I woke with a start. The sound was low but insistent—like fingernails scraping wood. Bonya, my golden retriever, was standing against the bedroom wall, growling and scratching with a fury I’d never seen from her before.

— “Bonya… what now?” I murmured, still half asleep.

She didn’t answer, of course. But her eyes were fixed on a specific spot on the wall—as if something were there, hidden, watching.

I’ve lived alone for years. Since my husband passed away, the house has become incredibly quiet. My children rarely visit. Bonya is the only constant presence, the only soul who still shares my days. And she’s never behaved like this. She never barked for no reason. She never showed fear.

That morning, I took her to the kitchen and tried to distract her with food, but as soon as we returned to the bedroom, she ran straight to the same spot. She was scratching and whining, as if she wanted to dig through the wall.

Over the next few days, the same behavior repeated itself. I couldn’t sleep anymore. Exhaustion mixed with a growing restlessness. I began hearing sounds at night—not just scratching, but whispers. Low, almost imperceptible. As if someone were speaking on the other side of the wall.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I called a technician.
“Can you open the wall? Just to make sure there’s nothing strange there.”

He looked at me suspiciously, but accepted. He began to carefully remove the cast. Bonya stood beside me, trembling.

When he opened the right section… we froze.

Behind the wall was a narrow space—a sort of hidden compartment. And inside it… was a small wooden chair, an antique doll with broken glass eyes, and dozens of sheets of paper taped to the interior walls. Handwritten. With the same phrase repeated:

“She’s still here.”

The technician paled.
“This… this shouldn’t be here.”

Bonya began to howl.

And that’s when the light in the room flickered. Once. Twice. And then it went out completely.

The light returned after a few seconds, but the silence that followed was more frightening than the darkness. The technician, pale as wax, gathered his tools and left without a word. I stood there, alone, with Bonya still trembling beside me and that open compartment before me—like a raw wound in the skin of the house.

I picked up one of the sheets of paper taped to the inside wall. The handwriting was uneven, as if written by someone in a panic. The phrase repeated itself on each sheet:

“She’s still here.”

But who was “she”? And why was she hiding behind my bedroom wall?

That night, I decided to sleep in the living room. Bonya refused to come into the room, and I didn’t force her. But even away from the wall, sleep wouldn’t come. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the sound—scratches, whispers, slow, deep breathing that seemed to come from inside the house.

The next morning, I went to the municipal library. I needed to know more about that house. It was old, built in the 1940s, and I had inherited it from my grandfather. I’d never given much thought to its history.

The librarian, a white-haired woman with sharp eyes, helped me search the files. After a few minutes, she stopped, frowned, and said,

— “This house… was once involved in a case. In 1952. A little girl disappeared inside. She was never found.”

I felt a chill.
“What was his name?”

She leafed through the papers.
“Beatriz. She was eight years old. They say she was playing in her room when she disappeared. The police never found any signs of forced entry. The family moved out shortly after. The house sat empty for decades.”

Beatriz. The name echoed in my mind like a whisper. I returned home with my heart racing. I entered the room and stared at the open compartment. The doll was still there, sitting in the chair, its broken glass eyes staring back at me.

Bonya began to growl.

It was then that I saw something new. Behind the doll, a small, barely visible wooden door was set into the wall. I grabbed a flashlight and carefully opened it.

Inside was a narrow, dark corridor with stone walls. The air was cold and damp, and the smell of mildew mingled with something more… metallic. Dried blood?

Bonya refused to go in. I went in alone.

At the end of the corridor, an iron door. And engraved on it, in crooked, rusty letters:

“Do not wake what sleeps.”