The Whispering House
In the fog-drenched hills of Northern England, there stood an abandoned house known only as "Whistler's Hollow." Locals avoided it, whispering tales of madness and death that clung to it like ivy. The house had stood empty for decades—its windows shattered, its roof sagging, and its blackened chimney looking like a finger pointing toward the sky.
For Emily Radcliffe, a rising young photographer from London, the house was a perfect subject for her latest project on "decay and memory." Ignoring the warnings from the villagers in nearby Elmsbridge, she drove to the Hollow alone one grey afternoon in October.
From the moment she stepped out of her car, she felt it—the silence. It wasn’t the quiet of nature, but something else, something deliberate. The air felt heavy, as if the house itself was holding its breath.
With her camera slung over her shoulder, she stepped inside. The wooden door creaked like a scream held too long. The house smelled of wet earth and mold. Dust danced in the shafts of cold light that filtered through broken glass.
She began to take photos—of the staircase that curled like a serpent upward, the fireplace lined with ancient soot, the cracked mirror in the hall that reflected everything but her.
That was the first sign.
At first, she thought it was a trick of the light. But when she stood in front of the mirror, raising her camera, her reflection didn’t move. It stared back, slightly out of sync, a smirk forming on its lips a second before her own did.
A chill rolled down her spine.
"Just the atmosphere," she muttered, trying to convince herself. "Old houses are full of strange reflections."
She continued deeper into the house. In what remained of the living room, she found a child’s toy—a porcelain doll missing one eye. She took a photo of it, then heard something faint behind her.
A whisper.
She turned quickly. No one. But the whisper came again, closer this time. Words she couldn’t quite make out, spoken in a rasp that sounded wet and broken.
"Who’s there?" she called, her voice more defiant than she felt.
No answer. Just a giggle, distant but wrong—too cold, too calculated.
She gripped her camera tighter and ascended the stairs. They groaned beneath her weight, almost as if protesting her presence. At the top was a long hallway of closed doors. She tried the first—it was locked. The second creaked open, revealing a child’s bedroom untouched by time. The wallpaper peeled in long, curling strips. Stuffed animals were scattered across the bed.
On the wall, scrawled in something dark, were the words: “Still here.”
Emily raised her camera, but it wouldn’t click. The battery, fully charged that morning, was suddenly dead. She checked her phone—black screen. No signal. No power. Nothing.
The whisper came again, this time from behind her.
She spun around. The hallway was empty, but the door at the end was now ajar. Heart pounding, she walked toward it, each step echoing like thunder. She pushed the door open.
Inside was a study, its walls lined with decaying books. An old desk sat under a curtained window. A single candle flickered on its surface, though no wind stirred. No one had lit it.
Then she saw the journal.
Its cover was bound in cracked leather, initials faded: A.B.
She opened it. The entries were frantic, rambling, the handwriting deteriorated with each page.
"The whispers never stop. They come at night, and now during the day. They speak in voices I know—my wife, my son, but they are dead."
"I tried to leave, but the house won’t let me. Every door leads back here. Every window shows only fog."
The candle extinguished.
The temperature dropped sharply, her breath turning to mist. Something moved in the corner of her vision—a shadow, quick and low. She turned toward the door and saw it was no longer there. The wall was solid.
Panic surged through her. She began pounding on the walls, screaming, but her voice was swallowed by the silence.
Then came the scratching. From within the walls. Like nails. Or claws.
She backed away until she hit the desk. The whisper returned, now inches from her ear.
"Emily..."
She turned, tears brimming in her eyes. Nothing. Just the empty room.
And then she saw herself—standing in the mirror behind the desk. But it wasn’t her. The reflection smiled wide, unnaturally wide, its eyes hollow. It lifted a finger and pressed it to its lips.
Shhh.
Emily screamed.
She woke up lying on the floor, the morning light piercing the grime-coated windows. Her camera sat beside her, battery inexplicably full. Her phone was charged. The front door was open.
She ran. She didn’t stop until she reached Elmsbridge.
The villagers saw the look in her eyes and said nothing. They had seen it before.
Emily never returned to Whistler’s Hollow. But sometimes, when she looks into a mirror, she catches a glimpse of a smile that isn’t hers… and hears a faint whisper in the back of her mind:
“Still here.”
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