The Hollow Light of Hallway Nine

I was eight when we moved into the flat on Hallway Nine, a narrow corridor in a block that smelled of boiled cabbage and damp plaster. My mother called it a bargain; my father called it ‘temporary.’ The building had been a hospital during the war, and the hallway ran like a spine through the middle of it, linking every room to a single door at the end—a door that was always locked, though I never saw a key.

At first, I blamed the drafts. The radiators clanked and hissed, and the windows rattled in their frames. But there was something else, a chill that crept along the floorboards and settled in my bones, independent of weather. And the feeling of being watched—not from outside, but from within the walls, as if the building itself had eyes. I told my mother, but she said it was an old building with old pipes and old memories.

One night, a nightmare jolted me awake. I was drowning in a sea of black water, but I couldn’t scream. My throat was parched, so I padded down the hallway toward the kitchen, my bare feet slapping the cold linoleum. The corridor stretched longer than it should have, and the light from my room faded behind me. I felt the temperature drop sharply, a breath of ice that coiled around my ankles. Ahead, at the far end where the locked door stood, a figure emerged—tall, thin, composed of black smoke, with no face, only a hollow where a face should be. It started moving toward me, not walking, but gliding, as if the floor itself was carrying it.

I wanted to run, but my legs were stone. The figure came closer, and I heard a sound—not a voice, but a low hum, like a radio between stations. I saw that the figure was holding something in its hand, a tiny lantern with a pale, flickering light, and in that light, I saw the faces of people I didn’t recognize, trapped inside the glass, their mouths open in silent screams. The figure stopped an arm’s length away, and the hum grew louder. It raised the lantern to my face, and I felt a pull, a longing for that light, a desire to step into it and be free of every fear.

Then my mother’s voice called from the end of the hallway, ‘Who’s there?’ The figure withdrew, and the light died. The hallway was dark, but I could see my mother’s silhouette at the kitchen door. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. My mother scooped me up and held me, and I felt the warmth return. She didn’t ask what I had seen; she just carried me back to bed and wrapped me in blankets, and I heard her whisper to my father, ‘It’s the empty light. It’s found her.’

I never learned what that meant. We moved out two weeks later. But ever since, in the corners of my vision, I sometimes see a faint luminescence, a hollow light, and I feel the hum in my ears. And I know that the figure is still waiting, holding its lantern, in the hallway of my mind, patient for the day I’ll walk down that corridor again.