The Hollow Seat

Marta had always been a collector of small anxieties. She catalogued them like pressed flowers: the thrum of a crowded room, the prick of a needle, the suffocating weight of a stage. But this was different. This was a presence, a pressure, a persistent awareness that she was never truly alone in her new apartment on the top floor of the old Fenwick Building.

It began with the feeling of being watched. She’d turn from her desk, mid-thought, expecting to catch a face at the window or a figure in the corner, but there was only the slant of late afternoon light across the worn floorboards. She started leaving every lamp on, even in the daytime, to banish the long shadows that pooled in the corners of the high-ceilinged rooms.

Then came the touches. A phantom fingertip on her shoulder as she reached for a book. A tap on her ankle while she sat at the kitchen table, her bare feet on the cold linoleum. She would spin around, heart hammering, to find nothing. No one. The air itself seemed to hold its breath.

The first true violation happened in the bathroom. She was leaning over the sink, scrubbing her face with a washcloth, when a loud clatter sent her jolting upright. Her deodorant stick lay on the tiled floor, having fallen from the glass shelf above the sink. But it wasn’t the fall that scared her—it was the way it fell. It hadn’t tipped or rolled. It had dropped straight down, as if a hand had pushed it off the shelf, and it landed flat, not even a wobble. Marta stood frozen, water dripping from her chin, staring at the stick like it might move again.

But the most unsettling thing was the memory that clawed its way up from her past. It was a Sunday, months ago, in the echoing choir loft of the old church where she sang. She was about to perform a solo, her heart a wild bird in her chest, when she saw it: a strange, empty space in the front pew, a flicker of something wrong. Her gaze was drawn to the vacant spot, and for a moment, the church seemed to darken, the congregation’s faces blurring into a single, expectant blur. She couldn’t breathe. She nearly fainted, and had to sit down.

Now, in her apartment, that feeling returned with a vengeance. She was lying in bed, trying to sleep, when she felt it: a weight, pressing down on the mattress beside her. The indentation was visible in the moonlight—a deep, silent hollow that no one had made. She reached out a trembling hand, and her fingers met nothing but cold air. But when she withdrew, she saw that the hollow remained, as if the ghost of a body still lay there.

Marta fled to the living room, clutching a pillow to her chest. She tried to rationalize it: old building, shifting wood, a draft. But the hollow on the sheets was too precise, too deep. And the feeling of being watched was stronger than ever, a pressure at the back of her neck that made her scalp prickle.

The next night, she woke to the sound of something sliding across the hardwood floor. She sat up, heart pounding, and saw her kitchen chair sliding slowly from the table, as if an unseen hand was pulling it out. It moved an inch, then two, then stopped. The chair sat there, waiting.

Marta didn’t sleep that night. She sat in the corner, knees drawn up, watching the chair. In the morning, she called her landlord, a gruff old man named Mr. Kessler, and asked about the building’s history. He was evasive, muttering about ‘old troubles’ and ‘a tenant who left suddenly.’ When she pressed, he said, ‘That apartment’s been empty for years. No one stays long. They all feel it. The hollow seat.’

Marta hung up, a cold dread settling in her stomach. She began to investigate. In the basement, she found a stack of old newspapers. The headline from 1962 read: ‘Local Woman Missing; Husband Claims She ‘Vanished’ in Front of Him.’ The woman’s name was Agnes Whitfield. Her picture showed a trembling smile, and a caption mentioned she was a member of the church choir.

Marta’s blood turned to ice. She read the article: Agnes’s husband said she was sitting beside him in the front pew during Sunday service when she suddenly gasped, clutched her chest, and then simply… disappeared. The spot beside him was empty. He never saw her again.

That night, Marta sat in her apartment, unable to shake the feeling that Agnes’s fate was tied to the hollow seat—the empty space in the pew, the hollow in the bed, the invisible presence that was always beside her. She wondered if Agnes had been ‘taken’ by whatever watched her, and now it was watching Marta.

She tried to leave, but when she packed her bags and headed for the door, the handle was cold and unresponsive. She pulled with all her strength, but it wouldn’t budge. The lights flickered. The chair in the kitchen scraped across the floor again, sliding toward her, as if it were being pushed by an eager hand.

Marta backed against the wall, sweat beading on her forehead. The air grew thick, heavy, pressing down on her lungs. The hollow on the bed seemed to deepen, a dark silhouette forming in the dim light. She felt a poke on her shoulder, gentle but insistent, like a child trying to get her attention. She turned, and saw nothing. But the presence was there, all around her, suffocating.

She fell to her knees, gasping, as the floor seemed to tilt. The last thing she saw before the darkness closed in was the chair, now right beside her, its seat slightly dented, as if someone had just stood up from it.

When the police found her, days later, they said she had apparently died of a heart attack. There were no signs of forced entry. No one had seen her leave. But on the floor beside her body, in the dust, there was a strange pattern—like the imprint of a body that had been lying there for a long time, and then had finally stood up.

And the apartment, the one on the top floor of the old Fenwick Building, was quiet, waiting for its next occupant. But if they were to look at the front pew of the old church on Sunday, they might see a new empty space beside an old, faded memorial. A space that had finally been filled.