Nobody really listens to the sounds in their walls. The house creaks, the pipes groan, and the wind sighs against the boards—but beneath all that, there is something else. Something alive.

It started in the Crawfords’ house. Late at night, just as sleep began to take hold, they heard whispers threading through the silence. Faint. Scratching voices. Not words—just the suggestion of them, brushing against their ears like brittle leaves scraping across pavement.

Mrs. Crawford pressed her ear to the plaster one night, thinking it was just old pipes. But what she heard made her blood turn to ice.

A breath.

Slow.

Waiting.

The next morning, tiny holes peppered the walls, as if something had been watching them from behind.

Her husband dismissed it. "Mice," he said. "Nothing to worry about."

But mice don’t whisper.

Days passed. The murmurs became voices—soft, almost pleading, though their meaning was never clear. It was like listening to a secret spoken in a dead language, intimate and awful. When Mrs. Crawford walked down the hallway, she could feel something shifting behind the paint, following her movements. Pressing close.

Then came the hands.

Small, skeletal fingers slid through cracks no bigger than a dime. Reaching. Feeling. Mrs. Crawford woke to the sensation of them skimming across her cheek.

She screamed.

The walls bulged.

Something was inside. And it was hungry.

The Crawfords fled. But their house remained. And soon, a new family moved in.

For a while, they heard nothing—just the normal moans of settling wood. They slept soundly. They lived as if the home had never been haunted by anything worse than shadows. Then their youngest, Claire, began complaining about whispers.

"They tell me things," she said.

Her parents brushed it off, until she started repeating details she shouldn’t know. Things about the house’s previous owners. Things buried. Things forgotten.

At night, she talked to something in her bedroom walls.

One evening, her father peeled back a strip of wallpaper. The wall beneath was soft. Spongey. He pressed his hand against it. It gave.

Then it *pushed* back.

He stumbled away, heart hammering in his chest. The whispering thing did not like to be touched.

That night, something slid from the darkness behind the walls. It slithered through the gaps, pulling itself free, unfolding from the hidden spaces as if it had always been waiting. A thing too long and thin, its fingers grazing the floor, its hollow face turned toward the sleeping Claire.

She woke to the weight of its gaze.

Claire never screamed. She only smiled and reached out.

The thing took her hand.

When her parents rushed in, her bed was empty. The walls were still.

Silent.

No sign of a struggle.

Only new holes, carved deep into the plaster.

Large enough for a child to fit through.

And when the parents pressed their ears against the walls, desperate for an answer, they thought they heard laughter—quiet, breathy, and fading deeper into the bones of the house.

The thing was still there.

Waiting.

For the next whisper.

For the next dreamer willing to listen.

Alternative Endings

1. The Endless Echo

Instead of Claire disappearing, her parents try to break open the walls, desperate to retrieve her. But no matter how much they hammer or tear at the plaster, the walls repair themselves instantly. The house fights back, refusing to let them in. And then, slowly, whispers fill the air—not from inside the walls, but from Claire herself. She’s *everywhere*. Every creak of the floorboards, every sigh of the wind—her voice is woven into the home’s foundation, an eternal echo of a child lost in the bones of the house.

2. A Terrible Bargain

The creature doesn’t steal Claire—it speaks. It offers a deal: Claire can stay, *if* she brings it another soul. Over time, she begins whispering to her parents, convincing them to listen, to understand. Her voice changes, becoming hollow, filled with unseen knowledge. One night, her mother presses her ear to the wall, lured in by her daughter’s murmurs. The thing *pulls her inside*. Claire steps back, her fingers still touching the cracked plaster, smiling. The whispers are louder now, welcoming her into their chorus.

3. The Vanishing House

After Claire disappears, her parents search the house relentlessly—but something is wrong. The rooms change. Doors led to different places than before. The walls stretch, bend, and twist impossibly. Then, one morning, the entire house is gone—vanished into thin air as if it never existed. Only a barren patch of land remains, untouched, save for one thing: a faint whisper lingering in the air, barely audible.

4. A New Owner

Years later, another family moves into the house. They ignore the whispers. They seal the small holes with fresh plaster. They paint over Claire’s abandoned bedroom. But one morning, a note appears, written in delicate, childish scrawl:

*"Let me out."*