Layla — A Baby Was Crying Inside the Walls

I moved into a beautiful old house with tall windows and newly painted walls. On the first night, a baby began crying somewhere behind my bedroom wall. The sound stopped whenever I turned on the light. The landlord insisted no family had ever lived there and advised me not to disturb the fresh paint.

The crying returned every night at 3:17. I began waking with dust beneath my fingernails. One morning I found a loose panel behind the wardrobe and a narrow passage descending into the house. The farther I crawled, the more the walls sounded like people whispering advice I had heard for years: wait, hurry, be practical, do not disappoint anyone.

At the end was a nursery filled with unopened gifts. Every card was addressed to me, but each congratulated me for something different: becoming a mother, accepting a job abroad, finishing a book, buying the house, leaving a relationship. The dates covered more than a decade, yet all the wrapping paper looked new.

The crib was empty except for a small black notebook. It contained every plan I had postponed because the timing never felt right. When I turned to the last page, the crying came from inside the book. A sentence appeared in my handwriting: ‘Something does not have to be born to be mourned.’

The nursery door locked. The walls began repeating a lullaby my mother used to sing, but the words had changed: ‘Choose one life, lose another.’ I held the notebook against my chest and the crying stopped. In the sudden quiet, something small took a breath beneath the floorboards. I woke with equal parts tenderness and fear.