Chapter Two: The Things Beneath the Floor
The rain finally stopped before dawn, but the silence it left behind was worse.
It pressed against the windows like a held breath.
Tina hadn't slept. The shattered lamp lay scattered across the dorm floor, its bulb cracked open like an eye that had seen too much. The ceiling above her looked clean—no handprint, no trace of the dragging fingers she swore she'd seen. But she remembered the sound. The slow scrape. The laughter that didn't belong to her.
Her phone was dead. Of course it was. The power had flickered all night. She pulled on her uniform and stepped onto the wooden floor.
Creaaak.
At first, she thought it was her imagination. But then came another sound—faint, deliberate, and wrong. A hollow rhythm, coming from beneath her feet.
Knock… knock… knock.
Tina froze. The air grew colder with every beat. She crouched down, pressing her ear to the floor. There was breathing on the other side. Soft. Uneven. Then a voice, muffled and wet:
> "We remember your room."
She stumbled backward, heart slamming. The boards rattled beneath her as if something laughed down there, under the planks, under the school itself.
She didn't even bother with shoes. She yanked the door open and bolted into the hallway.
The corridor was empty, washed in the sickly light of a single flickering bulb. The air smelled of mold and rainwater. As she passed the window, she caught her reflection—and swore, for a heartbeat, that another face was standing behind her own.
"Tina?"
She spun. Liam stood by the stairwell, hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets. His dark hair hung over one eye, and he looked like he hadn't slept in days.
"You heard them, didn't you?" His voice was flat, but his eyes darted toward the floor.
Tina's lips trembled. "How do you know that?"
He hesitated before answering. "Because everyone hears them eventually. But they only talk to some of us."
"Some of us?"
He nodded. "The ones they think belong here."
---
Classes passed like a dream.
Teachers spoke, but their voices blurred. Students moved like shadows—faces pale, eyes hollow. When the bell rang, its echo lasted too long, stretching through the halls like a wail.
At lunch, Tina sat in the cafeteria, staring into a bowl of gray stew. The room buzzed with whispers. Not from the students—from beneath. A steady, low murmur, like a thousand mouths moving behind the tiles.
Liam slid into the seat across from her. "They're getting louder," he said quietly.
Tina swallowed. "Who?"
"The ones under the floor. Some say the school was built over an orphanage. Others say it was a hospital for sick kids. But I think it was both. They never tore the place down. They just built on top of it."
Tina frowned. "You mean… we're sitting above—"
"Bodies," he finished. "Lots of them."
A metallic clang cut him off. Tina's spoon had slipped from her hand, landing near a crack between two tiles. But instead of stopping, it slid—slowly—vanishing into the gap as if the floor had swallowed it.
She leaned down, eyes narrowing. The crack was wider now. Beneath it, something moved. Breathing. Expanding.
She thought she saw an eye staring back—wet, human, and blinking up at her.
She screamed and stumbled back, knocking over her chair. When she looked again, the crack was gone. Just plain white tiles. Liam was staring at her with that same unreadable look.
"You shouldn't look too long," he said softly. "They notice when you do."
---
That night, the rain returned, tapping against her dorm window like impatient fingers. The room felt smaller. The air thick. She lay awake, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the noise to begin again.
It did.
A dragging sound from under her bed. Slow. Scraping. Like fingernails pulling across the wood. She squeezed her eyes shut, whispering to herself that it wasn't real. But then came the whisper—low, right by her ear:
> "You left us once, Tina. Don't do it again."
A pale, dirt-caked hand slipped out from under her bed and clamped around her ankle. She screamed, kicking free, stumbling backward into the desk. The lights flickered, and for an instant, she saw shapes crawling from the shadows—small, child-sized figures with hollow eyes and broken smiles.
Then darkness swallowed them all.
When the lights came back, she was alone again. Her breath came in sharp gasps. She forced herself to look under the bed.
Nothing. Just wood.
But something was different. The floorboards beneath her bed—she was sure they'd been old and loose before—were now freshly nailed shut, smooth, and dustless. Someone had sealed them.
And carved into the center, jagged and deep, were two words:
"WELCOME HOME."
Tina sank to her knees.
The wood felt warm beneath her palms—warm, and faintly pulsing, like a heartbeat.
From somewhere deep below, she heard it again—faint laughter, echoing through the walls.
And this time, it wasn't alone.
There were many voices.
Children.
Whispering her name.