The house had been empty for decades when Eleanor bought it. She hadn't intended to; she was looking for something quaint, something cheerful, something not... this.

But the price was absurdly low, and when the real estate agent handed her the keys with shaking hands and a pale smile, Eleanor laughed. "Ghost stories don't scare me," she said.

She should have listened to the whispers.

The house sat on the edge of a crumbling town, half-forgotten by the world. It was three stories high, with peeling paint and a sagging porch. Ivy strangled the chimney, and the windows gaped open like hungry mouths. Still, Eleanor moved in with enthusiasm, ready to make it hers.

The first few days were uneventful, filled with cleaning and hammering, repairing old beams, scrubbing stains that never quite came out of the floorboards. She slept deeply each night, exhausted from the work.

It was on the seventh night that she heard it: a faint whisper, like someone murmuring just beyond her door.

At first, she thought it was the wind. The old house creaked and groaned in the night, the walls shifting with age. She rolled over and buried herself under her covers, ignoring the shiver that ran down her spine.

But the whispering grew louder.

She sat up in bed, heart pounding. The words were too soft to understand, but the tone was unmistakably urgent, frantic. It sounded like dozens of voices, tangled together, speaking over each other.

"Help us," one voice gasped clearly before fading into the noise.

Eleanor clutched her sheets tightly. "It's just the wind," she whispered to herself. "Just the wind."

The next morning, she found scratches on her bedroom door.

They were long and deep, gouged into the wood by something sharp. There were no animals in the house, and the door had been locked all night.

She told herself it was old damage she hadn't noticed before. She painted over the scratches and moved on.

The whispers didn't stop.

They followed her through the house during the day, murmuring just at the edge of hearing. Sometimes, when she turned a corner, she thought she caught a glimpse of movement - shadows darting just out of sight.

At night, the voices grew bolder. They called her name now:

"Eleanor..."

She stopped sleeping. Her hands trembled constantly, and her eyes were red-rimmed and wild. She tried blasting music through the old stereo, but the whispers only grew louder, fighting to be heard over the noise.

Desperate, she invited a local priest to bless the house. He arrived one gray afternoon, carrying a Bible and looking uneasy.

As he walked through the halls, sprinkling holy water, Eleanor noticed his hands shaking.

In the living room, where the wallpaper peeled back to reveal strange, dark stains underneath, the priest froze.

"There is evil here," he whispered. "Something old... something angry."

He fled before he finished the blessing, muttering prayers under his breath.

Eleanor was alone again.

That night, the walls of the house seemed to pulse and breathe. The whispers became screams, echoing through every room. She pressed her hands over her ears and huddled in the corner of her bedroom, but it did no good.

"Join us," they howled.

"Join us in the walls."

At some point, Eleanor must have passed out. When she woke, it was dawn. The house was silent, the air heavy with the smell of damp earth.

Something was different. The walls - smooth and flat the day before - were now bulging inward, as if something inside was pressing to get out.

Terrified but determined, Eleanor armed herself with a hammer and began tearing into the wall of the living room. Chunks of plaster fell away, revealing rotted wood and... something else.

Something soft.

She screamed and stumbled back as a piece of fabric, stained and shredded, flopped out of the wall cavity. It was a dress - small, tattered, child-sized.

Hands trembling, she pulled more of the wall apart.

Behind the dress were bones. Tiny, fragile bones, tangled in more torn clothing.

Dozens of them.

The entire house, it seemed, was filled with the remains of children.

Their faces stared out from the gaps in the woodwork, mouths open in eternal screams, eyes hollow and accusing.

And still, the whispering continued, louder than ever.

"Free us," they begged. "Free us."

Weeping, Eleanor dug at the walls with her bare hands, pulling away centuries of decay. With every board she tore down, more bones tumbled out, until the floor was littered with them.

At the heart of the house, behind the grand fireplace, she found a hidden room.

Inside was a single chair, stained with dark, ancient blood. Chains hung from the walls, and on the floor, carved into the stone, was a circle filled with runes Eleanor didn't recognize. The air inside the room was thick and choking, like breathing in pure despair.

There was something else, too - a figure, impossibly tall and thin, hunched in the corner. It was little more than a shadow at first, but as she stared, it shifted and took form.

It wore the rags of a priest's robe, blackened with soot and blood. Its face was a gaping void, featureless except for the jagged grin stretching from one side to the other.

It spoke in a voice like grinding metal.

"You broke the seal, little lamb. Now we are free."

Eleanor screamed as it lunged toward her.

---

When she woke again, the house was silent.

The bones were gone. The bulging walls were smooth once more. The whispers had ceased.

For a moment, Eleanor thought it had all been a nightmare. She picked herself up and stumbled into the hallway.

That's when she saw her reflection in the mirror.

It wasn't her face staring back. It was hollow, eyeless, grinning with the same jagged mouth as the thing in the hidden room.

She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out - only a soft, urgent whisper.

Somewhere deep inside the house, the walls began to pulse again.

New voices joined the chorus.

"Help us," they cried.

"Join us."

And Eleanor, smiling her broken, inhuman smile, welcomed them.

One by one, the walls swallowed them whole.