The House That Breathes

Prologue: The Listing

The realtor didn’t mention the breathing.

"Historic charm!" the ad chirped. "Original hardwood! A steal at $190k!"

No one explained why the previous owners left in the middle of the night, abandoning furniture, clothes, even a half-eaten birthday cake on the kitchen counter.

But on our first night, as I lay in bed listening to the creak-creak-creak of the floorboards settling, I realized:

Houses don’t creak in rhythm.

And they definitely don’t sigh when you turn out the lights.

Chapter 1: The Names

The whispers started on day three.

At first, I thought it was the wind—a faint, papery rustling inside the walls. Then, around 2 AM, I heard it clearly:

"Maaaarrrtyyyyn..."

My husband Martyn slept soundly beside me. The voice had come from the baseboard.

By week’s end, we’d both heard them—names of people we didn’t know. Eleanor. Thomas. Baby James. Always in that same wet, whispery gasp, like the house was tasting the syllables.

Then, while painting the nursery, I found the scratches inside the closet.

Dozens of names.

All carved by different hands.

All dated the week before each family moved out.

Chapter 2: The Basement

Martyn refused to believe.

"Old houses make noises, Lia," he said, patting my belly where our seven-month-old kicked. "Stress isn’t good for the baby."

But that night, the furnace kicked on—except we didn’t have a furnace.

The sound came from the basement. A deep, gulping whoosh, like a giant pair of lungs inflating.

I found the hatch behind the water heater.

The stairs led down into pitch blackness, the air thick with the smell of copper and spoiled milk. My phone light caught the glint of something on the walls—

—hundreds of tiny, finger-length tubes.

Pulsing.

Breathing.

Something at the bottom of the stairs clicked its teeth.

Chapter 3: The Feeding

The historical society had no records of 2314 Willow Street.

But the gray-haired librarian paled when I mentioned the address. "The Driscoll House? That’s what the old-timers called it. Only family that ever lasted more than a year was...well, the Driscolls."

She slid a 1923 newspaper across the desk. The headline:

LOCAL FAMILY DIES IN "SICK HOUSE" TRAGEDY

The article mentioned headaches. Hallucinations. Mrs. Driscoll writing "it’s in the walls" over and over in her diary before drowning her three children in the bathtub.

The photo showed the house.

With the same porch swing we’d hung last weekend.

Chapter 4: The Nursery

Martyn finally heard it on my due date.

"Lia..." from the nursery walls. "Lia...Lia...Lia..."

We packed in ten frantic minutes.

But as we reached the car, my water broke—a gush of fluid down my legs. The pain hit like a sledgehammer, doubling me over on the lawn.

Inside the house, every light flicked on.

The front door yawned open.

And from the nursery window, something pale pressed against the glass—

—a handprint.

Too small to be mine.

Epilogue: The New Owners

They bought the house for cash.

A young couple, expecting. The wife smiled as she patted her rounded belly. "We just love fixer-uppers!"

As they carried boxes inside, the realtor hesitated at the door.

"You hear that?" the husband asked.

"Just the pipes," the realtor lied, ignoring the wet shhhlick sound from the walls.

Upstairs, the nursery wallpaper—the same pattern we’d torn down—rippled gently in the still air.

Like something beneath it was breathing.