The Whispering Light

When Jenna discovered the old farmhouse listing on a small real estate site, something about it felt... right. It was tucked away at the edge of Gray Hollow, a tiny town so remote that even the GPS maps had trouble finding it. The price was right for a fixer-upper, and the lack of nearby neighbors meant peace—finally. Jenna needed it after the chaos of the city.

But when she arrived at the farmhouse, things weren’t as she expected. The air was thick with silence, broken only by the occasional rustling of dry leaves. The house, a faded yellow with peeling paint, looked like it had been abandoned for decades. Still, Jenna had made her decision.

The locals, however, weren’t as welcoming as she’d hoped. When she mentioned the house at the small diner, the conversations hushed. People exchanged uneasy glances. The elderly woman behind the counter crossed herself and murmured under her breath, “That house should’ve been torn down years ago.”

Jenna, always a skeptic, laughed it off as superstition. These were just small-town stories, the kind she’d heard her whole life.

But as she settled in, the unease started to creep in, slowly at first.

The first few nights were uneventful. Jenna cleaned up, unpacked, and explored the land. There was an old barn behind the house, and the barn’s door creaked as if protesting against anyone who dared to open it. She ignored it, focusing on making the house livable.

Then, on the sixth night, she woke up just after 2:00 a.m. to a strange sight.

A light.

A pale, cold light glowing through the cracks of the attic door. The strange part was that she hadn’t seen a bulb in the attic, nor had she noticed any electrical wiring up there. It shouldn’t have been possible. But there it was, a faint blue-white glow pulsing from the small attic window.

At first, she thought it was the moonlight. But then she heard something.

Whispers.

A soft, unintelligible murmuring that seemed to come from just behind the door. Jenna sat up, heart pounding. Was it the wind? The house settling? She tried to ignore it. But then—Jenna.

Her name.

Soft, but clear.

“Jenna… you found us.”

Jenna’s skin prickled, her breath shallow. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew—whatever it was in the attic, it was waiting for her.

The next morning, she nailed the attic door shut. It was foolish, she told herself, to let her imagination run wild. But at night, when the light began to pulse again, her mind wouldn’t let her forget.

A few nights later, she bought a voice recorder. She left it outside the attic door, hoping to capture some kind of rational explanation—anything that would make sense of the unexplainable events. What she heard the next morning was not what she expected.

It wasn’t just whispers.

It was weeping. Low, guttural sobs mixed with the sound of nails scraping against wood. A child’s voice, faint and distant, but unmistakably there.

“…seven… eight… nine…”

The tape crackled and stopped. Jenna’s heart skipped a beat. She immediately played the recording again. It was clear—someone, or something, was counting.

But it didn’t end at nine. The tape had cut off abruptly, leaving the next number hanging in the air.

That’s when she saw them. Ten handprints. Tiny, smeared with what looked like dirt or mud. They were spread across her bedroom wall, as if something had crawled across it in the middle of the night.

That’s when the nightmares started. She dreamt of a little girl, dressed in tattered white. The girl stood in the attic, her face smooth and featureless, just a pale, gray void where her eyes should’ve been. The girl’s mouth moved, but no words came out—just a soft, rhythmic counting.

“Ten… nine… eight…”

Jenna woke up every morning exhausted, her skin clammy, her mind foggy.

Three days later, Jenna was gone. Her bed was undisturbed, her belongings left untouched. No struggle. No signs of violence. Just an empty house and the attic door hanging open.

The town didn’t bother to investigate. The house had been abandoned before. It would be abandoned again. No one dared speak of it, but everyone knew. The whispers didn’t stop.

Now, if you pass by the farmhouse, there’s a faint, pale light that flickers from the attic at exactly 2:17 a.m. It’s been said that if you stand long enough and listen closely, you’ll hear the counting.

“…seven… eight… nine…”

And then, just when you think it’s over, the next number will come.

The whispers will return.

And they’ll call your name.

Author’s Note

In the quiet, forgotten corners of the world, some things don’t stay buried. Sometimes, the past comes back… and it never stops counting.