The Haunted House

After our financial situation worsened, my father and I were forced to leave the small house we had lived in for years. It was not much, but it had always felt warm and safe. Moving away from it felt like losing a part of our lives. With little money left and few options available, we found another place to stay—an old two-story building on the edge of a quiet neighborhood. The rent was cheap, and that was all we could afford.

We took the upper floor.

At first glance, the building looked ordinary. The walls were faded, the staircase creaked under every step, and the hallway lights flickered sometimes at night. Still, it seemed peaceful enough. The only thing that felt strange was the silence surrounding the apartment below ours.

A man lived there alone.

We knew very little about him. The neighbors only said that he had lived there for many years, ever since he was a child. His mother had lived with him for most of his life, but she had died three years earlier. After that, people claimed he rarely left the apartment.

During the first few weeks, something odd caught my attention. Whenever someone in the neighborhood realized that we were the new tenants living upstairs, they looked at us with a strange expression. It was not curiosity or friendliness.

It was pity.

At the time, I could not understand why.

About a month later, while returning home one evening, I was climbing the old staircase when I suddenly heard a loud scream coming from the apartment below us. The sound was sharp and desperate, echoing through the narrow hallway. It was so sudden that it froze me in place for a moment.

Then, without thinking, I ran quickly upstairs and locked the door behind me.

I told myself it was none of my business.

But the screams did not happen only once.

They came again on other nights, sometimes louder, sometimes faint, but always disturbing enough to make sleep difficult. Each time I heard them, the same uneasy feeling returned.

The strange thing was that I had never seen the man who lived downstairs leave his apartment.

Days passed, yet the door below remained closed.

Eventually, my curiosity became stronger than my fear. I decided to ask the neighbors about the apartment, but I did it carefully. I did not want to appear suspicious.

One afternoon, while walking through the nearby streets, I stopped at a small grocery store owned by an old man. He looked as though he had been part of the neighborhood for many years.

I casually mentioned the apartment below ours.

The old man stared at me for a moment and then said quietly, “You must be the new tenant living upstairs.”

His answer surprised me.

I asked him how he knew, but he only shrugged.

“Anyone who asks about that apartment,” he said slowly, “is usually the person living above it.”

His tone made me uncomfortable.

I paid for my groceries and prepared to leave, but as I stepped outside the shop, I heard him whisper behind me.

“Like the others… you won’t stay long.”

I turned back, confused.

The old man looked at me with tired eyes and finished his sentence in a low voice.

“Either you die… or you manage to escape.”

The words followed me all the way home.

Still, I tried to ignore them. My father was sick and waiting for his medicine, and I had more important things to worry about than strange rumors.

But that night I could not sleep.

Questions filled my mind. I made a cup of tea and stepped out onto the balcony, hoping the quiet night air would calm my thoughts.

While standing there, I suddenly saw movement below.

The man from the apartment downstairs was rushing toward the building entrance. In his hands he carried several objects I could not clearly see. Behind him walked two women dressed entirely in black, their faces partially hidden by dark scarves.

Something about the scene felt deeply unsettling.

Curiosity pushed me further than fear.

Quietly, I went downstairs and approached the door of the apartment. From inside, I heard the man speaking strange words in a low voice. They sounded like chants, repeating over and over again.

At that moment, I remembered things I had once read online about mysterious rituals and old forbidden practices. Some people believed certain rituals could heal illnesses or bring strange powers.

The screams I had heard on those nights suddenly seemed connected to what was happening behind that door.

Then the old man’s warning echoed again inside my mind.

“Either you die… or you escape.”

For a moment, fear told me to go back upstairs and forget everything.

But something inside me refused.

This time, instead of running away, I made a different decision.

I would not escape.

I would uncover the truth hidden inside the apartment beneath our home.