The Time I Yelled Out No to Him

The house was never quiet. Even in the dead hours, when the world outside seemed frozen, the old beams whispered to themselves, sighing under the weight of history. Tonight, though, the sounds were different. The creaks weren’t idle, they were deliberate like footsteps circling the edges of my awareness.

I sat in the living room, staring at the clock on the mantel. 2:47 a.m. The kind of hour where thoughts distort, where shadows feel alive. My hands trembled against the worn fabric of the armchair. I knew he would come tonight.

I had been hearing him for weeks always just at the edge of my vision, a silhouette reflected in dark windows, a voice murmuring behind closed doors. At first, I thought it was grief twisting me into madness, remnants of my father’s old tales clawing back to life. He used to speak about “the man beneath the floorboards,” a figure who waited for the right moment to make you listen. I laughed it off back then. Now, I wasn’t laughing.

The smell came first a stench of damp earth and rusted iron, thick enough to make my throat burn. The lamp flickered once, twice, then died. Only the dim moonlight bled through the curtains, painting the room in ash.

That’s when I heard him.

“Open the door.”

The voice was low, coarse, like stones grinding together. It wasn’t outside it was inside, coiled in the air like smoke. My heart rattled in my chest. I forced myself to stay seated, though every nerve screamed to run.

“Open the door,” he repeated, closer now, like he was speaking from the hallway.

But the front door was locked. I hadn’t moved.

The floorboards groaned. My stomach lurched. Slowly, I turned my head toward the dark hallway. The air bent, shadows stretching unnaturally, as though the darkness itself was being peeled open. And then he stepped out.

A man, tall and thin, dressed in a suit far too old for this century. His face was pale, almost colorless, except for his eyes black, endless pits that swallowed all light. He didn’t walk. He glided.

“You’ve heard me long enough,” he said. “It’s time.”

My throat locked, but instinct pushed words out. “Time for what?”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “For you to follow.”

He extended his hand. The bones beneath his skin shifted like broken branches. The room grew colder, the shadows deeper, until it felt as though I sat at the bottom of a well.

Something in me wanted to obey. A pull, heavy and irresistible, whispered that if I took his hand, I would finally know what had haunted my bloodline what my father refused to explain before he died. But another part of me, the last shred of myself, recoiled.

I rose from the chair, trembling, every tendon screaming with the weight of decision. His hand stretched closer, closer, until the smell of earth filled my lungs.

And that’s when I yelled.

“No!”

The word tore out of me raw, louder than I thought I was capable of. It shattered the silence, echoed through the beams and walls. For a moment, everything froze. His smile cracked, his eyes widened, and his form flickered like a dying flame.

Then he screamed. Not a human scream, but a chorus of voices shrieking all at once, like a thousand trapped souls being ripped open. The walls shook. The lights blazed back on. And just like that, he was gone.

The house stilled. Only the clock ticked, steady, normal, ordinary. 2:52 a.m.

I collapsed into the chair, shaking, my throat raw. The air no longer smelled of soil or iron. But as I caught my breath, my gaze fell to the floorboards by the hallway.

A hairline crack had opened thin, but long, stretching toward me like a vein. From it, faintly, came the sound of whispering.

And I knew… my “No” wasn’t the end. It was the beginning.