The Rotting Choir

I remember the night it began, not with a scream or a chill, but with the hum of the old refrigerator in my rented studio apartment on the corner of Ash and 3rd. I had fallen asleep on the pull-out couch, a half-empty mug of cold coffee on the floor beside me, my sketchbook open on my chest. The dream was a murky thing, a gray wash of nothing, until a voice threaded through it—a girl’s voice, clear as cold water, singing my name: ‘Elena.’ It wasn’t a call; it was an introduction. She sang it over and over, each repetition more intimate, as if she were trying to imprint it on my bones.

In the dream, I found myself at a small wooden desk, the kind you’d see in an old schoolhouse, with a single sheet of cheap paper and a fat graphite pencil. My hand moved without my permission, scratching out words: ‘hello elena my name is…’ But before I could finish, a violent spasm seized my neck and shoulder. I jerked awake, my jaw clattering uncontrollably, my breath ragged and wet, forcing a slobbering sound from my throat. I lay there, rigid, until the muscles relaxed. I shook it off. A night spasm. Nothing more.

But the voice didn’t stop. It was inside my head, a phantom chorus. ‘Elena, Elena, Elena,’ it sang, and I felt a cold pressure on my cheek, like a fingertip tracing my jaw. I sat up, heart pounding, and spoke aloud: ‘Go away.’ The singing stopped abruptly, replaced by a high, thin wail, like a wounded animal. A pleading followed, a frantic ‘yes, yes, I’ll go, just let me touch you,’ but I shouted, ‘No! No! Go away!’ With each ‘no,’ the air in the room dropped, frosting my breath, raising gooseflesh on my arms. The temperature fell so fast I could see my own exhalations.

Then she showed herself to me, not with eyes, but in a wash of images behind my eyelids: a girl, maybe fifteen, with dark hair tangled and wet, her face and body half-eaten by decay, the rot glistening black and green. She was crying, not from pain, but from embarrassment, covering the ruined side of her face with a skeletal hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered inside my skull. ‘I’m so ugly now. But I was pretty before. They said I was pretty.’ I felt a wave of nausea, but also a strange pity. I steeled myself. ‘Leave me alone,’ I said, more firmly this time. The images vanished, and the cold receded.

I thought it was over. I went to the kitchen, made a cup of tea, and tried to forget. But the next night, the singing returned, softer now, almost mournful. She didn’t try to touch me. She just sang, and in my mind’s eye, I saw her sitting on a curb in front of a rundown building, the rot spreading like a slow stain. She began to speak in fragments, showing me snatches of memory: a man with a silver ring, a basement with a single bare bulb, the taste of copper. ‘He did this to me,’ she said. ‘He left me in the foundation.’ I didn’t want to hear more. I built a wall of white noise, blocking her out with loud music and late-night movies. But she was patient. She started appearing in my peripheral vision, a flicker of decay, a whisper of rot. I stopped sleeping. I started seeing her in reflections, in the grain of the wall, in the shadows under my bed.

One night, driven to exhaustion, I screamed at her, ‘What do you want from me?’ The apartment fell silent. Then, in a voice that was no longer pleading but cold and firm, she replied, ‘I want you to find the foundation.’ I had no idea what that meant, but I felt a compulsion, a pull toward the old abandoned church on the edge of town—the one that had been half-demolished years ago, its basement flooded and sealed. I went there in the dead of night, my footsteps echoing in the empty streets. The chain-link fence was rusted, the ‘no trespassing’ sign peeling. I squeezed through a gap and made my way to the gaping hole where the foundation had been exposed. The smell hit me first: damp earth, decay, and something else—something metallic and sweet.

I stood at the edge, looking down into the black water below. She was there, a pale shape just beneath the surface, her one good eye staring up at me. ‘He put me here,’ she said. ‘I was still alive for a while. I screamed until the water filled my lungs.’ I felt her anger, her grief, but also her longing for release. I saw a glint in the mud nearby—a silver ring, half-buried. I picked it up. It was engraved with a name: ‘Marcus.’ She whispered, ‘He comes here every year on the anniversary. He brings flowers. He thinks no one knows.’ I looked at the ring, then at her. I knew what she wanted me to do.

I didn’t sleep for three days. I waited. And on the night of the anniversary, I watched from across the street as a man in a long coat approached the fence. He was older now, gray-haired, but the ring on his finger matched the one I’d taken. He climbed through the same gap, carrying a single white rose. He knelt at the edge of the foundation, mumbling an apology. I stepped out from the shadows, holding up the ring. ‘You dropped this,’ I said. His face went pale. ‘Who are you?’ he stammered. I didn’t answer. I just let her in. I felt her surge through me, a cold fire, and my mouth opened on its own. ‘You left me to drown,’ I said, but it wasn’t my voice. ‘You told me it was a game.’ He stumbled backward, tripping on a root, and fell into the water. There was a splash, a choked cry, then silence. When his head went under, I felt her release, a warm release of tension I didn’t know I was holding. I dropped the ring into the water where she’d been, and turned away.

I walked home in the gray dawn, exhausted but strangely serene. I haven’t heard her singing since. But sometimes, when I pass by that church, I see a young girl’s face in the water, smiling, her rot washed away. And I know she’s at peace. But I also know that the foundation is still there, and the memory of what happened, and somewhere, in the dark, there are other foundations, other girls, waiting for someone to find them. And I wonder if I’ll hear their singing too, one day. But for now, I just try to sleep. The nights are quiet. The temperature is normal. But every time I close my eyes, I see that rotting face, and I know that I did what she asked, and that it was the right thing to do. At least, that’s what I tell myself.