Title: The Third Floor

Emily had always dreamed of escaping the noise of city life. When she found the old Victorian house listed on Craigslist, it felt like fate. Three stories, fully furnished, nestled in a quiet New England town—and the price was suspiciously low. Half the market value. But Emily was desperate for change. For peace.

When she met the landlord, Mr. Keene, a pale old man with watery eyes and skin like paper, he only gave her one instruction:

"Don’t go to the third floor. It’s locked for a reason."

She raised an eyebrow.

“Renovations?”

He hesitated.

“You could say that. Just… don’t go up there. No matter what you hear.”

What she heard were footsteps.

Every night, soft, slow steps creaked across the ceiling above her second-floor bedroom. At first, she dismissed it as the house settling. Old buildings groaned, especially in the cold. But it was always around 2:11 a.m. Exactly. The steps would start from one side of the room and travel to the other, pausing near the vent—right above her bed.

She recorded the sounds one night. When she played it back, her blood turned to ice. The creaking was there, yes, but underneath it… a voice. A child’s voice. Whispering.

"Mommy. I can’t see you."

Emily had suffered a miscarriage a year before. She hadn’t told anyone about it. Not her friends, not even her therapist. The loss was a private, choking grief she buried deep within.

Now the house was speaking it aloud.

She confronted Mr. Keene.

“There’s something in that room.”

His face tightened.

“You agreed to stay away.”

“I heard a child.”

He didn’t answer. Just walked away and locked the gate behind him.

That night, the footsteps didn’t come at 2:11. They came at 1:46. Then again at 3:03. Then 4:12.

And they were louder.

The next night, the door to the third floor was unlocked.

She should have called someone. She should have left. But something about that whisper, that familiar ache in the voice—it pulled her like gravity.

The stairs groaned as she ascended. The hallway was narrow, choked with dust. The door creaked open slowly.

The third floor was a nursery.

Yellow wallpaper peeled in long strips. Stuffed animals sat in faded rows on the shelves. A crib stood at the center of the room. Everything was layered in dust—except for the windows.

Tiny handprints. Dozens of them. Fresh. Still moist.

Emily took a trembling step forward. Her phone flashlight flickered, then went black. The door slammed shut behind her.

In the silence, she heard a faint tune. A music box. Twisted and off-key.

“Mommy?”

She turned.

The crib was now empty. The stuffed animals had fallen from their shelves.

A small figure stood in the far corner. Childlike in shape—but wrong in every way. Its arms hung too long, its head tilted unnaturally, and the eyes—voids of black.

Emily couldn’t scream. Her throat locked.

“You left me.”

The voice gurgled from its throat, old and broken, as if spoken underwater.

“I waited. I waited so long. You promised.”

She backed away, bumping into the crib. It rocked slowly.

Suddenly, the lights flicked on. The wallpaper on the walls began to bleed. Thick, black sludge oozed from the seams. The music box clattered to the floor, still playing, now faster, discordant, shrill.

The figure reached toward her.

“Come back to me.”

Emily didn’t remember running. Only the feeling of cold hands brushing her shoulder, nails like needles. She burst through the door, down the stairs, and out into the street.

She never went back.

When Mr. Keene came to check a week later, the house was quiet. Dust had settled again.

He relocked the third-floor door and sat on the steps. He sighed, looked up at the windows, and murmured,

“That’s five mothers now. Still not the right one, is it?”

From within, behind the locked door, a music box began to play.

And tiny handprints pressed against the inside of the third-floor window.