“It all started two years ago, in 2021 the Corona virus pandemic was dying down, slowly but surely becoming more and more irrelevant. Me (32M) and my wife (29F) decided to buy a new house down near the coast of Florida. I am a relatively successful neurosurgeon, and she is a successful stockbroker, so we knew we could settle for somewhere comfortable and eventually decided on a nice 3 bedroom 2 bathroom 1900’s style home two miles away from the beach.
At first, it was the little things. We’d find our furniture seemingly misplaced by a few inches, or a TV left on when we came back. It all was brushed off as “We probably forgot.” We were still working from home, but were slowly making the transition to working in person again. One day, I came home from work. We were still seeing patients via zoom, however I’d now have a computer in my office, and would zoom from there.
I came home to see my wife, cradled on the couch, her eyes seemingly sunken into her skull. I’d ask her if she was okay and if she felt sick. Instead of giving me the usual “I couldn’t sleep” or, “My stomach feels funny.” Instead, she stared into my eyes and said in a low, raspy, shaky whisper “Upstairs.”
That’s when I saw it. I went upstairs and turned down the long hallway you need to go through to get to the master bedroom. A room I’d never seen before. I opened the door and saw nothing but a completely empty wooden room, it smelt of mildew and the walls were seemingly moist. I closed the door, trying to rationalize the situation in my head. “Maybe we just didn’t notice it at first.” I’d say to myself.
That had to have been it, right? I looked online again at the map of the house which was sent to us via text of the old homeowners, and I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. The room. The room I just saw was now on the plan, confirming my attempt at soothing myself. However, it wasn’t until I red the label for the room that I would be shocked, and terrified. My hands trembled, I couldn’t move, I merely stared at the writing on my screen
“DO NOT ENTER.”
The words weren’t inherently scary, however it was the meaning behind them that was. Why couldn’t we enter? Why didn’t they simply tear down the room? I took a second look at the housing maps just to be sure in case something like this happened again, and for the next month, things were relatively normal. Me and my wife would go to work, come home, eat dinner, and go to bed. Just an everyday thing. However every time I walked that long hallway down to the master, I’d always keep an eye on the room. It was as if I could hear whispers form it each time I passed.
I began obsessing. Why couldn’t I enter this room? Just one step wouldn’t hurt, right? One more sniff of mildew. One more look at the damp, wooden walls. Just one step inside of the humid, moist room. Just one more peer into the mysterious “DO NOT ENTER.” I told my wife and she understandably told me I was crazy. I knew I wasn’t. I just needed to get into that room. I’d find myself typing in google documents, “DO NOT ENTER. DO NOT ENTER. DO NOT ENTER. DO NOT ENTER.” repeatedly for pages upon pages. I’d seemingly black out and wake up to myself holding a knife in my hand, my office floors engraved with the words, “ENTER. ENTER. ENTER. ENTER. ENTER. ENTER.”
I found myself eating less. I’d dropped around twenty pounds which wasn’t necessarily bad, I was a little tubby, my metabolism from earlier years wasn’t there anymore and I let myself go. However one month later, I’d dropped from 225 lbs, to 129 lbs. My 6’3” frame was just skin and bones. a light layer of flesh on my arms and that was seemingly it. My wife didn’t understand my struggles. She doesn’t see the room anymore. She said she never saw it. I know she’s lying.
I SEE THE ROOM. SHE SAYS I’M CRAZY BUT I SEE IT. I SMELL IT. I HEAR THE WHISPERS FROM THE ROOM. THEY’RE FINALLY COHERENT.
It’s all finally making sense. My wife is crazy. The whispers tell me the truth. I can trust them. They’re my friends. My wife tries to tell me to see a phycologist. But I know she’s crazy. The whispers tell me I’m hungry for chocolate. They tell me that all I need is chocolate and I can go back to normal. They tell me if I eat chocolate I can enter the room.
My wife refuses to buy me chocolate. She’s scared of me now. She says I need to seek help and that she’ll force me too if I don’t. I keep telling her all I need is chocolate. Then, I notice something else. There’s more rooms. All across the second and first floor now. They’re all appearing. I see them all. My house smells of mildew and rotting wood. I look at the housing map and simply see “DO NOT ENTER.” Scattered across the entire page. It’s all I see anymore. “DO NOT ENTER.” I AM NOT CRAZY. I JUST NEED CHOCOLATE.
I understand now, the whispers explain everything to me. My wife won’t buy me chocolate, because she it chocolate. I explained this to her and now all she’ll do is avoid me, screaming when I try to eat her. I explained to her how it’s for the greater good and how the room will accept me if I do so.
My wife has locked me in the master bedroom until she finds a new home. She wants a divorce as well. She tried calling the cops on me but they didn’t do much. They know I have to eat her. They didn’t say it, but I know they know. I have to eat chocolate. I have to enter the room. I have to eat my chocolate before it escapes.
I found a way out of the bathroom. It wasn’t too hard. I just had to bash the door. I waited patiently for my wife to come home. I was on the front sofa. When she came home, she tried to run off. It’s okay though, I know I’m faster. I ended up catching her. She was crying and screaming. I didn’t like it. I remember marrying her. She was mine, I wanted to take care of her but now she’s crying. The room told me that if I just took a bite she’d stop. She’d understand.
They were right! It took a minute, but after the first arm she understood! She knew it was for the better. I finished eating my delicious chocolate and saw the room open up, I smiled. I could finally enter it. I couldn’t finally be done with my journey. It was finally over! I’ll let you know how it is in there.”
- This was the last document found of John Hardaway, the eighth death in the Miami area complaining of a new room in his house with the label “DO NOT ENTER.” He was a Neurosurgeon who attended Stanford and seemingly jumped off of his three story house in Miami Florida. Along with this journal was Carol Hardaway’s, John Hardaway’s wife,’s intestines and bones. It is believed John had a form of Schizophrenia known as Catatonic Schizophrenia. If you know of anyone complaining of a new room in their house. Please let authorities know immediately.
-Thomas Sheets,
Miami Police Department