The Listener
The deeper the silence, the louder it gets, and it’s been listening for you.
This is a story inspired by the eerie noises and weird feelings we’ve gotten living in our house.
It’s an old mid-century modern build.
The other day, my fiancé told me he heard the sound of children laughing in the middle of the night. I don’t feel scared, he doesn’t feel scared. It’s just… odd.
I never liked the apartment, but I needed somewhere cheap.
It wasn’t much.
A basement unit with damp walls that glistened faintly in the half-light.
The ceiling sagged so low I could almost reach up and brush it with my fingertips. The cracked plaster was stained with blooms of black mold that spread like veins.
The air always felt used. Stale. Thick with the lingering breath of whoever had lived here before me.
Maybe they never really left.
There was one small window, a narrow slit at street level. Its glass was so grimed with dirt, it dulled the weak daylight to a sickly yellow.
Through it, I could see the scuffed soles of passersby, their shadows flickering past. Sometimes the feet lingered. Sometimes they stopped.
At first, it was just a feeling. A wrongness that clung to me like wet cloth. The sense that I wasn’t really alone, even when the deadbolt was turned, and the blinds were drawn tight. But the silence pressed into my chest until it hurt to breathe. And then came the tapping.
It started on the first night.
I was in bed, curled on my side beneath a blanket. My eyes were closed but my mind was restless.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Not the skitter of a mouse across the floorboards. Not the groan of old pipes in the walls. Not the wind rattling the windowpane. Something deliberate. Something patient. A sound that paused between each beat, as if testing the air, listening to see if I’d flinch.
I didn’t. I couldn’t.
My body turned to stone. My breath felt trapped. Then, the tapping came again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Slow. Precise. Like a finger pressing into soft flesh. It was coming from the closet. I turned my head and saw the door.
It was open. Just a crack.
A thin sliver of deeper black against the gray gloom of the room. I was sure I’d closed it before bed. I remembered hearing the latch click. The air inside the closet was different. Thicker. A kind of darkness that didn’t just sit there but waited. I could feel it.
Watching.
Listening.
I squeezed my eyes shut, lids trembling. I told myself it was nothing. Old houses creak all the time. Pipes knock at inconvenient times. Minds play tricks in the dark. I yanked the blanket over my head and willed myself to sleep.
The next morning, the closet door was closed. I almost laughed at myself.
Almost.
Then I saw the scratches. Three of them, carved into the wood of the door. Deep, parallel grooves, the edges splintered and raw. They sat at about waist height. Right where someone, or something, might have reached out, dragging the wood. The paint around them was flaked, revealing the pale wood beneath.
I told myself they’d always been there. That I’d just never noticed. That the dim light and my tired eyes were conspiring against me. That’s all it was, right?
I told myself a lot of things.
The second night, the tapping moved. This time, it came from under my bed.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I bolted upright, the room tilting as blood rushed to my head. The sound stopped. But the silence that followed was worse. And then I heard it.
The breathing. Right beside me.
An uneven rasp, like air coming out of a clogged throat. It was so close I could almost feel the heat of it against my cheek. I quickly snapped on the bedside lamp and light flooded my bedroom.
There was nothing there.
I checked the closet. The door was closed, but the scratches were more visible now.
The window. Still shut. The front door. Locked tight.
And yet, I couldn’t shake it. The certainty that something was still here. Not just watching. But waiting. Things got worse after that.
Each night, the tapping shifted. The closet. Under the bed.
The walls, where it sounded like nails dragging through plaster. The ceiling, where it echoed like something pacing overhead in a room that didn’t exist.
Always in threes. Always close. Like something feeling its way around.
And then came the whispering.
Not words, at least. Not at first. I started sleeping with the lights on. But, it didn’t help.
The tapping grew louder, more insistent. The whispering followed after that, threading through the silence like a needle. I’d wake up to find the blanket half-off the bed, tugged toward the closet as if something had gripped it in the middle of the night.
One morning, my shoes weren’t where I’d left them. I’d kicked them off by the door the night before. Carelessly.
Now they sat by the window, neatly aligned, toes pointing outward. Facing the glass.
Watching.
I stopped sleeping altogether after that. My eyes burned, but every time I closed them, the tapping started again. It moved closer, and it was sharper. It was almost as if the sound was coming from inside my own head.
I went to my landlord, and I begged him to let me out of the lease.
He was an old man with eyes that didn’t quite meet mine. He didn’t even look surprised.
“I’ll let you go,” he said, scratching at the stubble on his chin.
Then he hesitated, his hand stilling.
“But be careful where you move next.”
I frowned. “Why?”
His voice dropped, low and flat. “It follows the ones who listen.”
I didn’t ask what he meant. I didn’t want to know. So, I left that weekend.
New place. New start.
It was a top-floor apartment this time. The rooms were bright with wide windows that let in clean, sharp sunlight. The air was crisp and untainted. For the first few nights, I slept like the dead. Dreamless and heavy. It felt so good.
But silence has a weight to it, too. It presses down until you start to hear things you shouldn’t.
It started again on the seventh night. I was brushing my teeth when I heard it.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I froze, toothpaste dripping from the corner of my mouth, and turned to the door.
Nothing.
The apartment was empty. I had checked every room before bed, a new habit born out of paranoia. And then I heard it again. From the mirror. I stared at my reflection and my face looked back at me. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, a shadow. Faint at first, like a trick of the light. Tall. Thin. A silhouette that didn’t match mine.
I whipped around, heart slamming against my ribs. There was nothing behind me.
Nothing in the room. And yet…
Tap. Tap. Tap.
From inside the mirror.
I turned back slowly and watched as my reflection shifted. Not much. Just a fraction of a second’s delay. My hand trembled as I raised it, pressing my fingers against the cold glass. It pressed back.
The reflection’s fingers met mine, but they weren’t mine. Not quite. The nails were longer, jagged, the skin around them was peeling back.
And then it smiled.
Not a normal smile. It was too wide, too slow. A curl of lips that stretched beyond the edges of my face. The skin pulled tight, splitting at the corners. I stumbled backward, breath tearing out of me in short, sharp gasps.
The thing in the mirror tilted its head.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
This time, it spoke.
“I found you.”
The voice was mine but it was warped. Then the lights went out.
Not just the bathroom light. The whole apartment plunged into darkness. The only thing I could hear was the hum of my fridge. I stood there, blind, the sound of my own breathing loud in my ears.
I didn’t sleep that night. I haven’t slept since.
Because now, the tapping happens even when the lights are on. It follows me through the apartment. Three sharp beats from the kitchen counter, the bedroom walls, the bathroom sink.
It’s in the windows, too, where the glass trembles faintly with each strike, as if something on the other side is testing its strength.
And the mirrors. God, the mirrors.
Every reflective surface carries it now. The bathroom mirror. The polished steel of the kettle. The blank screen of my phone when it’s off. I see movement in all of them. But when I stare, when I let my eyes linger, something stares back.
It’s not me.
It’s something that’s wearing my face. Twisted into angles that don’t fit. Its eyes are too large, too dark. Its mouth moves when mine doesn’t, whispering sounds I can’t quite hear. I tried covering the mirrors. Taped blankets over them, turned my phone facedown. But the tapping finds me anyway. It seeps through the walls, through the floor, through the air itself.
Last night, I heard it from inside the bedroom door.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I didn’t open it. I couldn’t. I sat on the bed, knees drawn to my chest.
And when morning came, the door was unmarked. But the handle was cold. Too cold. There were scratches on the floor. Three of them, leading from the door to the edge of my bed. I don’t leave the apartment anymore.
The windows show me the world outside. People walking, cars passing, life moving on.
I unplugged the lamps. Smashed the bulbs. The dark feels safer now. Less to reflect, less to show me what’s waiting. But the tapping doesn’t stop. It’s in the walls, in the ceiling, in the hollow space beneath my ribs.
Last night, I felt it on my skin.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Three sharp presses against my arm as I lay in the dark, eyes wide. I didn’t move. Didn’t scream. Just waited until it stopped. But it didn’t leave.
I felt it crawl up my arm, across my shoulder, settling at the base of my neck. A weight, light but undeniable, like a hand resting there.
I hear it now, even as I write this.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I don’t know what it wants.
I don’t know what it is.
But I know it’s listening.
Waiting.
Because now, when I close my eyes, I see it. Not in the mirrors, not in the glass, but behind my lids.
“I found you,” it whispers.
And I think it’s right.
—S