DWU

 

I used to think insomnia was the worst part of living alone. Turns out, it wasn’t.

Every night, around 3 a.m., I’d hear faint noises in my apartment. At first, I chalked it up to neighbors—pipes knocking, someone walking overhead. But my building’s old, and my unit is on the top floor.

One night, I decided to test it. I turned off my lights, sat on the floor with my back against the wall, and waited. That’s when I heard it again: a dragging sound, soft and slow, like someone sliding their hand along the wall. It came from the hallway just outside my bedroom.

I reached for my phone, but the sound stopped. When I turned the flashlight on, nothing was there—just my closed door, perfectly still.

The next morning, I noticed something I couldn’t explain. A smear—dark, faint, but definitely there—ran down my wall, exactly where the sound had been. I tried scrubbing it, but it stayed, like it was inside the paint.

The nights went on like that. The sound got bolder: a knock here, a scrape there, sometimes even my name, whispered so faintly I thought I was dreaming. Each morning, new smears appeared, closer to my bed.

Last night, I couldn’t take it anymore. I left my phone recording while I slept, just to prove to myself I wasn’t going insane. I didn’t check it when I woke up—honestly, I was too scared.

But just now, I pressed play.

It wasn’t the dragging that I heard. It wasn’t even the whispers.

It was my own voice, low and rasping, over and over again:

“Don’t wake up. Don’t wake up. Don’t wake up.”