The old Victorian house on Willow Street had been abandoned for decades. Its windows were boarded up, its paint peeling, and its garden overgrown with weeds. But to Sarah, it was perfect. A freelance writer in need of a quiet place to work, she saw the house as an opportunity to escape the noise of the city. She moved in without hesitation, unaware of the horrors that lay within.
At first, the house seemed harmless. Its creaky floors and drafty rooms added to its charm, and Sarah quickly made herself at home. But as the days passed, she began to notice strange things. She would hear faint whispers late at night, their words unintelligible but filled with malice. Shadows moved in the corners of her vision, their forms twisted and grotesque.
Sarah tried to dismiss the occurrences as her imagination, but the feeling of being watched grew stronger. She would wake up in the middle of the night, convinced someone was in the room with her. The air would grow cold, and she would hear the faint sound of breathing, as if someone was hiding in the walls.
One night, Sarah awoke to the sound of scratching. It was coming from the wall beside her bed, the sound rhythmic and deliberate. She froze, her heart pounding, and listened as the scratching grew louder. Then came the whispers, their voices overlapping into a cacophony of despair.
"You are not alone."
Sarah screamed, scrambling out of bed and backing away from the wall. The scratching stopped, the whispers fading into silence. She grabbed her phone and called the police, but they found nothing. The wall was intact, the room empty. They chalked it up to a nightmare, but Sarah knew better.
Over the next few days, the occurrences grew more frequent. The whispers followed her throughout the house, their voices growing louder, more insistent. The shadows became more pronounced, their forms shifting and writhing as if alive. Sarah felt a cold, numbing sensation spread through her body, as if the house was draining her life force.
Desperate, Sarah began to research the house's history. She discovered that it had been the site of a gruesome murder-suicide decades ago. The previous owner, a man named Edward Blake, had killed his family before taking his own life. The house had been abandoned ever since, its dark past buried.
Sarah felt a growing sense of dread as she delved deeper into the story. The whispers grew louder, their voices overlapping into a single, malevolent presence. She began to hear Edward's voice, his words filled with rage and despair.
"You are not alone."
Sarah tried to leave the house, but the doors and windows were locked, the keys nowhere to be found. The whispers grew deafening, their voices consuming her thoughts. She felt a cold, numbing sensation spread through her body as the house began to close in.
The walls seemed to shift and writhe, their surfaces pulsating with a faint, eerie light. Sarah felt a pull, as if the house was calling to her. She stepped closer to the wall, her body trembling. The whispers grew louder, their voices overlapping into a single, malevolent scream.
When morning came, the house was silent. Sarah was gone, her body never found. The house on Willow Street stood abandoned once more, its windows boarded up, its secrets buried. But the whispers remained, a constant hum in the walls, waiting for the next victim.