The Hollow in the Wall

I know what you’re thinking. Another newbie with a wild tale, trying to earn their stripes in the ghost story circuit. I get it. I wouldn’t believe me either. But I’m not here to convince you of my psychic powers. I’m here to tell you what happened, plain and simple. You can take it or leave it.

My name is Elias, and this happened when I was about four, in our first real house after my parents split. It was a cramped, dusty Victorian on the edge of a dying town, the kind with peeling wallpaper and radiators that clanked like bones. My room was at the end of the hallway, and it had this ridiculous closet—a deep, narrow alcove that seemed to swallow light. We didn’t have much furniture, so my mom let me use it as a fort. I’d drag my pillows and a flashlight in there and pretend I was a knight hiding from dragons.

Then came the day I found the crack. My cousin Vera, who was six and had a mean streak, was visiting. We were playing hide-and-seek, and she chose the closet. When I found her, she was crouched in the back, picking at the wall with a plastic fork she’d swiped from the kitchen. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing to a jagged gash in the plaster, about the size of my fist. ‘It’s hollow.’ She dug deeper, and a chunk fell away, revealing a dark recess. I felt a cold draft seep out, carrying a musty smell, like old books and damp earth. Vera laughed, ‘Maybe there’s a treasure in there!’ She shoved her hand in, felt around, and pulled out something small and gray—a child’s mitten, ragged and stained. She dropped it as if it were hot. ‘Ew, gross.’

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept staring at the closet door, which I’d left ajar. The hollow in the wall seemed to call to me, a whisper I couldn’t quite hear. I finally got up, crept over, and peered inside. The gap was bigger now, as if it had grown. I could see something glint deep within—not treasure, but a small, tarnished locket. Without thinking, I reached in and pulled it out. It was cold, almost icy to the touch. I opened it. Inside, there was a tiny, faded photograph of a boy my age, with dark hollow eyes and a forced smile. On the back, scratched in shaky handwriting: ‘He’s always hungry.’ Chills ran down my spine. I shoved the locket back into the hole and slammed the closet door shut.

The next day, I told my mom about the crack. She sighed, said the house was old, and covered it with duct tape. But it didn’t help. That night, I heard a rustling from the closet, like something shifting within. I lay rigid, my heart pounding. Then I heard a voice, soft and young, murmur, ‘Can I come out and play?’ I didn’t answer. I shoved my head under the pillow.

Things only got worse. I started finding things moved—my toy soldiers lined up in perfect rows, my shoelaces tied in strange knots. At night, I heard scratching, as if fingernails were scraping on the other side of the closet wall. I begged my mom to move, but she thought I was having nightmares. Then one evening, I caught a glimpse of a small, pale hand reaching out of the crack, the fingers twitching, searching. It was too real to be a dream. I screamed, and my mom burst in. She saw nothing, but she noticed the duct tape was gone, and the hole was wider. She put her hand on my shoulder. ‘Elias, it’s just an old house. There’s nothing there.’ I couldn’t tell her I’d seen the hand, that the hollow was growing.

That night, I decided to end it. I took my father’s old flashlight, which I’d hidden under my bed, and crept to the closet. I shone the light into the hole. The locket was gone, but something else was there—a small, tattered teddy bear, missing an eye. A wave of nausea hit me. I realized I recognized that bear. It was the one my brother lost years ago, in an apartment we lived in before my parents split. But how? That apartment was across the city, and I’d never been back there. The hollow in the wall wasn’t just in this house. It was everywhere, following us.

I ran out of the closet and screamed for my mom. She came, and I told her everything—about the mitten, the locket, the bear, the voice. Her face went pale. She took a step back, her eyes wide. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. Then she grabbed me, pulled me out of the room, and we spent the night at a neighbor’s. The next day, she taped up the hole permanently, but I knew it wasn’t over.

We moved out of that house a month later, but the hollow followed. In every house we lived in, there was always a crack, a gap, a hole in the wall—always just out of sight. And sometimes, at night, I’d hear that child’s voice, plaintive and hungry: ‘Why won’t you let me out?’ I’m grown now, but I still check every wall for cracks, every closet for hollows. And I know, one day, I’ll find a wall so thin that the hollow will open wide, and I’ll see what’s inside. And I’m afraid that when I do, it will see me.