The Wailing of the Walls

The scratching never ceases. It is a monotonous, grinding rhythm that gnaws at the silence like a rusted needle etching into the meat of time. You try to convince yourself it is merely rats navigating the cavities of the geriatric timber, or perhaps the ancient cypress branches outside clawing at the glass under the weight of a passing night wind. But logic collapses when you press your ear against the faded damask of your new room—paper that curls at the edges to reveal wood turned black with age. You feel a faint vibration, a coarse, erratic pulse emanating from deep within the frame, as if the house possesses a sick heart beating beneath the skin of the walls. The air here is not merely dusty; it is a stifling shroud of funeral camphor, the scent used to preserve the dead, mingled with the smell of wet earth. It feels as though this entire structure was interred in a forgotten graveyard for centuries, only to be exhumed as a trap waiting for your arrival. You step back, wary of the chill beginning to seep into your marrow, and in that moment, your entire being recoils. In the periphery of your vision, you catch something that the mind struggles to process: your shadow, cast upo…