If these walls could talk

He sat alone in a room that seemed to shrink with every passing hour, the walls pressing in, their silence thick and unyielding. The air was stale, tinged with an old, sour smell that clung to him like a second skin. Outside, the night stretched on, suffocatingly still. But within these four walls, something breathed—a faint exhale, a slow, measured pulse woven into the silence, as if the room itself had absorbed lives long since gone.

It began softly, the way smoke curls and lingers in still air. He couldn’t pinpoint when he’d first noticed it, this strange, almost inaudible whisper that rose and fell, threading itself into his thoughts. It wasn’t a sound he could trace but a feeling, a silent watcher lurking in the corners of the room, just beyond his reach. The walls seemed to shift in their stillness, their breath a faint, unnatural pulse that matched his own, stretching and compressing, as if holding fragments of those who’d been here before him.

He tried to ignore it, to shake it off as exhaustion, but shadows began thickening in the corners, seeping like spilled ink, crawling up the walls. They inched closer, each movement deliberate, silent, until fragments of memories flared to life—sharp, jagged flashes that pulled him under.

A memory rose: his mother’s voice, quiet but fierce, urging him to stay still, to listen. She sat in her chair, her hands clinging to a faded cloth, her gaze fixed on something unseen. She’d had a way of watching him, almost as if she’d known something would catch up with him, a shadow that waited patiently. She’d reach out sometimes, her hand hovering in the air, but she’d never finish what she wanted to say. The look in her eyes haunted him—a shadowed knowledge, a warning she’d carried to her grave.

The shadows crept closer, brushing against his skin, cold and damp like earth after rain, carrying faint whispers. He couldn’t tell if the voices belonged to him or to the room. They murmured fragments of words he couldn’t piece together, sounds too familiar to dismiss, too twisted to ignore. He pressed his hands to his ears, but the whispers curled through his mind, insistent.

“Remember,” they seemed to say, each word prying open closed doors in his mind. The walls pulsed tighter, their silence broken only by that steady, rhythmic breath, so quiet it felt imagined. But he could feel it now—an unseen presence, woven into the walls, lingering in every crack and shadow.

The room was dense with memory, a weight he’d thought he’d left behind. He’d spent years running, locking doors in his mind, hiding fragments in places even he couldn’t reach. But here, now, the past rose like a tide, inescapable.

A faint smell—antiseptic and dust, the scent of hospital rooms and sleepless nights. He saw himself by his mother’s bedside, her hand slipping from his, her final breath so soft he almost missed it. The silence that followed had settled into him like a stone, a silence that seemed to breathe now, alive and waiting, as though she’d passed some part of herself into this room to find him again.

The shadows pooled at his feet, rising slowly, pressing close, their breath cold as the grave. He couldn’t move, couldn’t shake the feeling that they were waiting, that they knew him better than he knew himself. The walls loomed, their breath heavier, carrying secrets he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear.

“Remember,” they whispered again, louder, almost pleading. The room tilted, the walls pressing in, trapping him within his own memory. The breath of the walls thickened, and for the first time, he wondered if he would ever leave this room.

The shadows stilled, the whispers fading to silence. But he knew now the room would never be empty. The walls had taken part of him, absorbed his secrets, his past. They would carry him, his memories, until he too was part of the silence, woven into the breath of walls.

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My little story for spooky season. Thoughts?