The house on Willow Lane was perfect: high ceilings, creaking hardwood floors, and an overgrown garden that smelled of damp earth. Rebecca Martínez, a writer seeking tranquility, didn't understand why the price was so low.
—"It has a history," said the real estate agent, avoiding her gaze. "The last owner... disappeared."
Rebecca attributed it to superstition. Until, while unpacking, she found a box hidden under the closet floorboards.
Inside, a diary with its cover stained with something dark and dry.
"Property of Clara H. – 1973"
The first pages were normal: drawings of flowers, notes about school. But then, the writing became crooked, desperate:
October 10th: Mom doesn't believe The Whisperer is real. But I hear him. He lives in the walls.
October 15th: Today I made the drawing he asked for. With my blood, as he said. Now he comes every night.
Rebecca felt a chill. On the last page, a drawing of a faceless figure, its mouth open in a silent scream.
And then, she heard the first whisper.
It was barely a murmur, like someone dragging words across the other side of her bedroom wall.
—Re-be-ca...
She froze. The whisper wasn't coming from outside.
It was coming from inside the wall.
She ran towards the sound and pounded on the plaster. Something pounded back.
That night, she turned on all the lights. But at dawn, she found markings on her bedroom floor: symbols drawn in ash, the same as those described in the diary.
Someone (or something) had made them while she slept.
At the local library, Rebecca discovered the story: Clara Hargrove, age 9, disappeared in 1973. The police found her diary, but the final pages had been torn out.
Clara's photo left her breathless: a girl in a white dress, holding a bloodstained pencil.
—"The family left afterward," the archivist told her. "They said Clara still talked to them... from the walls."
Back home, Rebecca noticed something new in the diary:
A freshly written page, in her handwriting.
Today I drew The Whisperer. Now he's coming for me.
A month later, a family moved into the house on Willow Lane. The youngest girl ran to the closet, excited.
—Mom! There's a diary here... and a friend who wants to play.
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