.”
The last entry was barely legible, the ink smeared and frantic.
“If anyone finds this, know the truth. It’s not the house. It’s what lives beneath it. It waits. And it watches.”
A sudden sound made Elena jump — a soft tap-tap-tap from behind the wall. She spun around, shining the flashlight toward the noise. The stone wall was smooth, except for a small, dark stain in the corner.
Another tap.
It was coming from inside the wall.
Her skin prickled. She backed away, but the room seemed smaller now, the walls closing in. The air grew thick, and her flashlight flickered.
Then, a voice. Soft, dry as dead leaves.
“Elena…”
She froze.
The voice came again, from the wall.
“Elena… open the door.”
Her heart hammered. There was no door — just stone and shadows.
Or was there?
In the corner, almost hidden behind the cot, was a narrow crack in the wall. A sliver of darkness within darkness. The tapping grew louder.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The flashlight died.
Panic surged. Elena scrambled up the stairs, the darkness pressing against her, each step an eternity. The whispering followed, voices rising in a chorus of her name.
“Elena… stay… stay with us…”
She burst through the small door, slamming it shut, her breath ragged. She pushed a dresser against it, though it felt like a flimsy barrier against whatever waited below.
The house was silent.
Elena packed her things, left that night, and never returned.
A week later, as the house was being demolished, the foreman found something. In the rubble where the hidden room had been, they uncovered a sealed stone chamber.
Inside were old bones. Dozens of them. Some small, some twisted, as if broken to fit inside the narrow space. And carved into the stone wall, written over and over, one word:
ELENA
