I suffer from chronic insomnia. On the worst nights, the silence gets so deep that I can feel my heartbeat in the pillow. Thump-thump... thump-thump... It's a reassuring rhythm, proof that I'm alive.
A few nights ago, though, I noticed something off.
Thump-thump... (pause) ...thump.
There was a third beat, lighter, almost an echo, arriving right after mine. I thought it was an arrhythmia. I put a hand on my chest and pressed hard. My heart was beating regularly: Thump-thump. Thump-thump. But from the pillow, that extra beat kept coming.
Thump-thump... thump.
Anxious, I got up and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. As I sipped, I rested my hand on the marble countertop. I felt the vibration of my pulse against the stone. And again, after every beat, that light little tap. Thump.
It wasn't in my chest. It was in the house.
I started walking through the rooms, pressing my ear to the walls like a madman. The closer I got to the storage closet at the end of the hallway, the louder the beat became. It was no longer an echo. It was a solid, fleshy sound.
I pressed my ear against the closet door.
THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP.
I yanked the door open. It was empty. There was only the old broom, the buckets, and the water heater. But the noise was deafening now. It came from behind the paint on the wall, at the height of my face. I noticed a small crack in the plaster, a thin line that seemed to pulse.
I brought my eye close to the crack.
On the other side there was no void of wall. There was another eye. A human eye, veined with red, staring at me with infinite desperation. And as that eye looked at me, I felt a voice vibrate directly in my bones, without passing through my ears:
"Thank you for finding me. The rhythm was almost finished. Now we can synchronize."
At that moment, my heart stopped for a full second. And when it started again, it wasn't my rhythm anymore. It was his. A slow, heavy beat that seemed to pump mud instead of blood.
Since that night, I no longer feel my pulse. If I touch my neck, the skin is cold and still. But I feel the walls of the house pulsing. I feel the walls growing warm. I feel the house breathing, digesting, living.
And me? I'm becoming thin. My skin is turning white and dry as plaster. Yesterday I tried to scream, but only a puff of dust came out of my mouth.
Soon I'll be the one behind the crack. And I'll wait for someone, in the silence of the night, to press an ear to the wall and hear that extra beat.
Can you feel your heart right now? Try to feel it properly. Are you sure every beat belongs only to you?