The Crimson Room

My family has always prided itself on logic. My father, a retired engineer, would say, ‘There is a scientific explanation for everything, if you look hard enough.’ My mother, a nurse, agreed, and they raised my sister and me to question the unexplained. I never doubted them, not until that night when I was seven, in the small, musty house on the edge of the woods.

My father was away on a business trip, so my mother let me sleep in her bed. I remember waking to the frantic barking of our dog, Rusty. The sound was shrill, desperate, and then it stopped. I sat up, my heart pounding. The room was bathed in a deep, blood-red light, as if a crimson sun had risen outside the window. The curtains were drawn, yet the light seeped through, painting the walls and furniture in a sinister hue. I shook my mother, but she only murmured and rolled over. I lay frozen, unable to scream, as the red light pulsed like a heartbeat. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone, leaving only darkness and the silence of the night.

The next morning, I told my mother. She smiled and said, ‘Perhaps you were having a nightmare, sweetheart. The moon can play tricks.’ My father, back from his trip, tightened his lips and said, ‘Probably a reflection off a passing car.’ But I knew what I saw. The memory stayed with me, a splinter of fear I couldn’t remove.

Years later, we moved to a new city, into a modern apartment with clean lines and pale walls. My parents, now both working overseas, left my sister and me in the care of our grandmother. A month after they left, I missed them so much that I moved into their room. For a week, I slept peacefully. But one night, just as I was drifting off, I felt a warm breath against my ear. A voice, low and guttural, whispered, ‘Leave.’ I tried to scream, but my throat was locked. My body was paralyzed, my eyes darting, but I couldn’t move. The whisper grew louder, a cacophony of words I couldn’t understand, pressing into my skull. I focused on the numbers on the clock: 3:33 AM. Then, as if a switch was flipped, the voice stopped. I could move again, gasping for air, my heart racing.

The next day, I looked up the apartment’s history. It was built on the site of an old asylum, burned down in the 1960s. They said the fire started in the basement, and many patients perished. The official report called it an accident, but some whispered that the asylum’s doctor had refused to leave, and his ghost still wandered. I tried to convince myself it was just a story.

But the whispers didn’t stop. Every night, at 3:33, I’d feel the presence, the cold breath, the words that seemed to crawl into my ears. I began to lose sleep, my grades slipped, and my grandmother thought I was on drugs. I decided to find out more. I visited the local library, digging through archives. I found a photograph of the asylum’s doctor, a man named Dr. Aldous Caine. He had a gaunt face and eyes that seemed to pierce the camera. The caption said he was a pioneer in sleep therapy, but a colleague’s letter described him as obsessed with ‘auditory hallucinations.’ The letter hinted at experiments he conducted in a soundproof room, where he would record his patients’ screams and play them back to induce ‘audio-induced trances.’

One night, I decided to fight back. I set up a recorder before going to bed. At 3:33, the whisper came again. I stayed calm, concentrating on my breathing. The voice said, ‘You are not welcome.’ I managed to mouth, ‘Who are you?’ The voice grew angry, hissing, ‘You know not what you disturb.’ Then, the room grew cold, and I felt a pressure on my chest, as if something was sitting on me. Just as I thought I would suffocate, the recorder clicked off. The pressure lifted, and I was free.

I played the recording. I heard a faint, high-pitched wail, barely audible, and then my own voice, but it wasn’t me. It was a deep, distorted voice that said, ‘You will be freed.’ I was terrified, but also determined. I began to research sleep paralysis and auditory hallucinations, but I found nothing that explained the red light or the physical effects. I started to wonder if my mother had seen the red light too, but she dismissed it, just as she dismissed everything. I called her, and she said, ‘You’re just stressed, honey. Take a break.’

But I knew this was real. So I decided to record every night. Each recording caught the whisper, but it was too faint to understand. I tried to enhance them, but they only became more distorted. Then, one night, the voice spoke clearly. It said, ‘Dr. Caine wants his room.’ I asked, ‘What room?’ The voice replied, ‘The red room.’ I felt a chill. The room I slept in, my parents’ room, was painted white, but when I looked at the walls in the red light, I saw that the paint was fading, and underneath was a deep crimson, as if it had been painted over many times but the red still bled through.

I asked the voice, ‘What is the red room?’ But the voice only laughed, a sound like nails on a chalkboard. Then, it said, ‘He wants to finish. You will help.’ I woke up screaming, my grandmother rushing in. I couldn’t explain. I was trembling, pointing at the walls. She looked at me with pity, and said, ‘You’ve been under too much stress. Let me call your parents.’

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I stayed awake, watching the clock. At 3:33 AM, the red light flooded the room again. I was not paralyzed. I sat up, and I saw a figure standing in the corner. It was tall, gaunt, wearing an old-fashioned white coat. It had no face, just a void. It raised a hand, and pointed at the floor. I looked down, and I saw the floorboards beginning to creak and move, as if something was underneath. I jumped out of bed, and the floor burst open, revealing a dark hole. A sound rose up, like a thousand whispers, and I heard Dr. Caine’s voice from the recorder: ‘Now you know.’

I ran out of the room, down the hall, and out of the apartment. I never went back. I stayed with a friend, and after a few weeks, my parents returned. They had the room repainted, and they moved to a different house. But I never slept in the crimson room again. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I still see that red light, and I hear the whispers, telling me that Dr. Caine is still waiting. And I know, one day, he will find me.