The Floorboard That Breathed

I’ve never been good at keeping track of time. The days blur together like rain on a window, and I’ve learned to accept that my mind plays tricks on me. The doctors call it dissociative disorder, but that’s just a fancy way of saying I can’t always trust what I see or feel. So when the house on Maple Street started to feel wrong, I told myself it was just my brain misfiring again.

I moved into the old Victorian at the end of Maple Street because it was cheap. The previous tenant, a man named Harold Briggs, had died alone in the upstairs bedroom. The landlord, a nervous woman with darting eyes, said he passed of a heart attack. But the way she said it, with a quick glance toward the ceiling, made me wonder. Still, I needed a place, and the rent was almost nothing.

The first night, I couldn’t sleep. The house was full of creaks and groans, but that’s normal for an old building. What wasn’t normal was the sound from the floorboard in the hallway. It was a rhythmic, whispering sound, like someone breathing very slowly. I lay in bed, staring at the crack of light under the door, and I swear the floorboard was moving up and down, just barely, like a chest rising and falling.

I told myself it was the wind. But there was no wind. The house was sealed tight, the windows painted shut.

A week passed. I started to notice things out of place. A coffee mug that I’d left in the sink would be on the counter. The hallway rug would be wrinkled, as if someone had walked over it. One day, I came home from work to find the bathroom door closed. I always leave it open. I pushed it open, and the mirror over the sink was fogged, as if someone had just taken a hot shower. But the water was cold.

I tried to convince myself I was forgetting things. I’ve always had a bad memory, especially when I’m stressed. But the floorboard sound grew louder. At night, it was like a low moan, rising and falling, and I would cover my ears with my pillow, but I could still feel it in my bones.

Then, the dreams started. I was in the upstairs bedroom, the one where Harold Briggs died. The room was dark, lit only by a streetlamp outside. I was lying on the floor, paralyzed, and something was pressing down on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. And in the corner, I saw a shape—a tall, thin figure, darker than the darkness, its head tilted as if it was watching me. When I woke, gasping for air, I found a handprint on my chest, bruised and purple.

I went to the landlord, demanding to know about the history of the house. She hesitated, then told me that Harold Briggs wasn’t alone when he died. He had a daughter, a young woman named Emily, who had a mental illness. She used to live with him, but she vanished a year before his death. The police searched, but they never found her. Harold always said she was ‘away,’ but the neighbors said they heard arguments, and sometimes they saw him dragging her by the arm.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I sat in the living room, staring at the staircase, and I felt a presence in the hallway upstairs. The floorboard sound was now a constant, heavy breathing, like something alive was under the house. I decided to check the hallway, but as I reached the top of the stairs, the floorboard in front of the bathroom door lifted slightly, as if a hand was pushing it from below. I froze. The floorboard settled back with a click. Then, the bathroom door creaked open, and I saw a wet footprint on the linoleum. It was small, like a woman’s foot, and it led to the bedroom at the end of the hall—Harold’s bedroom.

The door was closed. I never closed that door. I walked towards it, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it. I put my hand on the doorknob. It was cold, icy cold. I turned it and pushed, and the door swung open slowly. The room was dark, but I could see the outline of a figure sitting on the edge of the bed. It was the same figure from my dream. It turned its head, and even though I couldn’t see its face, I felt it smiling.

I stumbled back, trying to run, but my feet wouldn’t move. The figure rose and started walking toward me, its form rippling like heat haze. And then, it spoke. Its voice was a whisper, but it filled my ears, a sound like dead leaves scraping concrete. ‘You see me,’ it said. ‘You have always seen me.’

I woke up on the floor of the bathroom. I don’t know how long I was there. The shower was running, ice cold. I looked in the mirror, and my reflection wasn’t me. It was the shadow figure, standing behind me, its hands on my shoulders. I screamed and ran out of the house, not stopping until I reached the street.

I never went back. I stayed with a friend for weeks, trying to convince myself it was a hallucination. But the bruises on my chest wouldn’t fade. And one night, I dreamed of the shadow figure again. It was standing at the foot of the bed, and it said, ‘You can’t run. I am part of the house. And I am part of you.’ When I woke, I found a floorboard in my friend’s apartment, the one in the hallway, had lifted slightly, and I heard that same rhythmic breathing coming from the crawlspace below.

Now, I’m always listening. Every creak, every groan, every whisper of wood. I know the shadow is not just in the house on Maple Street. It’s in every house, every room, every floorboard that breathes. And it’s waiting for me to stop running.