The Sister
Brynn sat frozen on the couch, the blanket clutched to her chest, her eyes fixed on the wall. The whisper had faded, but its echo remained — a cold tingling at the back of her neck, a pressure in her ears.
We know about your sister.
She hadn’t spoken about Corinne in years. Not to friends. Not to therapists. Not to anyone. Corinne was a closed door in her mind, a room she had locked and boarded up and pretended didn’t exist.
But the whispers knew.
Who are you? she whispered.
The wall was silent.
What do you want?
A creak. A rustle. Then, softer this time:
Come closer.
Brynn stood up. Her legs were shaking. She walked to the wall and pressed her ear against the cold plaster.
Closer.
She pressed harder.
The whisper was not coming from the apartment next door. It was coming from inside the wall. Inside the building. Inside somewhere deep and dark and old.
We want to show you what happened to her.
“What happened to who?”
To Corinne.
Brynn pulled back.
She didn’t want to know. She had spent ten years not knowing, not asking, not searching. Corinne had vanished on a rainy Tuesday, walking home from school. She was sixteen. Brynn was fourteen. The police searched, but they never found her. No body. No suspect. No answers.
Brynn had stopped hoping years ago.
Come to the basement, the whisper said.
“No.”
Come to the basement, and we’ll tell you everything.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Then we’ll come to you.
The lights flickered.
Brynn grabbed her phone and turned on the flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating the corners of the room. Nothing.
But the whisper was closer now.
We’re in the walls. We’re in the floor. We’re in the ceiling. We’re everywhere.
“Who are you?”
We are the forgotten. The abandoned. The ones who were taken and never found.
Brynn’s blood turned to ice.
“Like Corinne?”
Like Corinne. She’s here. She’s with us. She’s been waiting for you.
Brynn ran.
She grabbed her keys, her coat, her phone. She ran down the stairs, through the lobby, out the front door. The street was empty, the buildings dark, the sky heavy with clouds.
She didn’t stop running until she reached the diner on the corner.
The lights were warm, the air smelled like coffee, and a woman with kind eyes was wiping down the counter.
“You okay, honey?” the woman asked.
Brynn shook her head.
“Sit down. I’ll get you some tea.”
Brynn sat in a booth by the window. Her hands were shaking. Her heart was pounding. She looked out at the apartment building across the street.
The lights were off.
But in the window of her apartment, she saw a face.
A face she hadn’t seen in ten years.
Corinne.