The Things That Speak When the House is Quiet

I used to think ghosts were the problem.

I used to think if something was whispering at night, if the walls creaked, if the lights flickered — it had to be something else. Something dead. Something evil. Something I could blame.

But now I know better.

It’s not ghosts that speak in my house when it’s quiet.

It’s me.

Or what’s left of me.

The first time I heard it, I was doing nothing — just sitting on the edge of my bed, staring into the dark, half-thinking, half-remembering. You know that soft, fuzzy mind-space when the world is too quiet and your brain starts to make its own noise?

That's when it began.

A voice, not loud, not soft. Not even spoken. Just… inside. Like a thought I didn’t make.

“You don’t belong here.”

That’s what it said.

And the terrifying part wasn’t the words — it was the fact that I believed them.

I looked around the room like someone else was going to confirm it, like maybe an old photograph or a coat rack would nod and say,

“Yes. You don’t.”

But nothing moved.

Nothing ever does.

I started keeping the TV on at night.

Not for entertainment — just to drown the silence.

I’d play random YouTube playlists: fireplace sounds, rainfall, old sitcoms.

One night, the fireplace video I always played — the one that looped — didn’t loop.

It paused.

Then skipped.

Then a black screen.

And then, without me touching a thing, words appeared on the screen in white text:

“We’re still here. Why aren’t you?”

My hands shook. I remember that. Not because I was scared of the screen — but because part of me understood what it meant.

I’d left a long time ago.

Not physically.

But emotionally.

Mentally.

Spiritually.

I stopped being a person and became an echo of one. I stopped existing and started floating — paying rent for a space I didn’t feel real in, wearing a body like a costume that didn’t fit.

I went to work. I answered emails. I smiled at cashiers.

But none of it was me.

I was just noise pretending to be a song.

Last week, the house went quiet again. Power cut out. Internet died. My phone glitched to a black screen.

And then I heard it.

Not a voice this time. Not words.

Just breathing.

Right behind me.

Not human breathing. Too slow. Too cold.

I turned around and saw nothing. But I felt it — like sadness wearing skin. Like something that used to be part of me and had come back to ask:

"Will you finally feel this, or do I have to take you with me?"

I didn’t answer.

I just cried for the first time in years.

And the house — for once — stayed quiet.

I still hear it sometimes.

Not every night. But enough.

Enough to know I’m not haunted by ghosts.

I’m haunted by the version of myself I abandoned.

And he's getting louder.