THE HUNGER IN THE WALLS - by Ihekwaba Sochi

Ada had always believed she could endure anything as long as her children were safe. But lately, endurance felt like a thin thread—one tug away from snapping. After her husband vanished without a trace two years ago, life had become a cycle of scraping, stretching, and sacrificing. She worked double shifts at the laundry, took cleaning jobs at night, and still came home to an empty fridge more often than she wanted to admit. Tonight was one of those nights. The rain hammered the leaking roof of the small house like a fist demanding entry. Ada sat at the edge of the bed, head in her hands, listening to her children sleeping on the mattress beside her. The silence of their hunger haunted her more than any scream could. She hadn’t eaten since morning. The kids had split the last two slices of bread. “I’m trying,” she whispered into the dark. “God knows I’m trying.” Then she heard it again. A soft scratching inside the wall. It had been happening for weeks—at first faint, like nails on far-off wood, but lately louder, sharper, too deliberate to be rats. She tried to ignore it. She had no money to call anyone to check. And she didn’t want the children worried. But tonight, the sound changed. Scratching… then whispering. A faint, broken murmur drifting out of the cracks. Ada froze, breath caught.“Mommy…” Her heart thudded painfully.It sounded like her eldest daughter’s voice—but her daughter was asleep beside her. “Mommy… I’m hungry…” the voice whispered again from inside the wall. Ada’s skin prickled. She turned slowly toward the cracked wallpaper. The house was old, its walls thin enough to hear water running through pipes. Maybe she was imagining things—stress, exhaustion. But then the voice returned, trembling, desperate.“Ada… please… feed us…” She stiffened. Only one person ever called her by her first name in that trembling tone. Her husband. She stared at the wall, her breath growing shallow.His disappearance had left a deeper wound than she ever admitted—sometimes she still expected him to walk through the door with apologies and excuses. But he never did. “Who’s there?” she whispered. The whispering stopped. For a second, only the rain filled the silence. Then— A thump. A fist-like thump from inside the wall. Ada grabbed the lantern and stood up, her knees weak. She moved slowly toward the sound, heart trembling in her chest. As she touched the wall, the wallpaper felt unusually warm. Then something pushed back. She stumbled away. A child’s cry came from the wall—soft, muffled, agonized.Then another voice—a deep, hollow growl. “Feed them, Ada. Feed us.” Ada clapped her hand over her mouth to stop the scream rising in her throat. She turned and shook her children awake. “Nneka… Chidi… get up. We’re leaving.” “What’s wrong, Mommy?” Nneka murmured, rubbing her eyes. “Just move,” Ada said, voice trembling. She grabbed her bag and pulled them toward the door—but when she tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge. She twisted the handle harder. The door felt like it was being held shut… from the other side. Chidi whimpered.“Mommy… the wall.” Ada turned. The wallpaper was bulging—like something alive was pressing against it from within. The scratches grew frantic, angry. “You left us…” the voices wailed. “You let us starve…” “No,” Ada whispered. “No, no, no…” The bulge tore open. A pale hand—thin, bony, with long blackened nails—reached out of the wall, clawing at the air. Its wrist was twisted, its skin mottled like something drowned. More hands emerged—small ones, child-sized, trembling and skeletal. Nneka screamed and clung to Ada’s waist.Chidi burst into tears. “Ada…” the voice moaned again, and this time she recognized it too clearly—it was her husband’s voice, but wrong. Twisted. Shredded by something inhuman. His face pushed through the hole in the wall—grey, sunken, eyes hollow.“Why did you let us go hungry?” Ada shook violently.“You left us!” she cried. “You walked out! You never came back!” His head tilted.“You never fed us… not enough…”His mouth stretched unnaturally wide.“So now we feed on you.” The hands reached for her children. No. Ada grabbed a broken chair leg and swung, striking at the wall. The decayed hands recoiled with a hiss. Grabbing her kids tightly, she pulled them behind her. “You can’t have them,” she growled.“I’ve sacrificed everything for them. I’ve bled for them. I’ve starved for them. You won’t take them from me.” The wall-creatures shrieked—a sound like wind ripping through bones. Ada shoved a table against the torn wallpaper, but the bulge grew again, pushing the furniture forward. The force was inhuman. She looked around desperately. The only escape left was the tiny window.“Go!” she ordered her children. “Climb out and run to Aunty Amaka’s house. Don’t look back.” “Mommy, come with us!” “I will… just go!” They scrambled through the window and disappeared into the storm. Ada turned back to the wall, gripping the chair leg like a weapon. The voice of her husband growled:“You can’t save them… you can’t even save yourself…” The wallpaper ripped open completely. A wave of rotting limbs and sunken faces poured out—monstrous versions of the family she had lost, or feared losing, twisted by hunger and blame. Ada screamed and fought, swinging wildly, her exhaustion fueling her rage.Every blow was a cry of years of struggle.Every strike was a declaration: I did everything I could. The creatures overwhelmed her, dragging her toward the wall. Her last thought was of her children’s faces—alive, running, free. Then darkness swallowed her. ⸻ By morning, the house was silent. When neighbors found the children crying at Aunty Amaka’s gate, the police were called. But when they broke into Ada’s house, they found nothing unusual—no hole in the wall, no sign of struggle. Only one thing stood out: On the wall where Ada slept, someone had carved with ragged fingernails: “I fed them.” And beneath it, smeared faintly like faded blood: “Take care of my children.”

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