The Dry Whisper of the Well

My name is Elias, and I am the youngest of three, with two older brothers, Marcus and Paul. Paul, the eldest, still lived with our parents in the old farmhouse, while Marcus was in the city for his medical residency. This happened on the night before my pre-med board exam. I had been studying in my room, the lamp flickering against the heavy dust that seemed to coat everything, until ten o’clock. I decided to check on Paul, who had been quiet all day, holed up in his room with a fever. I knocked, but there was no answer, so I pushed the door open. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the wall, his lips moving as if in prayer. I told him about my exam schedule, but he didn’t acknowledge me. I shrugged and went to my own room, but as I reached the door, I heard a distinct ‘click’ from the hallway, like a latch being turned. I turned around, but there was no one there. I called out to Paul, but he didn’t respond.

I tried to sleep, but the sound of the old grandfather clock ticking in the hallway seemed louder than usual, each tick resonating in my skull. Then, at about two in the morning, I was jolted awake by a scraping noise from the window. It sounded like nails on glass, but slow and deliberate. I sat up, my heart pounding, and saw a shadow pass by the window, but it was gone before I could focus. I told myself it was just a branch, but the nearest tree was twenty feet from the house. I got up to close the curtains, and that’s when I heard it: a low, raspy whisper, almost like the sound of wind through a dry well, but it was distinctly human. ‘Elias…’ It said. My name. I froze.

The voice wasn’t coming from outside. It was coming from inside the house, from the direction of the attic stairs. My legs felt like lead, but I forced myself to move, to creep down the hallway. The attic door was slightly ajar, and a faint, cold draft seeped out. I pushed it open and saw a faint light emanating from the top of the stairs. I climbed, each step creaking like a scream. When I reached the top, I saw an old well in the corner of the attic. I had no idea it was there. It was made of stone, its rim mossy and damp, and it seemed to go down into darkness. And from that darkness, the whisper came again, more urgent: ‘Elias… come closer.’

I felt an overwhelming compulsion to obey, to lean over the edge and peer into the abyss. But at the last second, I heard a sharp voice behind me, shouting my name. It was Paul, who had come up the stairs, his face pale and his eyes wide. He grabbed my arm and yanked me back. ‘Don’t look,’ he panted. ‘It’s the well. It’s been here since we moved in. It’s hungry.’ I was shaking, and I didn’t understand what he meant. But he led me back down, and I slept in his room that night, with the door locked and a chair wedged under the handle.

The next morning, I called Marcus to tell him about my exam, but I couldn’t bring myself to mention the incident. Instead, I asked him, ‘Did you ever hear anything in the attic? Like a voice? A whisper?’ There was a long silence, and then Marcus said, ‘I did, brother. On the night before my exam. It told me to come closer. But I didn’t. I left for college the next week. I never told anyone. I thought I was going crazy.’ I felt a chill run down my spine. ‘What does it want?’ I asked. Marcus’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘I don’t know. But it knows your name. And it waits.’

That evening, I decided to investigate. I went up to the attic, armed with a flashlight. The well was still there, its darkness seeming to pulse. I aimed the light down, but it was like the beam was swallowed. I dropped a pebble, and I never heard it hit the bottom. I stood there for a long time, listening. And then, from the well, I heard something that made my blood run cold: a sound like a dry, rhythmic rubbing, as if something was climbing the walls of the well, coming up. I stumbled back, but I couldn’t look away. At the edge of the light, I saw a hand—gray, withered, with long, dirty nails—grip the rim. Then another. And then a face emerged, sunken and eyeless, its mouth open in a silent scream. It opened its mouth wider, and a voice, dry as old bones, said, ‘You came back. Now, take my place.’

I don’t remember running. I only remember waking up in my bed the next morning, with Paul shaking me, asking if I was okay. I had a fever, and I was weak. But I knew I had to leave. I left for college the next week, but the memory of that face haunted me. Marcus called me a month later, his voice frantic. ‘Elias, did you see it? Did you see the thing in the well?’ I told him I did. He said, ‘I saw it too. On the night before my exam. I killed it, or I thought I did. But it’s not dead. It’s. . . it’s in the house. I can hear it at night, scratching at my door. It wants us to go back, so it can switch places with us. But we can’t let it. We have to go back and seal the well, forever.’

I never went back. I don’t know if Marcus did. But I know that every night, when I lie in my bed in my cramped apartment, I hear it. Not in the attic, but inside my head. A dry whisper, calling my name, asking me to come closer. And I know that if I close my eyes for too long, I’ll see that face again, and I’ll be back at that well, and I won’t be able to stop myself from leaning over the edge. So I keep the lights on. I keep the window closed. And I keep a hammer under my pillow, just in case. But I know it’s not enough. Because the well is patient, and it knows my name. And it’s waiting for me to come home.