It all started with the knocking. Soft, rhythmic tapping from inside the bedroom wall, like a heartbeat coming through the plaster. All I could do was lie frozen under the covers, my heart in the back of my throat.

The room was as silent as breath withheld and near pitch black besides the soft light of the moon coming through a minute crack in the curtain. I continued to lie waiting, listening out for signs that someone or something was out there in the darkness — someone or something was out there to get me.

There was nothing though. Minutes bled into hours — or at least, that’s how it felt. My body began to slowly sink back into the mattress while my mind grasped for logic, for dismissal. Just exhaustion. Just my imagination. And then — again. The knock.

*knock-knock-knock*, slowly and deliberately right behind the headboard, between myself and where my sleeping partner lay. My first instinct had been the pipes, or the wind, or those sounds people tell you old houses make, but this late-night rapping beside me was too deliberate for any of that.

I pressed my ear up against the wall, hovering over you as you lay, desperate not to wake you over what I was sure couldn’t be anything. There it was again, the knocking. It stayed soft and slow at first, almost gentle, before gradually increasing in not only tempo but also ferocity.

The knocking became a regular thing. Most nights, it would keep me up with its sinister company. You would wake up sometimes, stiff and icy cold — breathing like you’d been running, something we both know you never liked to do. The second your eyes opened, the tapping would stop. The moment they closed again, it would start back up — waiting for you to slip under — because it could only reach you when you weren’t looking

After the knocking came the whispering. They weren’t words so much — more like the outline of words, unspoken taunting in the blackness. These whisperings would worm their way into you, into your brain — too faint to understand, yet too loud to shut out.

I caught you sometimes, sat up in bed, staring into the darkness with an accepting familiarity, like you knew what was out there.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” I asked, brushing your hair out from your face, feeling the clammy sweat on your hands.

“It doesn’t like this. It doesn’t like you”, you’d say, with an almost absent mutter. It felt in the moment like you weren’t necessarily talking to me, but definitely about me.

In the weeks to come, whatever was in the walls grew bolder. Drawers were left open, lights flickered and went out when I walked into rooms. Once I swear I saw a dirty footprint on the carpet outside the bedroom door after you’d had a sleepless night. I spent the morning cleaning that up before you saw it. I didn’t want you to dwell on it. I didn’t want you to have any more on your plate.

Sometimes strange old odours would linger onto you and your clothes, a smell of rot, of damp, even after you’d scrubbed your skin raw in the shower.

“It’s nothing”, you would always insist. “It’ll go away in time”.

When I got really worried was when the scratches started appearing. They were on your legs first, thin red marks, some shallow, some much deeper — they spelt out a history I could never truly understand.

You would brush them off and tell me “they’re old, I can’t believe you’ve never noticed the”‘, or “I must have done it in my sleep”, hiding them with your palm. But we both knew better, didn’t we?

Then they started appearing in places you couldn’t possibly reach —your back, your shoulders, your neck. Bruises followed, snaking up your ribs, pooling into dark maroon lagoons on your chest.

“What the hell is going on?”.

You looked at me then — really looked at me. Hollow eyes, distant and unfocused. Like something inside you had been listening all along. And now, it was finally answering. “It doesn’t like me much either.”

That was the night the air in the house changed. It became thick, suffocating, like smoke that wouldn’t clear. You started zoning out mid-conversation, forgetting things from last month, last week, yesterday, this morning.

Then, one night, I woke to find you gone. A faint light glowed under the locked bathroom door. I was still, waiting to hear the sound of running water, the toilet flushing, the rustle of movement. But the air was dead.

I tapped on the door. I knocked, I banged. I whispered, spoke out, shouted, nothing.

At last, the door creaked open.

You stood there, eyes glassy, arms wrapped around yourself, fingers pressing hard into your sleeves — like you were straining to hold yourself together. The light buzzed overhead, flickering like it was struggling to keep you visible.

Something heavy settled in my stomach.

“I can’t take this pain from you,” I whispered. “But please — what can we do? How can I help?”

“No,” you said sharply, pulling away before I could reach you. “It is what it is.”

My stomach twisted.

“You don’t have to live through this alone. I’m here.”

You chuckled at that—dry, mirthless, before repeating, “It is what it is. Don’t worry.”

But I did worry. And I hated myself for nodding.

I should have fought harder. Should have said something better. But in the moment, I just wanted you back in bed, warm, safe, asleep. So I stepped forward, out of the darkness and into the bright, buzzing bathroom light and wrapped my arms around you. At first, you didn’t move — rigid as a board. But after a long, breathless moment, you softened. Just a little.

“It doesn’t happen much anymore,” you whispered. “I mostly have it in control. But some nights, I slip.”

“It’s okay,” I murmured, pressing my face into your hair.

You didn’t have to explain. I understood, in that way you sometimes understand things without needing words. The thing in the walls, in the dark, the thing that kept you up at night — it had been with you for far longer than I had.

Ever since that night, things were actually different in the house. Not fixed, but better.

When the tapping would start, we stayed awake together. If the whispering kept us up, we found something to watch and drown out the noise, and whenever the scratches appeared, I did what I could to clean things up for you. I tried to never again ask how or why.

And slowly but surely, something shifted. The air grew lighter again. The whispering softened. The walls held their tongues.

And the scratches — they became fewer. Further between. I don’t even know when it last happened.

One morning, you turned to me in bed, a small, quiet smile on your face.

“I think things are getting quieter now.”

I reached for your hand. Held it.

“Good,” I said. “Let’s keep going. A day at a time.”

And we did.