The Sixth Floor Visitor

Marta was eleven, the same age her sister Lucia had been when she died. Their new apartment was on the sixth floor of a crumbling block that smelled of damp and old cooking oil. The previous tenant had left in a hurry, taking only a suitcase; the rest of the rooms were filled with abandoned furniture and a faint, unsettling odor.

One night, Marta’s parents were tucking her in. Her mother, Elena, paused at the doorway, her face framed by the dim hallway light. ‘Goodnight, half-pint,’ she said, her voice warm but tired. Marta murmured her own goodnight and rolled over, facing the window where the streetlamp cast a sickly orange glow. The shadows in the corner seemed to deepen, but she closed her eyes.

A minute later, she heard her mother gasp. Marta sat up, heart thumping. ‘What?’ she called out. The only answer was a sharp inhale. Her father’s heavy footsteps stopped. ‘Elena? What’s wrong?’ There was a long, trembling pause. Then her mother’s voice came, high and strained: ‘I just… I thought I saw someone behind the curtain in Lucia’s room. A little girl with long, dark hair, like ours. But it can’t be…’

Marta’s blood turned cold. She crept to the doorway and peered down the hall. Her parents stood frozen, staring into the room that had been set up as a nursery for the baby they were expecting. The curtain twitched, though no window was open. Marta’s father stepped forward, flicking the light switch. The room was empty, but a child’s nightgown that had been folded on the dresser was now crumpled on the floor.

They tried to dismiss it as a trick of the light, but Marta knew better. She had seen the girl before—a blurred reflection in the television screen, a silhouette at the foot of her bed. She had never told anyone, afraid they would think she was imagining it.

The next night, Marta’s mother was in the kitchen, washing dishes. The hallway was dark, and a floorboard creaked. Elena looked up and saw a small figure in a white nightgown, hair hanging limp over its face, standing at the end of the corridor. ‘Lucia?’ she whispered, her heart racing. The figure tilted its head, then took a step back into the shadows. Elena shouted up the stairs: ‘Marta! Get back to bed!’

From above, Marta’s voice answered, trembling: ‘We’re both in bed, Mama!’

Elena froze. She had seen the girl with her own eyes, and Marta was not there. She grabbed the phone, but the line was dead. When she finally climbed the stairs, she found Marta cowering under the covers, and the baby’s room door was open.

The next morning, they decided to leave. As they packed, Marta found an old photograph tucked behind the radiator in her room. It showed a girl who looked just like her, standing in front of the building, but the building was newer. On the back, in faded ink: ‘Lucia and the new baby, 1948.’

Marta’s hands shook. Her great-aunt had once mentioned a sister who died in infancy, but she had never seen a picture. As she stared at the image, she noticed a face in the second-floor window—the same dark-haired girl, watching.

That night, before they could leave, a fog rolled in, thick and unnatural. The building’s lights flickered and went out. Marta’s parents were arguing about where to stay, but Marta walked to the nursery, drawn by a faint humming. The crib was rocking, and the nightgown was laid out on the mattress, as if waiting for a body.

A voice, soft as a breath, said, ‘I’ve been waiting so long. You look just like me.’

Marta turned. The girl stood there, her face pale, her dark eyes hollow. ‘They buried me under the floorboards,’ she said, pointing to a loose plank. ‘But I never left.’

Marta’s mother screamed from the hallway, but the sound was swallowed by the fog. The girl reached out a hand, and Marta felt a cold draft, as if the floor had opened beneath her. She stumbled back, but the hallway was gone. Only a long corridor of doors, all identical, stretched before her.

She knew then that she had always been part of this place—that the girl had marked her from the moment they moved in. Somewhere, in the walls, she heard the faint sound of a heartbeat, and a whisper of a name she had never spoken: ‘You’re the one who will take my place.’

They never found Marta. The police searched the building for weeks, but the sixth floor was empty, echoing with only the sound of wind through broken windows. The building was condemned and eventually demolished. But in the debris, workers found a child’s shoe, size ten, with a faded name tag inside: ‘Marta.’

And sometimes, in the new high-rise that was built on the site, residents report seeing a small figure on the sixth floor, her hair dark and tangled, her face pressed against a window that no longer exists. She is still waiting for another girl with dark hair to come home.