The Floor Above

At twelve, I moved with my mother into the Sanctuary, a sprawling, whitewashed building that had once been a convent, now converted into a refuge for families. I never believed in the supernatural back then; such things were for the naive, the superstitious. But by twenty, I know better. Some places are not just haunted; they are infected.

The Sanctuary was a maze of long corridors, high ceilings, and the faint smell of old incense. My mother and I were assigned a small room on the first floor, but the heart of the building, the chapel, and the administrative offices were on the second. From the first day, I felt a wrongness about that floor, a pressure in the air that made my skin crawl. I couldn’t articulate why, so I just avoided it, making excuses about the stairs being too steep. My mother dismissed my unease as a child’s fancy, telling me to ‘grow up’ and help with chores.

A week after we arrived, I was forced to go upstairs to fetch linens from a closet. The hallway was dim, lit by flickering fluorescent tubes. As I walked, the silence was oppressive, broken only by the hum of the lights. I reached the closet, grabbed the sheets, and was about to leave when I heard a sound from the bathroom at the end of the hall. It was a rhythmic, swishing noise, like a broom sweeping across tiles.

I froze. The bathroom was supposed to be empty. I could see the door was ajar, a sliver of darkness showing. The sound continued, methodical, unhurried. My heart pounded. I wanted to run, but my legs were rooted. Then, the sweeping stopped. A moment later, the door swung open with a slow, creaking groan.

I don’t remember dropping the linens. I don’t remember running. I only remember the terror that propelled me down the stairs and into the safety of the crowded common room, where other kids were playing and mothers were chatting. My mother saw my pale face and asked what was wrong. I told her about the bathroom, about the sweeping. She chuckled, attributing it to an old pipe or a draft. But I knew what I heard.

I began to piece together clues. Looking back, I recall that the second floor was where the nuns had once lived in silence, their days filled with prayer and penance. There was a legend, whispered among the older children, about a nun who had gone mad, confined to that floor, and who still swept the corridors in a futile attempt to cleanse her sins. I never saw her, but I often heard her—sweeping at odd hours, sometimes in the middle of the night, the sound echoing through the vents.

Years later, when I was nineteen, my mother passed away. I returned to the Sanctuary to collect her belongings, now an adult, but the fear clawed at me anew. The building was largely empty, a caretaker the only other soul. I forced myself to go up the stairs, to face the thing that had haunted my childhood. The hallway was the same, but time had worn it down, peeling paint, sagging ceiling. I walked to the bathroom, its door now closed. I pushed it open.

Inside, the room was covered in a thick layer of dust, untouched for years. But in the center of the floor, there were faint, sweeping marks in the dust, as if someone had just brushed it. I stood there, listening. The silence was deafening. Then, from behind me, came a whisper: ‘You came back.’ I spun around. Nothing. But the air grew cold, and I felt a presence, malignant and patient.

I fled, but not before glancing back. In the mirror above the sink, I saw a reflection—a figure in a black habit, face hidden, holding a broom. It didn’t move, just stared. I ran down the stairs, my heart nearly bursting. I left that place, vowing never to return.

But the Sanctuary follows me in my dreams. I still hear the sweeping, and I see the figure. And I know that some floors are better left unvisited, some places are not just haunted but are alive with a malevolence that feeds on fear. The second floor of the Sanctuary is one of those places. It claimed my childhood, and it will claim more if it can. But I am older now, and I know the truth: the floor above is not empty. And it never was.