The Towel

The Towel

"My Brother hasn’t stepped foot inside his room in weeks.

He won’t even say why.

I’ve asked him. First week, I figured it was the heat.

Second week I started getting annoyed.

Now… I’m just watching.

He Doesn’t change his clothes in there. Doesn’t open the door. Doesn’t mention it.

I asked him yesterday what happened. He said, “Nothing. Just got sick of the smell.”

I’ve been in there. There’s no smell.

It’s cleaner than the rest of the house.

But I noticed something this morning.

The bedroom door was closed.

But the handle had a towel wrapped around it. Tied. Tight.

Like he didn’t want to touch it directly.

When I asked him about that, he just said, “It slips sometimes.”

It doesn’t.

We weren’t close growing up, but we got closer after everything with our dad.

I figured living together again would be a transition, but I wasn’t expecting this… weird silence.

And now something else is bothering me.

I was looking for extra blankets the other night, and I opened the storage bench in the hallway.

All of his pillows were in there. His sheets too.

Everything that usually belongs in his bedroom… removed and folded.

Except the bed now looks freshly made.

Like someone else is staying in there.

I think something happened in that room.

Not something supernatural. Not anything dramatic.

But something’s off.

Whenever I bring it up too directly, he just walks out of the room or pretends not to hear me.

Last night, I watched him walk past it on his way to the bathroom.

He didn’t even look in the direction of the door.

He actually walked closer to the wall like he was trying to stay out of reach of something.

I'm going to ask him one more time tonight.

If he lies again,

I’m opening the door myself.

I asked him again.

Last night, after dinner. Calmly. Just us. No accusations.

I said, “You haven’t stepped inside your room for almost a month. Why?”

He shook his head and did that thing he does when he's tense bit the inside of his cheek.

Then he just said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I asked if something happened in there.

He didn’t answer.

I asked if someone broke in, or if it was something from when dad was still around.

Still nothing.

Eventually he just looked at me and said:

“If you open the door, just… don’t go all the way in.”

And that’s all I got.

So I waited until he went out that afternoon to get groceries.

The whole time he was gone, I just stood outside the bedroom door. Didn’t even touch it just stood there, staring at it, thinking about how much energy he’s been spending to avoid this exact space.

The towel he wrapped around the handle was slightly damp.

Like he’d been adjusting it often.

I opened the door.

The room looked… normal.

At first.

Made bed. Desk untouched. No lights on. Window shut.

But it felt cold.

Like colder than the rest of the house.

And not in a "ghost" way I mean the air just felt wrong.

Heavy. Like it hadn’t been breathed in for a while.

I didn’t step inside.

I just stood in the doorway.

From there, I could already see that something was off with the floor.

The carpet had a dip in it, near the side of the bed.

And beneath it, the floorboards were slightly darker. Just a few inches worth.

An uneven patch of wood that looked swollen, like water damage.

I reached forward and pulled the carpet back a little.

Underneath, there was a square cut into the floor.

Clean edges. Barely visible.

Like someone had sawed an access panel then tried to hide it.

I grabbed a flashlight and got on my knees.

Pulled up one corner and looked in.

Not a crawlspace.

Not plumbing.

Just a box.

A handmade wooden box, about two feet tall. Custom fit into the square.

There was a small chain latch across the top of it. Just hooked, nothing locked.

Scratches covered the edges tiny ones.

Lots of them.

I reached down and unlatched it.

When I lifted the lid, two things happened immediately.

1. The smell hit. Old sweat, mildew, something else I won’t bother trying to describe but made me gag.

2. I saw what was inside.

It wasn’t empty.

There was a shirt.

One of his.

Folded around what looked like… hair.

And bones.

Not full ones. Just small ones. Fingers. Something closer to a child’s hand than an adult’s.

At the bottom of the box was a phone.

Cracked and dead.

And under that a wallet.

His wallet. His named his ID.

The same one I’ve seen him pull out a dozen times.

Except this one had an expiration date from two years ago.

His photo looked… off.

Not different.

Just not right.

Same face. Same haircut. But something in the eyes.

I put everything back.

Didn’t take anything. Didn’t dig below that.

I shut the box, relatched it, and put the carpet back exactly how I found it.

Closed the door on the way out.

He came back a few hours later.

Didn’t say anything for the first ten minutes.

Then he asked if I’d been in there.

I nodded once.

He sat down on the couch, rubbed the side of his head like he was in pain.

Then he said:

“I buried it.

But it didn’t stay.”

We haven’t talked about it since.

Now when I wake up, I sometimes hear the doorknob turning quietly in the middle of the night.

But when I check, his room is still closed.

Towel back on the handle.

Except now… the guest room door my door sometimes opens just a sliver overnight.

Not wide.

Just enough for someone to look in.

The next night, I woke up to the sound of the basement door opening.

That soft thunk of the latch. Followed by careful steps.

It was him.

I didn’t know what he was doing down there at 3 a.m.

But he didn’t come back up for a long time.

In the morning, I saw dirt on the hall rug.

And the towel was gone from his bedroom door

He was sitting in the kitchen, drinking water like he'd just put out a fire inside himself.

When I asked if everything was okay, he said:

“I figured if I give it back, it’ll stop.”

I said, “Give what back?”

But he didn’t answer.

Later that day, I went down to the basement.

I knew what I was looking for, I just didn’t want to find it.

In the far corner, across from the furnace, part of the concrete was wet.

Freshly wet.

Dug up, then covered again in a sloppy patch of dusted cement.

He'd buried the box again. Somewhere else this time.

And whatever was inside it he thought that would fix it.

That night, something changed.

He was pacing the hallway outside my door.

Not panicked slow, steady laps like he was waiting on something.

Once, he paused near my door. I could hear him breathing.

Then I heard this low whisper. I couldn’t make out the words.

Then footsteps again.

At one point he stopped in front of his room. The door was still closed.

I heard the knob creak.

I didn’t move.

Then I heard him say barely audible:

“Not me this time.”

The next morning, the lights in the hallway wouldn’t turn on.

His door was wide open.

He was inside, standing in front of the bed. Not touching it. Just standing.

“When’s the last time you remembered that room having a window?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. It never had one.

Then he pointed.

Near the desk, high above where a window should be the paint was cracked.

And behind it, you could see an outline.

A boarded rectangle.

It had been sealed from the inside.

He said nothing else. Just left the room.

That night, the guest room door opened. While I was awake.

I thought it was him. I was ready for it to be him.

But when I got up and checked the hallway, he was already there.

Standing outside the door.

Looking in.

He looked right at me and said:

“You're not supposed to look at it.”

Then he left. Back to the couch.

I didn’t sleep again.

And around 3:40 a.m...

I saw my bedroom door open again.

Just slowly. Not wide. Just enough for the hallway to show.

I walked to it. Carefully. Quietly.

Nobody there this time.

Except his door was open now.

Lights off.

Completely dark.

And I saw just enough.

The bed wasn’t empty.

The shape lying on it wasn’t him.

It was turned to face the wall. Curled slightly.

Same height. Same build.

Wearing something I’d seen him wear five days ago.

“He’s on the couch,” I whispered to myself.

But the figure on the bed moved.

Not much. Just a slow twitch at the hand.

Like it had just found out I was watching.

The next morning, he was gone.

His phone was left on the counter. Still warm from charging.

His wallet, too.

But when I opened the fridge to get water, I saw what he’d left inside:

That same folded towel.

The one he used to wrap the doorknob.

Soaked.

Tied in a knot.

And inside the knot

Hair. Just a few strands, matted together.

Not his. Not mine.

I haven’t opened his door since.

I hear creaking sometimes in there at night.

Not pacing. Just shifting.

Like someone trying to settle back in.

THE END

I have something to tell you, i wrote my first short story book.

It's name is "THE PLACE".

If you want to check it out *click on the title*.

Thanks for you support 😊