Whispers Beneath the Floorboards

Whispers Beneath the Floorboards

They moved in on a rainy Thursday.

Emma and Jake Bennett had been searching for a fresh start—something small, affordable, far from the chaos of city life. When the old house on Mayfield Lane popped up on a foreclosure site, the price was too good to ignore.

It was a creaky Victorian, paint peeling from the shutters, and the porch leaning slightly to one side. But inside, it was quiet, quaint... even charming in a haunted sort of way.

The real estate agent, a gaunt woman with a tight smile, handed over the keys with a single warning:

“Some houses hold memories. Make sure you’re the only ones living here.”

They laughed it off.

They shouldn’t have.

First Night

Emma was the first to notice it.

They were unpacking boxes when she paused, frowning at the hardwood floor.

“Did you hear that?”

Jake looked up from the kitchen. “Hear what?”

She cocked her head. *There it was again*. A faint, papery whisper—like someone speaking through cupped hands... directly **beneath** the floor.

“I thought I heard someone talking,” she said, half-smiling but uneasy.

Jake laughed. “Welcome to old houses. The floorboards settle, the wind whistles—it’s just the house getting used to us.”

But that night, while Jake slept peacefully beside her, Emma stayed awake, listening.

It wasn’t the wind.

It was words.

Whispers Become Voices

By the third night, Jake heard them too.

They’d both been woken up by the same sound: someone dragging their fingers across the wooden planks below their bed.

Jake grabbed a flashlight and went down to the basement. Dust, old pipes, and cold stone walls—nothing out of the ordinary.

But the floorboards above creaked with slow, deliberate footsteps.

When he returned, pale and shaken, Emma was sitting upright, staring at the floor.

“They’re saying my name now,” she whispered. “I think... I think they want something.”

Digging Deeper

Emma started researching the house. She learned it had been built in 1894 by a widower named Arthur Bellamy. His wife had died in childbirth, and his twin daughters vanished just a year later. No arrests. No graves. No answers.

Only rumors.

That Arthur had gone mad.

The girls had been buried in the house.

Jake didn’t want to believe it. “It’s just stories. Urban legends. Every old house has them.”

But that night, something new happened.

The Breathing Floor

Emma had fallen asleep in the living room, exhausted from reading old news articles. Jake was brushing his teeth when he heard the creak.

Then another.

Then the floor in the hallway began to **rise and fall**, ever so slightly—as if it were breathing.

He ran to Emma. Woke her.

Together, they watched the boards move, pulse, and whisper.

"You left us. You left us. You left us."

The Hidden Hatch

The next morning, Jake tore up the hallway floorboards.

He found a trapdoor beneath them.

Covered in dust, sealed with rusted nails, and smeared faintly with something that looked like dried fingerprints.

They opened it.

Inside: a crawlspace. Tight, narrow, no taller than three feet.

And at the very end of it—a pair of **small wooden chairs**, facing each other in the dark.

Children’s chairs.

Jake pulled back.

“Don’t go down there,” Emma said, her voice hollow.

But Jake had already crawled inside.

Below

The air was stale. Heavy.

He moved toward the chairs, the flashlight flickering in his hand. As he neared them, he saw something else—a **doll**, decayed and eyeless, slumped between the chairs.

Then he heard it.

A giggling sound.

He spun around.

The crawlspace behind him was empty... but something brushed against his leg.

He scrambled out, gasping for air.

“I saw something,” he said. “Something moved down there.”

Emma didn’t respond.

She was staring at the doll in his hand.

It had her face.

The Mirror Test

Emma grew distant. Quiet. She spoke less, slept less, always looking toward the floor. Jake tried to talk to her, but she barely responded.

Until one night, she looked up at him and said,

“I think they’re trying to live through me.”

Jake set up cameras. Motion sensors. Even left a mirror beside the trapdoor to catch reflections.

And the footage?

Between 2:00 and 2:07 AM each night, **Emma would get up, walk to the trapdoor, and whisper into it.**

Sometimes crying.

Sometimes laughing.

Once, she sang a lullaby.

She didn’t remember any of it.

The Final Night

Jake had made up his mind.

They had to leave.

He packed the car while Emma stood motionless by the fireplace, staring into the empty grate. As he brought the last box to the door, he heard her whisper, “They said you can’t take me.”

He turned.

Emma was gone.

He found the trapdoor open.

No Emma.

Only the doll, now sitting in one of the tiny chairs, was smiling.

And a fresh whisper from the crawlspace:

"She stayed. So must you.”

Aftermath

Jake never left the house.

Some say he boarded the windows. Others say he vanished entirely. Police found the home empty—no Emma, no Jake.

Just floorboards that whispered when walked upon.

And if you visit on a quiet night and lie on the wooden floor, you might hear two children giggling beneath you.

Sometimes, they say your name.

Sometimes, they invite you to play.

But they always end with the same chilling promise:

“You’ll never be alone again."