The Static in the Walls

The last time I posted anything was five years ago, when I was sixteen and terrified of the scratches that appeared on my bedroom walls each night. I called them ‘the claw marks,’ but they weren’t from any animal. My father said it was the house settling, and my mother blamed the draft. But I knew what I saw: deep gouges that spelled out a single word, ‘LEAVE,’ in the wood above my bed. We moved two months later, and I tried to forget.

I turned twenty, and the weight of the city pressed down on me. I was living in a cramped apartment in Glendover, a district that smelled of old grease and forgotten hopes. I had fallen into bad habits, the kind that blurred the edges of reality until I couldn’t tell if the flickering lights were my imagination or the building’s faulty wiring. My friend Marcus was the only person who still talked to me, and we’d spend hours in his place, trading stories of our worst nights. It was a Tuesday, I think, when his phone rang. He looked surprised, then held it out to me. ‘It’s my mom. She wants to talk to you.’

I had never met Marcus’s mother, not once. She was a pastor in some small town a few states over. I took the phone, expecting some polite inquiry about my health or a prayer request. Instead, her voice was sharp, almost urgent. ‘I need you to listen carefully. I was led to pray for Marcus, and I saw you in my vision. There is a darkness around you, something old and hungry. It has been with you since you were a teenager, and it has reattached itself. You must cleanse your home again, and this time, you must do it with fire.’

I laughed, a hollow sound. ‘I don’t even believe in that stuff anymore.’ But she continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. ‘You’ve been crying yourself to sleep every night. You think I don’t know? God has showed me your heart. He has been there, watching over you, but this entity is drawn to your pain. It feeds on it. You must burn the object that first brought it into your life.’

I dropped the phone. The memory hit me like a physical blow: the small, carved wooden box I had found in the basement of our old house, with the strange symbols etched into its lid. I had hidden it under my bed, and the scratches had started the same night. I never opened it. I had thrown it away when we moved, but now, in my drug-fueled haze, I had been thinking about it constantly, almost obsessing over finding it again. I had even started searching online for the old house’s address, planning to go back and retrieve it.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the city. But there was another sound underneath: a faint, crackling static, like a radio tuned to nothing but interference. It seemed to come from the walls, and I realized, with growing dread, that it was the same sound I had heard as a teenager, right before the scratches appeared. The static grew louder, and I saw it: on the wall, a single mark, as if drawn by an invisible nail, carving the word ‘COME.’

I jumped out of bed, grabbed my keys, and drove to the old house in the countryside, three hours away. The house was abandoned, its windows boarded, the porch sagging. I broke in through the back door. The air was thick with dust and decay. I stumbled to the basement, guided by a memory I wished I could forget. The box was still there, in the corner, covered in cobwebs. I picked it up; it was warm, pulsing with a faint heat. I got out of there as fast as I could.

On the drive back, the static in the car radio grew unbearable, even with the volume off. The box on the passenger seat began to vibrate. I pulled over, opened the glove compartment, and found an old lighter. I took the box outside, placed it on the gravel, and doused it with a bottle of whiskey I had in the trunk. I flicked the lighter. The flame caught, and the box burst into intense, blue-tinged fire. A sound came from within, a high-pitched, inhuman shriek that pierced my ears. I staggered back, hands over my ears, as the box turned to ash.

The static stopped. The air was silent, but heavy. I stood there, panting, and for a moment, I felt a profound sense of relief. But then I looked down at my hands. The lighter was gone. Instead, I was holding a photograph: a picture of myself, aged sixteen, standing in front of the old house. And in the photograph, behind me, a shadowy figure was contorted into a shape that made my stomach lurch. It had its hand on my shoulder. And I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that burning the box had not destroyed the entity. It had only released it entirely.

I heard the static start again, but this time, it was not from the walls. It was from behind my own eyes. And I realized, too late, that the entity had never been in the box. It had been in me all along, waiting for me to acknowledge it. The fire had only given it shape. I got back in the car, my hands shaking, and drove home. I haven’t spoken to Marcus since. I’ve stopped using the internet, I’ve stopped leaving my apartment. The walls in my apartment are now covered in scratches, but they don’t spell ‘LEAVE’ anymore. They spell ‘STAY.’ And the static never stops, not even when I sleep. It’s a constant, whispering voice, and it tells me secrets I never wanted to know. It tells me I am its vessel now, and I have nowhere left to run.