The Sounds in the Walls

The small prefabricated home felt new but never quite settled. Maya had chosen it for its affordability, and I stayed there most nights. My own days were gray and difficult, so her company was a comfort.

After a month, she began mentioning strange occurrences. She spoke of faint scratching sounds and fleeting shadows at the edge of her sight. I dismissed it, thinking the unfamiliar sounds of the countryside were playing tricks on her mind.

Weeks later, my own certainty began to fray. I heard the noises too, especially after dark—a soft rustling that wasn’t the wind, a shape moving just beyond my view. The feeling in the house was different from my old apartment, a constant, low-level hum of something else being present.

My doubt finally broke over three consecutive evenings. I was staying over as usual, but the atmosphere felt charged. On the first night, we went to sleep at ten. Maya fell asleep quickly, but I lay awake, restless. An hour later, a faint, rhythmic tapping started inside the wall near my head.