The Noise Upstairs

The first time Teni noticed the noise, it was just past midnight. The kind of midnight that felt too still. No traffic. No hallway voices. Even the heater was silent. Teni sat cross-legged on her bed in her small third-floor apartment, laptop open, notes scattered everywhere. Circuits exam in forty-eight hours. Her parents in Ibadan had sacrificed too much for her to fail now. Thud. She froze, eyes snapping to the ceiling. The sound came from directly above—apartment 4B. She waited. Nothing. Then, scrape. Slow. Heavy. Intentional. “That’s not pipes,” she whispered. She pulled out her earbud and listened. Another thud followed, exactly four seconds later. The rhythm continued: thud, scrape, thud. Perfectly timed. Too deliberate for an old building. Irritation turned to unease. She climbed on a chair and pressed her palm to the ceiling. Cold, ordinary white paint. Nothing. Back on the bed, she tried to study, but the pattern drilled into her head. She recorded it on her phone. Played it back. Unmistakable. At 1:17 a.m., she grabbed a broom and banged the ceiling. The response came instantly—matching her taps exactly. A conversation. Heart pounding, she went upstairs. 4B looked dark and empty. She knocked. No answer. Then a soft scrape came from right behind the door. She fled back downstairs, double-locking her door. The noise followed. Now from the floor beneath her bed. She called her best friend Ada. “The apartment above is supposed to be vacant, but it’s moving with me.” Ada sounded worried but skeptical. “Stress, babe. Get out of there. Study at a café.” Teni packed her things. As she zipped her bag, the rhythm slowed, as if disappointed. Six seconds now. The café brought relief for two hours. Then her phone rang—unknown number. Static, then the thud-scrape-thud through the speaker. She blocked it and left. Back home at dusk, the noise waited in the walls, surrounding her. It sped up. Three seconds. Like a racing heartbeat. She recorded a video, narrating the horror, and uploaded it to the cloud. She dragged her bed to the center of the room. The sound followed underneath. At nearly 4 a.m., the power flickered. Darkness swallowed everything. When the lights returned, the thud was on the bed beside her. She screamed and ran to the university library, studying through the night. Exam day arrived. Question one: RC circuit with a four-second time constant. The rhythm played in her head the entire time. She returned home exhausted. Silence greeted her for ten precious minutes. Then it started again from the ceiling—slower, like a countdown. “What do you want?” she whispered. The rhythm stopped. A low, wet voice seeped from the wall behind her headboard. “Teni.” It knew her name. Terror gave way to numb calm. She picked up a kitchen knife and pressed it to the ceiling. “I’m listening.” “Stay,” the voice answered from every wall. The rhythm returned, matching her heartbeat exactly. Then her breathing. Teni lowered the knife. She typed a message explaining everything—to her parents, Ada, the landlord—and saved it. Then she lay back down. Inhale. Thud. Exhale. Scrape. For the first time in days, she slept deeply. Outside, the city carried on. Inside 3B, the silence was perfect, broken only by the soft, deliberate sound now living in the walls—keeping time with its new tenant. Teni had all the time in the world.