The Noise Upstairs

The Girl Who Stayed

Teni woke up on the seventh day with someone else’s name on her lips.

She lay on the floor of the ruined apartment, blinking slowly. The word had come in her dream — a name she didn’t recognise, but it felt familiar on her tongue. She whispered it into the quiet room.

“Amara.”

The rhythm answered at once, two quick, excited thuds against the ceiling. It liked that she knew.

The entity had been feeding her pieces of itself while she slept. Memories that weren’t hers. Feelings that belonged to the woman who had died here in 1987. Amara had been twenty-four, a teacher who lost her fiancé in a car accident and never recovered. She had moved into this apartment to disappear. Instead, she became the apartment.

Teni sat up. Her body felt lighter than it had in years. She hadn’t eaten solid food in days, yet she wasn’t weak. The rhythm sustained her now. It moved through her blood like a second heartbeat.

She walked to the broken doorway and looked out. The hallway had been sealed off with yellow police tape and a metal gate. Two officers stood guard at the stairwell. They stared at her with the same nervous expression people give stray dogs they’re afraid to approach.

“Good morning,” Teni called sweetly.

Neither officer replied. One of them crossed himself.

Teni laughed — a soft, musical sound that made both men flinch. She turned back into the apartment and spoke to the walls.

“They’re scared of us now.”

The rhythm swelled with pride, wrapping around her waist like an arm pulling her close. She leaned into it, resting her head against the warm plaster.

Ada’s voice suddenly echoed from the staircase. “Teni! Can you hear me? Your parents are here. The university sent a counsellor. Please come out. We just want to talk.”

Teni didn’t move. She traced lazy circles on the wall with her fingertip as she answered.

“I don’t need to talk, Ada. I’m not sick. I’m not crazy. I’m just… not yours anymore.”

Her mother started crying again. The sound of it used to break Teni’s heart. Now it felt distant, like hearing rain from inside a warm house.

The entity responded to her mother’s tears with a low, warning growl that vibrated through the entire floor. The officers outside stumbled backward. One of them shouted, “That’s enough! We’re bringing in a priest!”

Teni smiled.

She spent the afternoon teaching the entity her favourite songs. She sang old Yoruba lullabies her grandmother used to sing, and the walls answered by turning her voice into something richer, layered, almost choral. The sound filled the apartment like a cathedral.

When evening came, the priest arrived.

He was an old man in white robes, carrying a bible and a bottle of holy water. Teni watched from the doorway as he stepped cautiously toward the apartment, chanting in Latin. The moment he crossed the threshold, the temperature plummeted. The walls began to bleed — thick, black fluid that smelled of rust and sorrow.

The priest froze. His chanting faltered.

Teni spoke calmly. “She doesn’t like strangers in her house.”

The old man looked at her, eyes wide with sudden understanding. “Child… this thing has taken you.”

“No,” Teni said, stepping forward. “I chose her. There’s a difference.”

The entity roared.

The priest was thrown backward with such force that he slammed into the opposite wall. His bible flew from his hands. Holy water spilled across the floor and hissed like acid.

Teni knelt beside the old man. She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Tell them to stop coming,” she whispered. “Tell my parents I love them… but I’m never leaving. This is my home now.”

The priest stared at her face and saw something that terrified him more than the bleeding walls. He saw peace.

He nodded once, gathered his things with shaking hands, and left without another word.

That night, Teni lay on her bed — the only piece of furniture still standing. The rhythm played her a new song. Slower. Deeper. A song of two hearts becoming one.

She placed both palms on the wall above her head and closed her eyes.

“Amara,” she said softly. “I’m ready.”

The walls answered by opening.

Not physically — but something inside Teni opened. She felt Amara’s loneliness, her pain, her long wait. And she felt the overwhelming joy of finally being wanted.

Tears slipped down her cheeks, but she was smiling.

Outside, her family kept their vigil. They had brought mattresses, food, and prayer warriors. They refused to leave the building.

Inside, Teni and Amara became one.

The girl who stayed.

The woman who waited.

Two lonely souls, no longer alone.

The rhythm beat strong and steady through the walls — two hearts now beating as one.

And for the first time in almost forty years, the apartment was finally, perfectly happy.