Chapter 8: Splinters in the Throat

The next morning, I woke up to blood in my mouth.

It tasted like rust, thick and warm, coating my tongue like syrup. I rushed to the sink and spit, heart racing. The crimson swirled in the basin, far too much to pass off as a bitten tongue or a bad dream.

I opened my mouth in the mirror.

There—just under my tongue, buried in the soft tissue—something jagged was poking out.

A splinter.

I gagged and fumbled with tweezers from the medicine cabinet. My hands shook so badly it took three tries before I could grasp the edge of the thing. I pulled. Pain lanced through my jaw. Blood dripped down my chin.

It wasn't just a splinter. It was a sliver of old, dry wood—like floorboard.

How the hell did it get there?

I collapsed onto the bathroom floor, clutching the fragment in my trembling hand, trying to make sense of anything. My body didn't feel like mine anymore. My thoughts weren't my own.

And the whisper was louder now.

Constant.

Relentless.

Like someone breathing secrets directly into my soul.

"Tell them what they buried," it said. "Tell them before I make you."

I stayed there on the floor for a long time, eyes locked on the wooden sliver. I couldn't help but wonder—how many more were inside me? Crawling up from the throat like splinters rising from a coffin?

I knew I had to get out. Just for a while. Just to break whatever grip this house had on me.

So I got dressed—layers, long sleeves, hat, scarf—like I could armor myself against the voice. Against the rot seeping into my bones.

I drove into town.

Every inch of the road seemed longer now, stretched out like time itself was resisting me leaving. The trees leaned in closer. Shadows followed me in the rearview mirror, just out of focus.

I parked near the library. Not because I wanted to read. I needed information.

History.

Truth.

Anything to explain what the hell was happening in that house.

Inside, the place smelled of mildew and old paper. The librarian, a woman in her sixties with thick glasses and a stern expression, didn't smile when I approached.

"I'm looking for property records," I said, voice hoarse.

"Name?"

"I don't know the name. Just the address."

She raised an eyebrow. "Most folks who live out there don't come back to town."

I didn't respond. Just handed her a slip with my house address.

She studied it. Her eyes went wide. Then narrowed.

"Oh. That house."

"You know something, don't you?"

She didn't deny it. Just motioned to a dusty cabinet in the back. "Box 17. Local archives. Last drawer."

I found it. Inside was a stack of yellowed newspaper clippings, brittle with age. Some were too faded to read. Others were soaked with water stains, like the pages had cried and never dried out.

But the headlines spoke for themselves:

LOCAL MAN MISSING AFTER CLAIMING 'VOICES IN THE WALLS'

CITIZENS ACCUSED OF VIGILANTE JUSTICE IN DISAPPEARANCE CASE

BODY NEVER FOUND — CASE CLOSED IN SILENCE

There was a name: Walter Griggs.

That was the man buried under my kitchen.

The article painted him as unstable—paranoid, erratic. Claimed he'd been ranting about "sinners under the floorboards" and "secrets rotting in the roots of the house."

Neighbors accused him of threats, of trespassing, of strange behavior.

Then he vanished.

The town moved on. Quickly.

Too quickly.

The final piece of the puzzle was a hand-scrawled note at the bottom of one article. Probably written by a reporter or editor long ago:

"Sometimes, silence is how you kill a truth."

I didn't realize I was crying until a tear hit the paper.

Something in me snapped. Not from fear—but fury. They had done this. The town. The people. They'd buried him in my house and then paved over their guilt with decades of silence.

And now he was inside me.

Begging me to speak.

I left the library, gripping the clippings in my pocket. As I walked down the sidewalk, I passed a bakery. The sweet scent of fresh bread should've grounded me, comforted me.

Instead, the whisper returned.

But this time… it wasn't just one voice.

It was many.

Layered.

Mouths upon mouths, speaking through the same throat.

"Tell them. Show them. Bleed it into the walls."

I stumbled. Passersby stared. One woman asked if I was okay.

I opened my mouth to answer, and a whisper slipped out that wasn't mine:

"They nailed shut the mouth, but not the memory."

The woman's face turned pale. She stepped back. Crossed herself.

I ran to the car, heart thrashing, lungs burning.

By the time I got home, the sun had vanished behind thick storm clouds.

The house waited.

Still. Quiet.

Too quiet.

I stepped through the door and was greeted with the smell of damp wood and something else—earth. Freshly turned soil.

In the kitchen, I froze.

The floor had split open.

Not a crack—an opening.

A square section of the wooden boards had buckled, peeled back like skin revealing the meat beneath. And from the exposed cavity, a stairway led down into darkness I hadn't known existed.

Dirt crumbled along the edges. Whispers rose from below.

"Come see where the silence begins…"

I should've run.

But I didn't.

Because in that moment, I knew—this wasn't just about a haunted house or a buried man.

This was about truth.

And I was the last mouth left to tell it.