The Loft Above the Cookie Factory

Marta had lived in the attic flat above the old cookie factory for six years. The building was a relic of a bygone era, its brick walls stained with decades of soot, and the air always carried the faint, sweet smell of burnt sugar that never quite faded, even after the factory shut down years ago. At night, the only sounds were the groans of the pipes and the occasional scuttle of mice in the walls. It was a quiet life, a solitary one, and Marta liked it that way.

But quiet can be deceptive. It started when she was fourteen, soon after they moved in. She had gotten into the habit of staying up late, hunched over her sketchbook under the dim glow of a lamp, her mind too wired to sleep. That was when the paralysis began. It would come in the small hours, just as she felt herself drifting off. She would wake with a start, her eyes snapping open, her body frozen as if cast in stone. She couldn’t move a muscle, couldn’t make a sound, and a crushing weight pressed down on her chest, making her breath short and shallow. It happened once or twice a week, a nuisance she learned to endure. She would focus on the texture of her bedsheets, the pattern of the ceiling cracks, and eventually, the paralysis would lift.

But last week, it changed. Every single night, the paralysis came, but this time it was different. She would wake, unable to move, and then she felt it—a hand, cold and hard, clamping around her throat. There was nothing there. Her eyes, wide open, scanned the room, and she saw only the familiar shadows of her furniture. But the grip was undeniable, tightening with a force that made her breath come in ragged, panicked gasps. She tried to calm herself, to remember that it was just sleep paralysis, but the lack of air sent pure terror coursing through her veins. Her heart pounded in her ears, a frantic drumbeat against the silence. Just as she felt she would blackout, the grip would release, and she would gasp, her body suddenly free.

After the third night of this, she stopped sleeping altogether. She would sit in the corner of her living room, knees drawn to her chest, watching the doorway, praying for dawn. She stayed awake until the first pale light crept through the dusty windows, and then she would finally let herself doze in a shallow, fitful sleep on the sofa, always half-alert, never fully under.

Her mother, on the other end of a crackling phone line, dismissed her fears. ‘You’re sleeping on your back, that’s all. Put a pillow behind your knees and it will pass.’ Marta followed the advice, but it didn’t help. The choking continued, each night more persistent, more violent. She could feel the individual fingers pressing into her windpipe, the pressure building until she saw stars. And then, on the fifth night, she heard a voice. It was a whisper, dry as parchment, right by her ear. ‘The loft above the cookie factory,’ it said. ‘I know you smell the sugar. I’ve smelled it for a hundred years.’

She tried to scream, but no sound came out. The grip tightened, and the voice continued, a litany of things it had seen from the shadows: the workers who toiled below, the children who played in the alleyway, the women who lived in this very room, one after another, all of them waking to the same paralysis, the same choking, the same terror. ‘They all left,’ it said. ‘But you, you baked in this sweetness so long, you’ll stay forever.’

On the sixth night, Marta didn’t go to her bed. She barricaded herself in the bathroom, the small tiled room with the rusted faucet. She sat in the empty porcelain tub, her knees to her chest, the cold biting through her pajamas. She was so exhausted that her eyes began to droop, and despite her will, she slipped into a shallow sleep. When she woke, she was on the floor, her back against the toilet, her body in the familiar grip of paralysis. And this time, she could see it. A shape, darker than the shadows, crouched in the corner of the ceiling, its head tilted, its long fingers wrapping around her throat from behind, even though it was meters away. She felt its cold breath on her ear, and it whispered, ‘You have a visitor now.’

She struggled, her mind screaming, but her body was useless. The grip tightened, and she felt her consciousness begin to fade. Just before she slipped away, the bathroom door creaked open, and she heard the sound of her own mother’s voice, but distorted, low, and wrong. ‘I told you, it’s just a bad dream.’ Marta’s eyes locked onto the figure at the door, a version of her mother with hollow eyes and a too-wide smile. And then everything went black.

When she awoke, she was back in her bedroom, lying in her bed, the morning light filtering through the lace curtains. The sunlight was warm, and the air smelled faintly of sugar. She sat up, touching her throat. It was sore, but there were no marks. She laughed, a shaky, relieved laugh. It was just sleep paralysis, a bad case of it, worsened by fatigue. She had read about it. It was all in her head. She swung her legs out of bed, her feet landing on the cold, creaking floor, and she padded to the bathroom to wash her face. The mirror showed a girl with dark circles under her eyes, a girl who looked like she hadn’t slept in a week. She turned on the water, and as it ran, she heard a sound from the living room. A soft, rhythmic tapping, like a finger on glass. She ignored it, splashing water on her face. But the tapping continued, growing more insistent, and she heard a voice, muffled but clear. ‘I know you’re awake. I’ve been waiting. This is my home now. And you, you’re never leaving.’

Marta froze, her face dripping. She looked up at the mirror, and in the reflection, behind her, the shadowy figure stood in the bathroom doorway, its head tilted, a smile forming from the shadows. She didn’t scream. She just stared, as the figure reached out a long, dark hand, and the door slowly began to close, sealing her in with the darkness.

The flat is still there, above the abandoned cookie factory. The neighbors say no one has lived there for years. But if you walk by at night, you might see a light in the window. And if you listen closely, you might hear a faint, repetitive tapping, and a young girl’s voice, whispering, over and over, ‘The loft above the cookie factory.’