This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/_Marvin35 on 2025-04-23 16:07:24+00:00.
I haven’t told anyone this. Not my family, not my friends. I’m not even sure why I’m writing it down here. I guess I just need someone to believe me. Or at least, to read this before it happens again tonight.
It’s been exactly one year since my younger brother Elias died.
He was three years younger than me, but always seemed older. Calmer, kinder, more grounded. While I was the loud one, the one who pushed boundaries, Elias was the type to read in silence, to smile without needing a reason.
The cancer hit fast. Acute leukemia. The doctors didn’t sugarcoat it. They gave us a few months, maybe. But in the end, it was barely eight weeks.
I spent most of that time with him. I helped him eat when he couldn’t lift his arms, held his hand when he was too weak to speak, tried to joke around just to make him laugh. In the final hours, when he was barely there, he looked right at me. Not scared. Not sad.
Just… knowing.
“Don’t stay alone,” he whispered.
That was the last thing he ever said.
After that, everything shut down. There was a flatline on the monitor, a few soft words from the nurse, and then nothing. The world just... stopped.
I didn’t cry much. Not at first. I think part of me refused to believe he was really gone. I disconnected from everything—school, friends, routines. I slept all day, stayed awake all night, barely ate. I thought maybe the silence would help me process it.
Instead, it left space for something else.
The first time I heard his voice again, it was around 3 a.m. I hadn’t been asleep—just lying there, staring at the ceiling, the window cracked open to let in the late October wind.
“Are you there?”
It was faint. Soft. Coming from the hallway.
I froze. Not because I was afraid, but because I knew that voice.
I got up, opened the door, turned on the lights—nothing. Every door was locked. Windows closed. No sound except my own heartbeat.
The next night, it happened again. Same time. Same voice.
“Are you there?”
I told myself it was a trick of memory. Auditory hallucinations. Lack of sleep. That made sense… right?
But the voice kept coming back. Every night, at 3 a.m. sharp.
And then the footsteps started.
Soft, deliberate steps across the hallway floor, stopping just outside my bedroom. Never louder than a whisper, but impossible to ignore.
Eventually, I started locking my door at night. I played white noise, music, anything. Sometimes I’d fall asleep with a podcast playing just to drown it out. But none of it worked. The sound always cut through. Always him.
Then came the knocking.
Three soft taps. Then his voice, closer now:
“Please. Open the door.”
It never sounded threatening. Not angry or vengeful. Just… pleading. Almost sad.
I told myself I wouldn’t give in. I wasn’t going to open the door. I wasn’t going to play into whatever this was—grief, trauma, madness.
But it didn’t stop.
Then it got worse.
I started finding things around the apartment—objects I hadn’t seen in years. Stuff I knew was in a box on the attic, sealed and forgotten.
A small, worn-out toy dinosaur on the windowsill. His favorite, the one he carried everywhere as a kid.
A half-drunk Capri Sun on the kitchen table—wild cherry, the exact flavor he used to beg Mom to buy.
Each day, something new. Each night, his voice.
Like the past was leaking into the present. Or something was trying to lure me back.
Last night, I found his old diary on my desk.
It had gone with him to the hospital. I’d packed it in his bag. He never wrote much in it, but it was something that brought him comfort. It never came back home with us. I’m absolutely certain of that.
And yet, there it was.
Dusty. Locked. Familiar.
I opened it.
Only one sentence had been added, written in a shaky but unmistakable hand on the last page:
“I found a place for you.”
That’s when I knew this wasn’t just memory. This wasn’t just grief. Something was actively reaching out.
I’ve tried everything. I left town. Booked hotel rooms. Stayed with friends. I even rented a cabin hours away, in the middle of nowhere, and turned off my phone. But no matter where I go—at 3 a.m., I hear him.
Even when I’m awake.
Even when I know he can’t possibly be there.
And every night, his voice changes. Just a little. Subtle at first. A slightly slower rhythm. A flatter tone. Like a recording wearing down. Like a mask slowly slipping.
If it’s really Elias…
Why does he sound less and less like himself with every visit?
Tonight is the anniversary of his death. One full year.
And I’m hearing him already.
No waiting for 3 a.m. this time. He’s early.
I hear footsteps in the hallway. Slower than usual.
More deliberate.
Closer.
Then the whisper.
“Please.”
“Open the door.”
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. Every part of me screams not to.
But something inside me is whispering that tonight is different. That if I open it now, it might finally end. That maybe I’ll see him. Just one more time. That maybe…
Maybe it won’t stop unless I do.
I’m standing up now.
I’m walking to the door.
My hand is on the lock.
I’m going to open it.