The Face in the Walls

The first time I saw it, I was eight years old. My bedroom walls were covered in pale, peeling wallpaper, and at night, in the glow of my bedside lamp, the cracks and stains formed shapes—ghostly figures, shifting landscapes, and, one night, a face. It was subtle at first, just the suggestion of a human form, a trick of the mind. But as I stared, the features became more defined: hollow eyes, a crooked nose, a thin-lipped mouth that seemed frozen in a silent scream.

I told my parents the next morning, but they dismissed it as a child’s imagination running wild.

“You watch too many scary movies,” my mother said, ruffling my hair. “There’s no face in the walls.”

I wanted to believe her. I tried to ignore it. But every night, the face was there. And worse—it seemed to move.

By the time I was twelve, I had learned to live with it. It never left the wall, never spoke, never did anything outright malicious. It was just… watching. I stopped mentioning it to my parents, knowing they wouldn’t believe me. I convinced myself it was my mind playing tricks on me. But some nights, I swore the eyes followed me across the room.

Then, one evening, I pressed my ear against the wall.

And I heard it.

A whisper. Faint. Incoherent. But definitely there.

I jerked away, heart pounding. My skin crawled as the whispering continued, like a breath moving through the wood and plaster. It sounded like a name.

My name.

By sixteen, I had stopped sleeping in that room altogether. My parents still refused to believe me, but I didn’t care. I dragged a sleeping bag into the living room and stayed there instead. The face never appeared anywhere else—just in my bedroom, as if it were tied to that specific part of the house.

One night, curiosity got the better of me. I armed myself with a flashlight and a crowbar, determined to prove to myself there was nothing behind the wall. It was just a stupid stain, a stupid illusion.

I pried off the wooden paneling beneath the wallpaper. Dust and mold greeted me. But then—

A hole.

Just big enough for me to peer into.

My breath hitched as the flashlight beam revealed something horrifying: behind the wall, embedded in the structure, was an old, decayed human skull. The eye sockets gaped, empty and dark. And then—I swear on my life—it moved.

The mouth opened, and a whisper filled the room, louder than ever before.

I don’t remember much after that. I must have screamed, because the next thing I knew, my parents were shaking me, demanding to know what had happened. I pointed at the hole in the wall, my whole body trembling.

They called the police.

The investigation revealed something unthinkable.

Buried behind my bedroom wall, entombed in the very bones of the house, were the remains of a woman. The forensic team estimated she had been there for over fifty years.

The house had been built in the 1950s, and the first owner—a man named Thomas Calloway—had vanished mysteriously in 1962. Rumors swirled that he had murdered his wife, but no evidence was ever found.

Until now.

The house was torn apart by the investigation. My family moved out, unable to bear the nightmares that followed. But the worst part? Even after they removed the remains, after they demolished the wall—

The face still appeared.

And the whispering never stopped.

I moved away when I turned eighteen, but every so often, I still dream about that face. It calls my name in the dark, a ghostly echo from the past.

And deep down, I know—I’ll never really escape it.

Some things never leave you.

Especially when they’ve been watching you your whole life.