The Eyes in the Walls

I paid little attention to the unusual groans and creaks the third level of the old building produced when I first moved into the apartment. After all, it was an old building—one that had seen better days. But there was something about it, something unsettling, that gnawed at me from the moment I stepped through the door.

First, it was just the sounds at night—faint whispers, like a conversation too far away to grasp, slinking through the thin walls. I blamed the neighbors, maybe an elderly couple next door or maybe a pair of college students living above. They must have had thin walls too. Everyone did in this place. But the whispers persisted, growing clearer as the nights passed.

It wasn’t just the voices, though. It was the eyes. First, I assumed I was dreaming it or perhaps just tired after settling in and organizing everything. But every time I passed by the crack in the wall near the hallway, I could have sworn I saw something—eyes—looking out from inside. They were just tiny pinpricks of light, like reflections in the dark. But they were always there, lurking just beneath the thin layers of plaster, watching. Watching me.

I tried to ignore it. Everyone tells themselves it’s nothing when they move into a new place, right? Just the weird quirks of an old building. But no matter how hard I tried to convince myself it was nothing, the voices kept becoming louder, and the eyes… they continued looking.

Unable to sleep from the continuous muttering one night, I started looking. I stood up and walked down the dimly lit hallway to the crack where the eyes had first appeared. It was just a small gap in the wall, barely noticeable, but there was something about it that made my heart race.

I crouched down, pushing my ear to the crack, trying to listen for any clues to the source of the whispering. But as I did, I once more saw them—the eyes. This time, they were clearer. Not just two or three, but hundreds of them all staring through the gap. And then I heard it—no longer whispers, but a voice, low and hushed, like it was speaking directly into my ear.

"Come closer."

My blood flowed cold, but my body seemed to move on its own. Without thinking, I reached forward and touched the crack. The wall trembled like it was alive the minute my fingers touched the plaster. A low, guttural sound vibrated across the air, and the eyes… they seemed to blink.

Suddenly, the walls around me seemed to pulse, the whispers now turning into faint laughter, followed by a chorus of voices I couldn’t understand, speaking in a language I didn’t know. And the eyes—they were no more simply observing. They were… hungry.

I jerked my hand back in terror, tripping away from the fracture. The whispers got louder, more frantic, as though the walls themselves were begging me to remain. But I couldn’t. Lashing back to my room, I locked the door behind me.

The apartment felt different now. The air seemed thinner and cooler. I could still hear the faint murmuring from the walls, and when I dared to look back at the crack in the hallway, I could still see them—dozens of eyes, all blinking at me.

After that, I stayed in that apartment hardly at all. I packed up and left the next morning, and I never looked back. I will never forget the eyes in the walls, though. And sometimes, when I’m alone at night, I swear I can still hear them—watching, waiting.