The Tunnel of Echoes

For months, you’ve been hearing faint scratching inside the walls—slow, deliberate,

like fingertips tracing patterns beneath the drywall. You finally break a hole open to prove

you’re not imagining it. There’s a tunnel—narrow, freshly dug, leading straight

into darkness. The smell of earth and something rotten washes over you. You crawl in a little,

shining your flashlight. Carvings cover the dirt walls—thousands of them—your name etched over and

over, some fresh enough that the dirt still crumbles. Then you see handprints.

Small ones at first… then larger. Then your own. At the end of the tunnel,

something is moving. Not toward you— Away from you. And it’s wearing your slippers