The Damp Room on Mulberry Lane

When we first moved into the split-level duplex on Mulberry Lane, my brother and I were given the back bedroom. It was a cramped space with a window that faced the overgrown hedge, and the walls always felt slick with an unidentifiable moisture, as if the house itself was sweating. My brother, Eli, who was eight, complained of the cold seeping through the floorboards, but our parents dismissed it as old-house quirks. I was sixteen then, and I felt an unease that I couldn’t articulate—a sense that the room was watching us, waiting.

Our family had moved there after my father lost his job, and the rent was cheap. The landlord, a taciturn man named Mr. Harlow, warned us not to touch the wallpaper in that room, saying it was delicate. But one evening, I noticed a loose corner and peeled it back. Underneath, the wall was covered in strange, childish drawings of stick figures with hollow eyes, all reaching toward a door that was drawn in the center. The door wasn’t in the room, but the drawings gave me a chill. I covered it up immediately.

That night, I woke to the sound of dripping water. The room was darker than it should have been, the moonlight filtering through the window seemed to sink into the walls. I tried to move, but I was pinned to the bed, my limbs heavy as lead. A shadow stood at the foot of my bed—a tall, thin figure with elongated arms that reached toward me. I wanted to scream, but my throat was locked. It leaned closer, and I felt a cold, wet breath on my face, smelling of mildew and decay. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone, and I could move again. I lay there, trembling, until dawn.

I told Eli the next morning, and he looked at me with wide eyes. ‘I see it too,’ he whispered. ‘It comes from the wall, behind the drawings. It wants us to open the door.’ I dismissed it as a nightmare, but Eli began to spend more time in that room, sitting on the floor, staring at the wall. He’d trace the outline of the drawn door with his finger, humming a tune I didn’t recognize. Our parents thought he was just being a weird kid, but I knew something was wrong.

A week later, I came home from school to find Eli crouched in the corner of the room, facing the wall. He was speaking in a low, reverent tone, as if in prayer. ‘Eli?’ I called, but he didn’t respond. When I touched his shoulder, he flinched and turned to me, and his eyes were not his own—they were milky, like the eyes of a dead fish. ‘It’s almost ready,’ he said, his voice not quite his, layered with an echo. ‘The door will open when the water rises.’

That night, the dreams began. I saw a vast, dark ocean stretching under a black sky. A small door stood alone on a rocky shore, water lapping at its threshold. The door creaked open, and from within, a flood of cold, black water poured out, carrying with it the sound of children crying. I woke up screaming, but when I went to Eli’s room, his bed was empty. I found him standing in the bathroom, his hands submerged in the sink, water overflowing onto the floor. ‘It’s coming,’ he said. ‘The water’s coming.’

Over the next few days, the house began to change. Water stains appeared on the ceiling in that room, spreading like a map of veins. The dampness grew worse, and the air became thick, heavy. Our parents noticed, but the landlord refused to investigate, saying it was just the rain. But I knew it was the door. I peeled back the wallpaper again, and the drawings had changed—the stick figures now had tears streaming from their hollow eyes, and the door was drawn ajar, with black water seeping from it.

I tried to keep Eli away from that room, but he was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. He’d sit for hours, his ear pressed to the wall, listening to something I couldn’t hear. One night, I heard him whispering to the wall, and I stood in the doorway, watching. He turned to me, and for a moment, his face was a stranger’s. ‘It’s time to open the door,’ he said, and he pressed his palm to the spot where the drawn door met the baseboard.

There was a low groan, and the wall began to buckle. Water burst from the seams, flooding the room in seconds. I grabbed Eli and pulled him out, but the water followed us, spreading into the hallway. It was black, thick, and cold, and it moved with a purpose, as if alive. Our parents woke, screaming, and we all fled the house, barefoot in our pajamas. The water poured out of the front door after us, but it stopped at the threshold, as if contained by some invisible barrier.

We never went back. The fire departmentand the police came, but they found no source for the flood. The house on Mulberry Lane was condemned, and we moved away. But I still see the drawings in my mind, the stick figures crying, the door that was never meant to be opened. And sometimes, late at night, I hear that low, dripping sound, and I feel a cold breath on my neck, and a voice whispers, ‘The water’s coming.’ And I know that door is still waiting, and it remembers Eli.