The Pattern in the Wallpaper

When I was fifteen, my family moved into a crumbling Victorian house on the edge of a town that seemed to have given up on itself. The previous owners had left in a hurry, leaving behind furniture draped in dusty sheets and walls papered with a faded, floral pattern that my mother hated but couldn’t afford to replace. My room was at the end of a long, drafty hallway, and the wallpaper there was darker, the flowers almost black in the dim light. I didn’t mind it at first; it was my sanctuary from the chaos of a new school and the constant bickering of my parents. But I was struggling. I had no friends, my grades were slipping, and I felt a suffocating weight of loneliness pressing down on me. It was during this time that I started noticing the pattern.

At first, it was just a trick of the eye—a face forming in the clusters of petals, a figure emerging from the twisting vines. I would blink, and it would be gone. But soon, the images became more persistent. I would lie in bed at night, staring at the wall beside my pillow, and I could swear the flowers were moving, crawling toward me. My older brother, Darren, laughed at me when I mentioned it. He said I was just stressed, seeing things. But my younger sister, Lily, refused to sleep in the room after I told her about it, and she would curl up on the couch downstairs, much to my mother’s annoyance.

My mother, a devoutly religious woman, had insisted on blessing the house the day we moved in. She had sprinkled holy water in every corner and hung a crucifix above the front door. ‘This house is protected,’ she said firmly. ‘Nothing evil can touch us.’ I wanted to believe her, but the pattern seemed to mock her words. One night, I woke to find that the wallpaper had changed. It wasn’t the same faded pattern anymore; it was new, the colors brighter, the flowers more intricate. And in the center of the wall, where there had been a particularly large rose, there was now a dark, gaping hole, like a mouth opened in a silent scream. I reached out to touch it, and the paper rippled, as if something was moving beneath it.

I tried to tell my mother, but she dismissed me with a prayer. ‘You’re just having nightmares,’ she said, but I could see the doubt in her eyes. The next night, I forced myself to stay awake, my eyes fixed on the wall. Hours passed, and nothing happened. I began to relax, thinking maybe it was all in my head. But then, just before dawn, the pattern began to shift. The flowers uncurled, and the vines slithered, and they started to form a shape—a human shape, tall and faceless, with long, spindly arms reaching toward me. I wanted to scream, but my voice was gone. The figure pressed against the wallpaper, its outline bulging outward, and I could feel the cold, damp pressure of it against my cheek, even though it was still behind the paper.

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I woke to sunlight streaming through my window, and the wallpaper was back to its faded, benign state. I thought it was over, but that day, I noticed a new pattern on the wall: a small, black spot in the corner, like a bruise on the paper. It grew slightly each night, and with it, the figure in the wall grew more distinct. I began to feel a presence in the room, a weight watching me. My brother, Darren, started teasing me about my ‘imaginary friend,’ but one night, he came to my room to borrow a game, and he went pale. ‘What is that?’ he whispered, pointing at the spot, which was now the size of a dinner plate. ‘I think it’s trying to get in,’ I said, and he didn’t laugh.

Desperate, I tried to peel the wallpaper off, but it was like trying to tear skin from a body. The paper seemed to resist, and when I finally ripped a strip away, the wall beneath was smooth and black, and it pulsed. I quickly covered it back, my heart pounding. I knew then that the house had changed, that the blessing had failed, or that something had broken through. I started sleeping with the lights on, my back to the wall, but the pattern was always in my periphery, always shifting.

The last night I spent in that room, I woke to find the figure had emerged. It stood at the foot of my bed, made entirely of the pattern, its body a mosaic of flowers and vines. Its face was a blank expanse of wallpaper, but I could feel it looking at me. It didn’t move; it just stood there, and I felt a chill wash over me, a deep, primal fear. I scrambled out of bed and ran to my parents’ room, but they were asleep, oblivious. I decided to sleep on the living room couch, and I never went back to that room again. My parents thought I was being dramatic, but they eventually let me move into the guest room.

I avoided the room entirely for weeks, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was waiting for me. One afternoon, I forced myself to peek inside, and I found that the wallpaper was gone. The wall was bare, gray plaster with a dark stain in the center, roughly the shape of a human. I stared at it, and for a moment, I thought I saw the stain ripple. I slammed the door shut and never opened it again. We sold the house a year later, and I never told the buyers about the room. But sometimes, at night, I still see the pattern in my mind, and I feel a cold breath on my neck, as if it is still there, patiently waiting for me to return.