The House Told Me to Leave. I Didn't Listen.

I first saw the house on a Thursday afternoon.

The clouds had opened just enough to pour a heavy rain that slicked the streets of the small New Hampshire town I had just moved to. I wasn’t looking for anything grand—just quiet. After the accident, after the silence that followed my parents' passing, I thought solitude would be healing.

The house sat at the edge of a tree-lined road, half-swallowed by pine and fog. It was listed as a “fixer-upper” but had strong bones. The price was suspiciously low, the owner eager to sell. I didn’t ask questions. Grief makes you impulsive.

The key barely turned in the rusted lock, as though the house itself didn’t want to be opened. When I pushed the door, it creaked louder than any floorboard I’ve ever heard—like it was groaning. Inside, the air was thick with age, dust, and something else. Something sharp. Like static before lightning.

The rooms were darker than they should’ve been. Even when I opened the curtains, the sun refused to fully enter. The fireplace still held old ash, cold and dead. There were scratch marks near the baseboards in the hallway—like something had been clawing its way out.

I ignored all of it. Because that’s what people do. We explain things away. We pretend old houses creak. We pretend ghosts don’t exist.

The first night, I barely slept. The sound of pacing upstairs, even though no one lived above. The water running for seconds at a time, then stopping. I told myself it was the pipes. The plumbing. The house settling.

But that second night, I heard the voice.

It was faint, like wind through leaves, but clear enough to make me sit up straight in bed.

"Leave."

Just once. Whispered.

I didn’t leave.

I should have.

By the fifth day, the house had changed.

The lights began to flicker in response to my movement. The hallway grew longer somehow—I'd walk to the kitchen and feel like I’d passed the same wallpapered stretch of wall twice. I placed a glass of water on the counter one morning and found it shattered on the floor seconds later. I didn't touch it.

I woke up one night to find my bedroom door wide open, though I always locked it. Footsteps echoed down the hall—soft, like bare feet. I waited, holding my breath under the covers like a child. The footsteps stopped right at the threshold of my room.

Nothing entered. But the smell of damp soil filled the air.

I started to look into the history of the house.

There wasn’t much. That was suspicious in itself.

No records past 1963. No owners on file before the last tenant, who died inside the house. A heart attack, supposedly. But the coroner’s report mentioned something strange: his fingernails were torn and bloody, as if he’d been scratching at the walls.

I checked the same baseboards again. This time, I noticed something I hadn’t before: letters. Words.

Barely carved, but there.

"DON'T LISTEN TO IT."

"IT WANTS YOU TO STAY."

It wasn’t warning me to leave.

It was warning me that leaving might be exactly what the house wanted me to try—just so it could trap me again.

That night, the voice came back.

But louder.

"Stay."

This time, it didn’t sound like wind. It sounded like a woman, just outside my door. Crying. Whispering.

"Please. Stay with me. I'm cold."

I sat in my bed, holding my phone like a weapon, the flashlight on, hands trembling.

The house groaned again—louder than before. And then the door opened on its own. The hallway beyond was pitch black, though I had left the light on earlier.

I stood, slowly, and stepped out into the dark. The boards creaked. My breath came out in visible puffs, though it wasn’t cold before.

I turned the flashlight toward the staircase—and saw her.

She was at the bottom, barefoot, wearing a nightgown soaked at the hem. Her face was pale, eyes sunken but fixed on mine.

"Don’t go," she said, quietly.

Then she smiled.

The house shook.

And the stairs behind me collapsed into a pit of blackness.

I don’t know how I escaped. I think I ran. I think I screamed. I remember crashing through the front door and hearing it slam shut behind me, like a final heartbeat.

I drove until the gas light blinked red. Slept in my car. Called a friend. Never went back.

The house is still there. The listing is gone. No one has moved in.

Sometimes, I see it in my dreams.

The hallway. The claw marks. The woman.

And the voice.

Only now, it doesn’t whisper.

It laughs.