The Sound Beneath Skin

Journal Entry – November 21, 1871

The morning came gray and thin. I told myself it was a dream — that I’d never gone into the cellar, never seen that shape standing in the dark. But the mud beneath my nails said otherwise.

At breakfast, the guests were restless. One of them, a traveling salesman, complained that the floorboards thumped beneath his room all night. “Like someone hammering slow,” he said. I laughed, too quickly. My voice cracked on the last word.

The day passed like any other — cooking, sweeping, fetching water from the pump. But each motion felt heavier, slower, as if the air itself pressed down to keep me still. The mark on my arm itches now; when I scratch it, I swear I feel something move under the skin.

By dusk, the humming started again — faint, rhythmic, following the cadence of my heartbeat. I pressed my ear to my wrist and heard not blood, but whispering. A man’s voice, low and coaxing.

“Do you know what’s beneath?” he asked.

I dropped the lantern then, and the flame went out. In the dark, something brushed my ankle — gentle, almost kind.

When I relit the lamp, a coin sat on the floorboards where I’d been standing. I didn’t see it fall. I didn’t hear it fall.

But when I picked it up, it was warm, pulsing, and I swear I heard the whisper again — not from below, but from inside my own chest.

“Soon.”