The Floorboards Above

Elena and I had lived in the top-floor flat of a converted Victorian schoolhouse for nearly a year. The building was charming in a dilapidated way, with creaking radiators and tall windows that let in the pale winter light. But lately, the charm had soured into something else.

It started with the footsteps. One night, as I was drifting off, I heard them from the hallway that ran between our bedroom and the spare room. Heavy, rapid thuds, as if someone were pacing angrily. We had no upstairs neighbor; above us was only the attic, sealed off and dusty. I told myself it was the old pipes, or perhaps a squirrel that had gotten in through the roof. But the sound didn’t just echo; it resonated through the floor, vibrating up through my bones.

The next night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay there, Elena breathing softly beside me, and I listened. The footsteps stopped, then started again. This time they were directly overhead, in our hallway. The floor beneath my feet seemed to ripple, like a stone dropped into still water. I pulled the pillow over my head, my heart hammering. I tried to rationalize: it was a new building settling, or the wind. But I knew better.

The hallway itself began to feel wrong. Every time I passed through it, a cold dread settled in my stomach. My skin prickled, and I could swear I saw something move in the corner of my eye—a shape that vanished when I turned. I started to avoid looking into the mirror that hung at the end of the hall, because in my peripheral vision, I saw a tall, thin figure standing behind my own reflection.

Three days ago, Elena left for her early shift at the hospital. I was half-asleep when I heard a sound that made my blood run cold: the unmistakable rip of fabric. I sat up, groggy, and looked toward the door. There, in the doorway of our bedroom, stood a dark shape, and it was tearing at the air with long, jagged nails. The ripping sound was the fabric of reality itself being shredded.

I screamed, but no sound came out. The shape tilted its head, as if curious, then stepped back into the hallway. I heard its heavy footsteps retreat, then stop. And then, from the hallway, came a voice—not a whisper, not a scream, but a low, guttural chant that seemed to come from everywhere at once. It spoke in a language I didn’t recognize, but somehow I understood its meaning: it wanted the space we occupied. It had been there first.

I scrambled for my phone and called Elena, begging her to come home. When she arrived, she found me cowering in the bedroom, the door locked. She listened to my story with a skeptical frown, but when she walked into the hallway, she gasped. The walls were covered in long, parallel scratches, as if something had raked its claws along them. And in the mirror, we both saw it: a tall, thin shadow with hollow eyes, watching us.

That night, we slept in the living room, huddled on the sofa. But as the clock struck three, we heard the footsteps again, this time closer, and the ripping sound started anew. Through the doorway, we saw the shape dragging something into our bedroom—something that looked like a body, pale and limp. We didn’t sleep after that.

We called a priest, but he took one look at the hallway and refused to enter. We called a paranormal investigator, who set up cameras and recorders. When we played back the footage, we saw nothing, but the audio was filled with that guttural voice, chanting in the dead of night. It grew louder each day, and the scratches appeared on every surface, even the ceiling.

Last night, I woke to find Elena standing at the foot of the bed, her head tilted at an unnatural angle. She spoke in that same guttural voice: ‘You should have left when you had the chance.’ Her eyes were black, and her skin was cold.

I don’t know what to do. We can’t leave—the thing follows us wherever we go. It’s in the walls now, in the floorboards above, in the empty spaces between steps. It wants us to hear it, to feel it, to know that it’s always there, just out of sight, waiting for us to finally look directly at it. And when we do, it will be too late.