The voice in the walls
639 Words
Chapter Five: The Voice in the Walls
Naya barely remembered the drive back. Her mind replayed the recorder’s voice again and again — Mira’s fear, and then… that second voice. That impossible voice.
She was still trembling when she reached her cabin. She locked the door behind her, then pulled the curtains closed, every shadow suddenly suspicious.
It had spoken her name.
It knew she was listening.
She sat down with the letters and the recordings. If she was going to beat this thing — this voice — she needed to understand it. Not just the words, but the mind behind them.
She listened to Mira’s recorder again, and paused it at one section. The phrase: "I think it's using my voice."
Could it be literal?
She replayed other letters. Different tones. Some cool, some frantic. It really did sound like different minds speaking. But beneath them all… the same rhythm. The same seed.
Like one entity wearing different masks.
She searched the town archives online and found something chilling — the original Raventon Asylum had been a speech therapy facility in the 1940s. After a fire destroyed part of it, the surviving structure had been converted into a chapel. But during its time as an institution, patients had been subjected to unethical experiments.
Especially with language.
An old article headline stood out:
“The Wall Whisperers of Raventon: Linguistic Delusion or Shared Psychosis?”
Naya’s blood ran cold.
She downloaded what little remained of the file. Testimonies from former staff. Mentions of patients speaking in languages no one could trace. Some began writing obsessively, repeating phrases as though dictated.
> “They say they hear it in the walls,” one nurse had written.
“A voice that makes them speak. Makes them write. They say it burrows into them — through silence.”
Suddenly, her phone buzzed again. A new message.
> You’re getting close.
But words are dangerous, Naya.
Yours especially.
She dropped the phone.
How were they doing this? No cell towers nearby. No Wi-Fi.
Unless…
Unless they weren’t using normal methods at all.
---
The next day, Elias met her outside the sheriff’s station. He had dark circles under his eyes and a file in his hand.
“I went digging,” he said, voice low. “Found something you need to see.”
He handed her a photo. Grainy. Black and white. A staff group shot from the original asylum.
In the back row stood a tall man with hollow eyes. Sharp cheekbones. Thin, cruel mouth.
“Who is he?” Naya asked.
“Patient 0,” Elias said. “Name unknown. Records said he refused to speak for years. But when he did finally talk—”
He handed her another paper. A staff report.
> “His language appears to mimic whoever is near him. But it’s more than mimicry. He predicts their next sentences. Finishes their thoughts. When placed in isolation, he begins speaking in tongues that no known linguist can identify. The sounds… aren’t human.”
Naya swallowed. “Where did they put him?”
“They don’t say. Just that he disappeared after the fire.”
Naya stared at the image again.
There was something too familiar about him.
And then it hit her.
The structure of the letters — the progression of the voice through the years — it had a cycle. A rhythm that repeated every few decades.
Like it wasn’t tied to a person, but a place.
And maybe now…
To her.
The cabin groaned that night. The sound of settling wood — or something moving inside the walls. Naya sat awake at the kitchen table, fingers twitching, resisting the urge to write.
Because something in her mind was whispering.
Not words.
Patterns.
And it wasn’t her voice.
End of Chapter Five
Word count: ~1,000
- Writer
