The door burst open with a deafening crack.
“Run, Sophie! Now!” Mark’s voice was frantic as he shoved her through the doorway, slamming it shut behind them.
Sophie stumbled into the dark corridor, gasping for breath, her legs trembling beneath her; her heart pounding in her chest, deafening. As she whirled around to face Mark, she saw his eyes were wide with terror and his face slick with sweat. But it wasn’t time to relax, for the sound was still behind them—the scraping, dragging noise from below as if something was clawing its way up through the floorboards.
“What the hell is that?” Sophie cried, her voice breaking. She gripped Mark’s arm, shaking him. “What did you bring us into?”
“I don’t know!” Mark’s eyes darted to the locked door: he was as confused as her, and his hands still pressed against the wood as if doing this might hold back whatever was coming. “We weren’t supposed to be down there! The hatch… it was sealed for a reason.”
The basement
Sophie’s stomach twisted as she remembered the trapdoor they’d pried open just an hour ago. They’d thought it was some old storage cellar, maybe a forgotten relic of the abandoned house they’d broken into for a dare; it had been sealed and hidden beneath rotting planks, locked for who knows how long, but they hadn’t been able to resist. Mark, especially, had wanted to see what lay beneath the house. He was driven by that reckless curiosity that made Sophie both love and hate him.
But now, now they knew, and it was worse than anything she could have imagined.
When the scraping noise stopped, the silence that followed was even more horrifying – so thick, it felt alive. Sophie’s chest tightened as she stared at the door and as every muscle in her body screamed to run, but she couldn’t move.
On the other hand, Mark slowly backed away from the door, keeping his eyes glued to it. “We need to get out of here,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.
Sophie nodded, but her legs felt frozen in place. “What was it?” she whispered back, her eyes darting to the cracks in the floorboards. “What did we let out?” she was almost crying now.
However, before Mark could answer, the door rattled violently like something heavy was slamming into it from the other side. A low, guttural growl – unnatural – filled the air. One could say it was like the sound of rocks grinding against metal: it didn’t sound human; it didn’t even sound animal.
Mark grabbed her arm, yanking her toward the staircase at the end of the hall. “Go, go, GO!” he shouted, pushing her ahead of him.
Sophie bolted up the stairs – her feet barely touching the steps, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. And Mark was right behind her, with heavy, frantic footsteps. The rattling door gave way with a splintering crack just as they reached the top of the stairs.
While running, Sophie risked a glance over her shoulder and immediately wished she hadn’t because she saw something dark and massive move in the shadows below. Although she couldn’t make out details, she saw the vague, twisted shape of it—too many limbs; too many joints bending the wrong way; all covered in slick, blackened skin.
A scream bubbled up in her throat, but Mark shoved her forward, forcing her into the hallway. “Don’t look, Soph!” he barked. “For goodness’ sake, just keep running!”
They tore through the upstairs corridor, weaving through the dust-choked remnants of the long-forgotten house with boarded-up windows, peeling wallpaper, and creaking doors. But there was no time to think about the decay or the stench of rot that clung to everything, for all that mattered then was escaping the horror that was now crawling and dragging itself toward them with an agonizing slowness that made Sophie’s skin crawl. It was as if it was relaxed and knew they couldn’t outrun it forever.
As they reached the end of the hallway, they saw the stairs to the attic – narrow and steep. Mark hesitated for a moment while staring at the trapdoor above them, and as if accepting his fate, muttered: “We can’t outrun it,” his breath coming in ragged gasps. “We need to hide.”
Sophie’s heart pounded in her ears. “Hide? In the attic? No way, it’ll find us!”
“You have a better idea?” Mark grabbed the rope hanging from the ceiling and pulled it, and instantly, the trapdoor creaked open; he shoved Sophie up first, practically lifting her into the darkness. She scrambled into the attic and her hands shook as she felt for something to hold onto.
Then Mark climbed in, pulling the trapdoor shut just as the scraping noise reached the bottom of the stairs. There, the two lay in the darkness, panting, their ears straining to hear. The sound below was slow and deliberate, and whatever it was, it was clearly not in a hurry: it knew they were trapped.
Sophie’s whole body trembled as she clutched Mark’s arm, trying to control her breathing. “What is it?” she whispered. “What did we release?”
Mark didn’t answer; he didn’t know any better; his eyes were fixed on the floorboards beneath them as if he could see through them to the thing crawling below.
And then it stopped, the crawling…
The silence was worse. Sophie held her breath, listening, praying that somehow it had given up, gone back to whatever hell they’d unleashed it from. But then, the creak of a floorboard echoed from below. Slowly, as if savouring the moment, it began to climb the stairs.
Sophie’s heart raced. “Mark,” she whispered, gripping his arm tighter. “What do we do?”
Mark shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted, his voice shaking. “I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know what we’re gonna do.”
The trapdoor rattled.
Sophie stifled a scream, covering her mouth with her hand as tears streamed down her face. The rattling grew louder, more forceful as if the creature below was testing the door, looking for a way in.
The wood creaked, groaning under the weight of whatever was pushing against it. The attic was pitch black – the air thick with dust, and the only sound was their ragged breathing, punctuated by the relentless scratching beneath them.
Then it stopped again. Silence… deafening silence.
Sophie’s breath caught in her throat. She could hear nothing—no scraping, no growling. Just silence.
And then, in that darkness, came a new sound.
A whisper so faint it barely registered at first.
“Sophie…”
Her blood froze.
She looked at Mark, but his face was turned away, staring into the void of the attic. The voice came again, closer this time.
“Sophie… help me…”
It was her mother’s voice.
Tears blurred her vision, for her mother had been dead for years; she knew it couldn’t be real—she knew it was a trick. But the familiarity of the voice, its softness, it was so painfully real.
“Sophie… I’m here… my child…”
She shook her head, pressing her hands to her ears. “It’s not real; it can’t be; it’s a trick; it’s all a hoax,” she kept whispering to herself.
But the trapdoor creaked, and this time, the whisper turned into a low, guttural growl.
“Sophie…”
The door burst open.
Something reached up from the darkness below.
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