My Wife Started Sleepwalking Into the Basement We Don’t Have

Every night, she comes back knowing something new

By Anees Ul Ameen

The first time my wife sleepwalked, I wasn’t scared.

People sleepwalk. Stress does strange things to the body. We had just moved into a new house, unpacked boxes still lining the walls, our routines broken and rearranged. I guided her gently back to bed, whispered her name until she settled, and forgot about it by morning.

The second time, she was standing at the end of the hallway.

Barefoot. Still. Facing the wall.

“What are you doing?” I asked softly.

She didn’t answer.

Her hand was pressed flat against the paint, fingers spread, as if she were feeling for something beneath it.

“The stairs are cold,” she murmured.

We didn’t have a basement.

After that, it happened almost every night.

She would rise from bed around 3 a.m., eyes open but empty, moving with purpose. I followed her each time, my heart pounding louder with every step.

She always stopped at the same place—the wall between the laundry room and the kitchen.

“The door is stuck,” she said once, tugging at nothing.

Another night: “They changed the lock.”

I started sleeping lightly, afraid of what I’d find if I didn’t wake in time.

During the day, she remembered none of it.

But she changed.

She knew things she shouldn’t.

She asked me if I remembered the smell down there.

If I missed the sound of dripping water.

If I still felt guilty.

I laughed it off. I told myself it was coincidence. Stress. Shared imagination.

But I stopped going near that wall.

One afternoon, I found her sketching at the kitchen table.

She’d drawn stairs.

They descended into darkness, twisting farther than any basement should. At the bottom, she’d drawn a door.

On the door, she’d written a date.

It was tomorrow’s.

“Where did you see this?” I asked.

She frowned, confused. “You showed me,” she said. “Before we sealed it.”

My mouth went dry.

“We never had a basement,” I said carefully.

She looked at me then—really looked at me.

“That’s not what you said before.”

That night, I stayed awake.

At 3:07 a.m., she sat up.

I followed her quietly as she moved to the wall. This time, she pressed her ear against it.

“They’re awake now,” she whispered.

A sound came from the other side.

Not knocking.

Breathing.

Slow. Damp. Like air moving through a place that hadn’t been opened in a long time.

I staggered back, my heart racing.

“Stop,” I said. “Please. Wake up.”

She turned to me.

Her eyes were open, but they weren’t hers.

“You promised,” she said. “You said we’d come back.”

The memories hit me all at once.

The old house.

The unfinished basement.

The room we locked because it was easier than dealing with what was inside.

The sounds we ignored.

The decision we made to pour concrete and pretend it had never been there.

I remembered her crying afterward.

I remembered telling her it was better this way.

I remembered lying.

The wall cracked.

Just a thin line at first, like a hairline fracture. Dust fell to the floor. The smell rose immediately—mold, rust, something sour and old.

She smiled.

“I told them you’d remember,” she said.

The crack widened.

I grabbed her arm, pulling her back. “We can’t,” I said. “We sealed it for a reason.”

“They’ve been waiting,” she replied calmly. “So have I.”

The wall gave way.

Stairs appeared where there had been none, descending into darkness that felt alive.

From below, something shifted.

Something recognized us.

I ran.

I didn’t look back. I didn’t stop until I was outside, gasping in the cold night air.

When the police came, the wall was solid again.

No stairs. No basement.

My wife was asleep in bed, confused and frightened by my panic.

But she still hums sometimes.

A low, familiar sound.

And every morning, she knows something new.

Something I buried.

— Written by Anees Ul Ameen

Author’s Note:

This story was written with the assistance of AI and carefully edited, revised, and finalized by Anees Ul Ameen.