This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/PaleSeries7 on 2025-10-25 19:20:18+00:00.

I clean houses for a living… well, not the nice kind.

The places I get sent to are the ones that sit in real estate market for years… speak of hollowed homes, drug-dens and old estates nobody wants to touch.

… My boss likes to call them distressed properties.

He always gives me the same routine when he hands over the keys. “Don’t overthink what you see - just clean enough to make the place presentable.”

This time was slightly different. He added something new: "… and don’t worry about any, well, funny markings in this one.”

That phrasing stuck in my head all morning. Funny markings?

The house was way past the county line. A three-story Victorian that was half-swallowed by the trees along the side of the road.

Every window had a shadow behind it. Inside, the air smelled like wet dust and mold.

Why would anyone ever want to buy this place?

Regardless, I worked my way up floor by floor, trying not to look too long at anything. Every surface felt sticky, like it remembered being touched.

The wallpaper upstairs was peeling in spirals. There were these faint, reddish smears underneath under it.

When I reached the attic, I finally understood what my boss meant.

The room was large and empty. But… just in the centre of the spoiled wooden floorboards, there was a dark imprint - and not exactly a “stain”.

It had edges like a silhouette. You could see the curve of a head, shoulders, and knees forced straight.

It was a person, or what was left of one - as if they had lain there for a very, very long time and their skin had melted into the wood.

I tried to ignore it at first, but the longer I stood there, the heavier the air got.

There was no smell at first… just this metallic taste that coated my tongue. I set up my bucket, poured bleach, and started scrubbing hard, but with an essence of pervasive reluctance that couldn’t leave me.

The wood hissed. I thought maybe it was moisture reacting with the cleaner, but then the stain bubbled.

Little white blisters had formed along the outline of the ribs, popping with a soft crackle.

The smell hit. It wasn’t bleach anymore, but something sour like when you open a drain trap that hasn’t been touched in like… years.

I gagged. My eyes began to burn. It felt like the fumes were crawling under my skin.

My arms went weak, and a paralyzing pressure started building behind my jaw, like I was about to vomit, but nothing came up.

The outline of the body didn’t fade.

Disgusted, I dropped the brush. I don’t even remember climbing down the ladder.

One second I was on my knees in the attic, and the next I was in the hallway, shaking like a rabid dog.

My heartbeat was so loud it felt like its pulse filled the whole house.

The bathroom was the only place with any running water, so I went there to wash the bleach off my arms.

The sink was cracked but functional. The water came out cloudy at first but gradually cleared.

When I looked in the mirror, my face was gray. My eyes had tiny red capillaries spidering from the corners.

My skin began to itch, it broke into reddish, painful blisters - and when I rubbed at my forearm - it felt warmer than usual.

I leaned over the sink to splash water on my face and that’s when the drain gurgled.

It burped up a bubble the size of a golf ball. It popped, and the smell was… I don’t even know how to describe it.

Rotten flesh?

Something black oozed up through the drain- slow, thick, clotted. It wasn’t sewage.

It was viscous, like congealed blood. I backed up, and that’s when I noticed the tub.

The bottom was ringed in brown. There was some water, but it wasn’t reflecting any of the ceiling.

It looked deep, like it went somewhere.

Floating in the center was a tangle of something stringy hair, maybe.

But there were other bits caught in it, pale chunks with edges that glistened. Something bone-colored… something that had… teeth.

… A skull flattened through its scalp, battered to the surface like ground meat.

I didn’t check twice. I was too shocked to scream.

I couldn’t help but instinctively… run away.

I was done with this place.

I left everything… the supplies, the keys, the ladder and drove straight home.

I didn’t even call my boss until the next morning.

And when I did, he picked up on the first ring.

When I told him what I’d seen, he was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “Good God… you shouldn’t have stayed that long… save yourself!”

Before I could even respond, he hung up.

I went to look up the address later that night, no listing - no record, nothing.

Hours later, I worsened… I could smell bleach underneath my skin… and something else - something sodden, acrid-sweet, like fruit going bad in the walls.

…

The blisters now begin to forage my entire body, and a brown ooze leaks from my shaking fingertips.

I don’t know what this is… and I fear it has claimed me for good.

My thoughts keep drifting back to that place… like something inside me has been tethered there.

I don’t feel like resting anymore… maybe the only way to accept peace is to return, to let the attic… have me.