THE ROOM BEHIND THE WALLS
2149 Words
Elias didn’t sleep that night.
Emberly did, but only in shallow, trembling bursts — the exhausted kind that pulled her under just long enough for nightmares to drag her deeper.
Every time she twitched awake, Elias was still in the chair across from the couch, elbows on his knees, fingers pressed together in fierce concentration. The room was dim, the glow from the hallway casting faint gold strips across the floor.
He wasn’t guarding her.
Not exactly.
He was thinking.
Trying to fit puzzle pieces together when half the pieces were missing and the other half were on fire.
Around 4 a.m., Emberly jolted awake with a choked gasp.
Elias stood immediately. “Nightmare?”
Emberly wiped her face with trembling fingers. “It felt real this time… like he was in the room.”
Her eyes darted to the corners.
Elias gently sat beside her. “He’s not here.”
But he wasn’t actually sure.
And Emberly could tell.
“How long was I asleep?” she whispered.
“Three hours.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You didn’t rest?”
Elias shook his head. “Didn’t feel right.”
Emberly swallowed hard and looked down at her hands — hands that still shook, faintly, like a vibration under the skin she couldn't stop.
“I’m losing my mind,” she whispered. “A hallucination in the dark hallway. The cassette tape. The whisper through the walls. The message carved in the door…”
“You’re not hallucinating,” Elias said firmly. “I heard him too.”
The relief that flickered across her face wasn’t relief at all — it was terror solidifying into reality.
If someone else heard him…
Then he was real.
Emberly’s shoulders slumped forward. Her voice cracked. “You think he’s been inside my apartment before tonight?”
“Emberly—”
“You think he listens through the vents? Watches from somewhere he knows we won’t check?” Her breathing sped up, ragged. “Maybe he never really left. Maybe he’s been waiting for me to remember—”
“Hey.” Elias gently took her hands. “I know you’re scared. But we’ll figure this out. Together.”
“Why?” she whispered. “Why are you helping me? You barely know me.”
Elias blinked — caught off guard.
But not because he didn’t have a reason.
Because he had too many.
“…Because I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he murmured.
The words hung in the air like smoke.
Emberly looked away quickly, her eyes stinging. Connection felt dangerous. Vulnerability felt fatal.
But the moment passed when a sharp, metallic clatter echoed from the ceiling vent.
Emberly froze.
Elias stood, jaw clenched.
Something slid inside the metal — a scraping, dragging sound, like fingertips brushing the interior of the duct.
Very slow.
Very deliberate.
Emberly’s hands flew to her mouth.
Elias grabbed the nearest object — a heavy book — like it could defend them from something inside the walls.
The scraping stopped.
The silence that followed was worse.
Emberly whispered, voice barely a breath, “He’s inside the vents.”
Elias didn’t correct her.
He couldn’t.
He crossed the room, grabbed a chair, and stood on it to peer into the vent. “Don’t come closer,” he said quietly.
A faint draft blew through the slats — cold, unnatural.
Elias leaned closer.
Something glinted behind the metal.
He backed away instantly. “Something’s there.”
Emberly’s pulse thrashed in her neck. “What?”
Elias stepped down from the chair. “I can’t tell. But I’m not touching that vent until daylight.”
Emberly hugged her arms tightly, fighting the urge to curl into herself. “Doyou think he knew I’d come to your apartment?”
“No,” Elias murmured. “I think he knew exactly how you would react. And he planned for it.”
Her skin crawled.
“He wanted you afraid,” Elias said. “He wanted you isolated. And now he wants you to know he can reach you anywhere.”
Emberly blinked hard to keep tears from spilling.
“He wants me to remember something… something from when I was little.”
“Then we need to find out what your mother was hiding.”
A long, shaky breath left Emberly.
She nodded.
---
By morning, the decision was made.
They weren’t staying in the apartment.
They weren’t waiting for him to strike again.
They were going back.
To Emberly’s childhood home.
Or what remained of it.
Elias drove. Emberly sat in the passenger seat, fingers clenched so tightly around her jacket that her knuckles turned white.
The morning sun didn’t warm the world at all. Everything looked washed out
colorless, muted, like the city itself sensed something wrong.
“Do you remember the fire?” Elias asked quietly.
Emberly stared out the window. “I remember smoke. Screaming. My mother carrying me out. I remember someone in the house. A man. But everything else is… fog.”
“Your mother’s recording?” Elias prompted.
“She said he wanted me. Back then.” Emberly wrapped her arms around herself. “Why? What could he possibly want from a child?”
Elias didn’t answer.
Because he didn’t know.
And because any guess he made would terrify her even more.
---
The house was smaller than she remembered.
Emberly stood in front of the charred remains, the wind tugging gently at her hair.
The fire had destroyed most of it, but the foundation still stood — blackened beams, a collapsed roof, remnants of rooms open to the sky.
Elias stopped beside her, taking in the devastation.
“It feels wrong,” Emberly whispered. “Like something died here long before the fire.”
“Let’s look around,” Elias said gently. “Just until you’re ready to stop.”
They stepped onto the brittle wooden boards.
Every c***k under their feet echoed through Emberly’s chest.
The living room was unrecognizable — only the outline of the fireplace
remained. Emberly touched the charred stone.
“I used to sit here and draw pictures,” she murmured.
The memories felt like they belonged to someone else.
A child whose world hadn’t yet broken.
Elias kept close but gave her space.
He knew better than to crowd her in a moment like this.
They moved deeper into the ruins.
Through the kitchen.
Through what was left of a hallway.
Toward Emberly’s childhood bedroom.
Her breath hitched when she reached the doorway.
The walls were half-gone, smoke-stained, skeletal.
But she remembered the room exactly as it once was.
Pink curtains.
Stuffed animals lining the shelf.
Her mother singing to her by the bed.
But the memory darkened — a cold weight pressing against her chest.
A figure in the corner of the room.
Tall.
Silent.
Watching.
Her knees nearly buckled.
Elias grabbed her arm. “Emberly?”
She forced herself to breathe. “I… I don’t think he was a stranger.”
Elias steadied her. “What makes you say that?”
remember… I remember not feeling scared at first. He looked familiar.”
Elias frowned. “Familiar how?”
“I don’t know. Like… he belonged.”
Her skin prickled violently.
A deep, instinctive fear she couldn’t explain.
Elias glanced around the destroyed room. “Let’s check the closet.”
Emberly stiffened.
The closet.
A memory flashed behind her eyes — fast and sharp like a strike of lightning.
She was five.
Her mother was shaking.
The closet door was slightly open.
Something inside moved.
“Elias…” Emberly whispered. “Don’t open it.”
Elias stopped with his hand hovering near the ruined door.
“Emberly, if there’s something hidden here—”
“No,” she said, voice cracking. “Please. Don’t.”
But Elias wasn’t reckless.
He wasn’t impulsive.
He Iooked at her gently.
“If you tell me not to, I won’t.”
Relief loosened her chest.
For a moment.
Then the closet door creaked on its own.
Very slowly.
Very softly.
Emberly stumbled back, hand over her mouth.
Elias stepped in front of her instinctively.
A cold gust of air drifted out from the darkness inside — far too cold for a burned-out structure under the sun.
And then—
Something fell from the top shelf.
A small box.
Charred around the edges but intact.
Elias crouched and picked it up cautiously.
There were words carved into the lid.
Hand-carved.
Child-like.
Crooked.
Not Emberly’s handwriting.
“FOR EMBERLY — WHEN YOU’RE READY.”
Emberly swayed, dizzy.
“Elias… I’ve never seen that before.”
He didn’t open it yet.
He looked at her, voice low.
“Do you want to know what’s inside?”
Emberly’s entire body trembled.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“No.”
She didn’t know.
She didn’t know which was worse — remembering or not remembering.
Elias squeezed her hand.
“You’re not alone,” he said softly. “Whatever’s inside… we face it together.”
Her heartbeat pounded through her ears.
She nodded, barely.
Elias opened the lid.
Inside were four items:
1. A photograph.
2. A child’s drawing.
3. A small silver key.
4. A second cassette tape.
Emberly’s blood ran cold.
Her voice came out barely audible.
“Elias… the man in the picture… that’s him.”
Elias held up the photograph.
A tall man in a dark coat.
Standing beside Emberly as a child.
His hand resting on her shoulder.
Her mother wasn’t in the picture.
No one else was.
Just them.
Her.
And him.
But what made Elias’s face drain of color wasn’t the man.
It was the setting behind them.
The background wasn’t a house.
Or a school.
Or a park.
It was the inside of a room with metal walls.
A locked room.
A hidden room.
Somewhere Emberly had no memory of ever being.
But the child in the photograph was smiling.
Too wide.
Too forced.
Too wrong.
Emberly backed away, shaking her head violently.
“No. No, I never— I don’t remember this— I would remember—”
But she didn’t.
And that was the most terrifying part.
The second object — the drawing — showed a triangle-shaped room.
A bed.
A single light.
And a tall man standing beside a little girl.
Words were scrawled underneath in childish handwriting:
“OUR SECRET ROOM.”
Emberly couldn’t breathe.
The key glinted in the sunlight.
Elias picked it up carefully.
“A key… but to what?”
Emberly stared at the cassette tape.
Just like the one she’d found in her apartment.
Her mother’s voice had been on the first tape.
This one…
She didn’t want to know.
And yet she needed to.
Because whatever truth her mind had buried — whatever her mother had tried to erase — it was coming back now, piece by horrifying piece.
Elias gently pushed the charred box toward her.
“Emberly,” he whispered. “I think your mother didn’t just try to hide him from you.”
Emberly’s lip trembled. “What are you saying?”
“I think she tried to erase your memories. All of them. Everything connected to him.”
Emberly’s pulse echoed in her skull.
The burned house.
The lost memories.
The secret room.
The man who watched her.
It all formed a single, terrifying truth.
“He wasn’t a stranger…” Emberly whispered.
Her voice broke.
“He was part of my life.”
Elias nodded, breath shaking.
“And he wants you to remember exactly how.”
Emberly’s vision blurred.
Because deep down — deeper than she wanted to admit — something inside her did remember.
Just not consciously.
Not fully.
But the fear.
The nightmares.
The shadows.
They remembered for her.
Elias reached for her hand again.
Her fingers closed around his instinctively.
“We’ll find that room,” he said quietly.
Emberly’s breath trembled.
“What if I don’t want to?”
“Then we find it for your safety,” he replied. “Because he already knows where it is. And he expects you to find it too.”
The cassette tape lay in her lap like a weight.
An invitation.
A threat.
A reminder.
Emberly wiped her eyes and whispered:
“Elias… I’m scared of what’s on it.”
Elias softly answered:
“I am too.”
The wind blew through the ruins then, rattling the charred beams overhead.
Somewhere in the distance, a metal door slammed.
Emberly flinched.
Elias turned sharply.
But the sound had no source.
Just like the whispers.
Just like the footsteps.
Just like the presence that followed Emberly since childhood.
Whatever waited behind the next tape…
It wasn’t a message.
It was a warning.
And Emberly knew one thing with absolute certainty:
The man from her past wasn’t haunting her.
He was calling her back.
And she would have to answer.
---
- Writer
