There was a house at the end of Ravenswood Lane that no one dared approach after dark. It wasn’t because of its dilapidated appearance—the sagging roof, broken windows, or the ivy that clawed its walls like nature reclaiming its due. It was because of the whispers.

On quiet nights, when the wind was still, passersby swore they could hear voices emanating from the house. Low, murmured conversations that seemed to rise and fall like a tide, though no one ever saw who, or what, spoke them. The brave few who ventured closer claimed the whispers weren’t coming from inside the house but from the shadows surrounding it, as though the darkness itself was alive.

For years, the house was abandoned, a blight on the otherwise picturesque village. That was until Ethan Delaney moved in.

Ethan wasn’t a local. He was a man running from something, though no one in the village knew what. He arrived with little more than a beat-up truck and a suitcase, his eyes carrying the haunted look of someone who had seen too much.

The villagers tried to warn him about the house. “It’s cursed,” old Mrs. Bramwell said, gripping his arm with bony fingers. “No one who goes in ever comes out the same.”

Ethan simply smiled. “I don’t believe in curses.”

For weeks, he worked on the house, ignoring the whispers that grew louder each night. The first week, he chalked it up to his imagination. The second, he convinced himself it was just the wind. But by the third week, the whispers became impossible to ignore.

They didn’t come from one voice but many, overlapping and intertwining like a sinister choir. Ethan could never make out the words, but he felt them in his bones—cold and biting, like winter air slicing through an open wound.

One night, unable to stand it any longer, Ethan stormed outside. “Who’s out there?” he shouted into the darkness. “Show yourself!”

The whispers fell silent. For a moment, the only sound was his own ragged breathing. Then, from the shadows beneath a gnarled oak tree, a figure stepped forward.

It wasn’t a man or a woman. It wasn’t even human. The figure was tall and impossibly thin, its limbs elongated and angular like broken branches. Its face was a blank canvas of smooth, pale skin, with no eyes, nose, or mouth—only the faint impression of where features might have been.

Ethan froze, his anger replaced by a cold, creeping terror. The figure tilted its head, as though studying him, and then it raised one spindly hand and pointed toward the house.

“Why are you here?” Ethan whispered, his voice trembling.

The figure didn’t answer, but the whispers returned, louder than ever, pouring out of the house like smoke. Ethan stumbled back, covering his ears, but it was no use. The voices were inside his head now, filling every corner of his mind with their incoherent, maddening murmurings.

He blacked out.

---

When Ethan woke, he was lying on the floor of the house’s foyer. The figure was gone, but the whispers remained, though they had receded to a faint hum. Ethan’s hands trembled as he sat up, his heart pounding like a war drum.

He decided then and there to leave. Whatever had drawn him to this cursed place didn’t matter anymore. He packed his belongings in frantic haste, throwing clothes and tools into his suitcase without care. But as he reached for the front door, it wouldn’t open.

Panic set in. He tried the windows, but………