I didn't come here to be scared.
I came here to get away—from the city noise, the texts I couldn't answer anymore, the manuscript that stared blankly back at me every night. A month ago, I signed the lease on this cabin with a single goal: silence.
No Wi-Fi. No neighbors. No excuses.
When I arrived, the house greeted me with stillness so heavy it felt like a held breath. A one-story cabin tucked into a patch of forgotten woods, with warped wood panels and moss clinging to its stone foundation like a warning no one ever read.
The key the landlord left under the flowerpot was cold. The door creaked open like it hadn't moved in years. A smell hit me—not rot, but oldness. Like closed pages. Forgotten paper.
Inside, it was bare: a bed with a thin mattress, a desk in the corner, a shelf leaning sideways, and a grandfather clock with no hands. I told myself it was perfect. Writers thrive in discomfort, don't they?
I unpacked slowly, trying to make the space mine. I set up my laptop, plugged in a cheap lamp, and left my phone in airplane mode. I even brought notebooks, real ones—thick, leather-bound, untouched.
The forest outside was unnervingly quiet. No birdsong. No rustling leaves. Just trees, watching.
It wasn't until the first night that I noticed it.
At 3:11 AM, I woke up. No alarm, no nightmare—just open eyes and the sense that something had changed. My skin felt cold, like I'd been standing in a draft, but there was no wind. Just the creak of old wood under the house. Slow. Heavy. Deliberate.
I lay still, trying not to breathe too loudly.
Creeeeeak.
One step.
Then another.
Right beneath the bed.
I froze. No phone. No weapon. Nothing but a pen on the nightstand and a locked jaw.
Then it stopped. Nothing. Not even the hum of insects outside. I waited, paralyzed in my sheets, until the first light bled through the blinds and the silence cracked.
When I checked under the bed, there was nothing.
I told myself the house was just settling.
That was a lie.
---
The next morning, I tried to forget. Made eggs on a rusty stove. Wrote one paragraph. Deleted it. Paced. Drank three cups of black coffee. I opened the windows to let in the sun, but even the light felt cautious. Like it wasn't welcome here.
That night, I kept the lamp on.
Again, 3:11 AM.
Again, creaking.
But this time, it didn't come from beneath the bed.
It came from beneath the floor.
A soft, dragging sound—like someone crawling. Fingernails brushing wood. It circled the room once… twice… then stopped directly beneath me.
I whispered aloud:
"Who's there?"
Nothing answered.
Just silence. Dense and damp.
But then—
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Three knocks. From under the floor.
I leapt out of bed, heart slamming like a drumline. I grabbed the lamp and scanned the wooden boards, expecting a hole, a crack—something.
But the floor was whole.
No crawlspace. No basement.
Just wood… and silence.
---
The next day, I searched the house. Every board. Every wall.
That's when I noticed it—the nail pattern near the edge of the bed didn't match the rest of the flooring. Four rusty nails were barely holding a wide board in place. I pressed it gently. It moved.
There was something under it.
A space.
A trapdoor.
I didn't open it.
Not then.
I told myself it was just storage. That old houses always made weird noises. That I was hearing mice. Maybe a raccoon under the foundation. That it wasn't a person. That it couldn't be a person.
But at night, when I tried to sleep, the whispers started.
Not words. Not yet. Just breath. Soft and careful, like someone was inches from my ear but behind the wall.
And always… at 3:11.
---
I haven't written anything real in days.
Instead, I've been filling notebooks with scribbles. Shapes. Half-sentences.
And last night, I wrote something in my sleep.
I found it this morning on a torn sheet from my notebook:
> "Don't answer when it knocks the third time. It remembers the ones who do."
I don't remember writing that. But the ink was fresh. And it was my handwriting.
---
I don't know what's under this floor.
But tomorrow night, I'm going to open that trapdoor.
I have to.
Because I swear... last night, before I fell asleep, I heard it again.
But this time, it wasn't whispering.
It was laughing.