Listen reddit! I know your going to judge me but I don’t care, you must feel what I feel. I have to tell this story before I can’t anymore
Let me tell you dear reader, karma is very much real and she is a bitch. I’m going to recount this shot for shot for you, because you need to suffer with me!
Oh and to clarify, I am a horrible person, and at this point I don’t care.
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So recently, newspaper sales have been plummeting. As someone who works for the New York Times, this is a bit troubling. I’ve never given it much thought though, I’ve just been doing my job.
However, to try and entice the public, we’re doing a short story contest! So here I am stuck picking from the newest submissions. I was shuffling through some rather boring stories. I had just put down one about a cat and a mouse becoming friends when I saw the title.
“I hide in the walls.”
Instantly a chill spread throughout me. A shock of terror striking. The title was certainly… something. I leaned forward and shuffled through the story to find the author’s name. There was no name. A creepy story with an anonymous writer. I instantly threw the story in the trash, it brought back… some troubling memories.
I shook off the feeling that someone was looking at me and continued reading the stories. I eventually decided on a story written by a third grader. It was a very cute story about her pet dog who saved her from a fire when she was young. Happy with my choice, I went home.
There’s nothing better than a hot bath after work, that’s my personal motto anyway. After my bath, I made dinner, watched TV, and eventually got ready for bed. I shut the lights off and collapsed into bed.
I tossed and turned trying to find a comfortable spot. For some reason I just could not relax tonight. I found a good spot and began to drift off, right when the dreamworld was tugging my consciousness I heard a noise:
Tap… tap… tap… tap… tap… tap… tap… tap…
Whoever was tapping allowed each tap to fully echo through the room before the next tap. The sound continued. I ran over to the lightswitch and flicked the light on. I must be dreaming. I pinched myself, surprised when I felt the protest of pain.
The tap continued. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, tears threatened my eyes, my face felt frozen, I felt a sunken feeling underneath my rib cage, and a strong itch at the back of my mind was screaming for me to turn around. I did. Nobody was there, yet the sickening noise dragged on. Then a knock.
Knock, knock, knock, knock
I live alone now.
They were knocking from inside of the wall.
A static terror bolted through me, working its way from my head to my legs. I heard a shuffling noise. I whirled around in terror, sucking in a gasping breath.
A slow drag of nails scraped. Over and over.
I felt a string tug between my shoulder blades, spinning me around the room, surrendering to every natural instinct that could get me out of this. Scrape, scrape, scrape.
I covered my ears. The person began pounding on the wall. Louder and louder, repeating the same pattern. Boom, boom-boom, boom, boom-boom. Horror ran through my spine and spread through my veins. I was frozen in place, my hands limp at my sides.
“Hi”
It spoke
A little shriek escaped me. The voice was high pitched and girly, like a young childs.
“Do you think you can help me?”
My hands trembled, tears now flowing down my cheeks.
“Mommy said that I was annoying her.”
I sank to the floor and started to bawl.
“She said that maybe I would stop bothering her in the wall.”
I shrieked.
“Of course, you remember, don’t you mommy?”
“I’m sorry!” I screamed “I’m sorry! I didn’t-”
“Don’t lie. You told me that good people don’t lie.”
“I-”
“I used to tap on the table, that made you angry.”
She tapped. I cried even harder.
“Seems to still bother you, huh?”
I sucked in a gasping breath.
“I knocked on your door in the middle of the night, I felt sick.”
“Please, stop!”
“You had a hole in the wall, all ready for me, dragged me over to it, I grabbed for the wall, my nails scraped.”
The memories flooded my head, I screamed.
“You remember? Putting the dresser in front of the hole so I couldn’t get out? Do you remember me pounding on the walls screaming for help?”
I glanced over to the dresser, my visions flicked, the vision of her screaming.
“Yes.”
“That’s what I thought.”
A giggle that very much belonged to my daughter came from the wall.
“I do hope you get used to this.”
Every night, the torture happened, first a tap, then a knock, a scrape, and pounding. I can’t take it! I can’t take it! This is my last night alive. I’m going into that wall, and I’m never coming out.
I’ll hold my daughter once more, I’ll hold her decaying body and watch it taunt me until my last breath.