Since I was very young, I considered myself a skeptic. Maybe because of the way I was raised, or perhaps due to that need to verify and explain everything. Still, over the years, there were experiences that—sometimes unintentionally—pushed me to look beyond the obvious. No matter how rational you are, there are things that simply don’t fit into any scientific model. And although I’m a firm believer in critical thinking, I also believe there’s a boundary—a blurry line—where the unknown peeks through.
If you're reading this, you probably share that curiosity. That urge to get closer to what we don't understand. Maybe you've also felt, at some point, a presence—or that something was watching you. Perhaps you've even wondered whether it was real or just your imagination. But some situations, no matter how much we analyze them, resist being revealed. This is one of them.
When I was three, my parents moved into a large, old chalet-style house in Bernal, south of Greater Buenos Aires. I have memories from as early as two years old, and I can say with certainty that from the very first day in that house, I felt something. It wasn’t just a presence—it was a very unusual weight. An energy I couldn’t describe, but that, without a doubt, made itself known. That first night, I had a nightmare. And then another. And another. I could only sleep peacefully if I crawled into my parents' bed.
Over time, I learned to live with it. To ignore it. To stop thinking about it. But the house remained—present—and every so often, it gave off signs: a sound in the middle of the night, footsteps on the stairs, whispers in the hallways, shadows that weren’t ours. Some neighbors said strange things about the previous owners, but no one ever gave details or confirmed anything. As if talking too much might awaken something.
The house was imposing. From what I later learned, it had been built by a priest who was also an architect, sometime in the 1930s or earlier. A neoclassical home of 500 square meters, with white columns, marble floors, a huge salon, and a staircase crowned with a crystal chandelier. It had three bedrooms upstairs, along with two bathrooms. Downstairs, a kitchen-dining area that opened onto a large garden, another bathroom, and a small room at the back of the garage, seemingly meant for a servant.
Even though it was clearly a home for the upper class, something about the layout always struck me. The way the spaces were connected reminded me of those old Buenos Aires tenements—buildings adapted to house many people, with subdivided and overlapping areas. I thought about it so often I began dreaming about it. In one of those dreams, after the priest’s death—who, according to history, had no children—the house was occupied by European immigrants of the era (Spaniards, Italians, French, English, even Germans). I could hear their arguments, their shouting, their footsteps, slamming doors, voices slipping through the walls.
Some friends who visited felt strange sensations, a kind of discomfort. One of them, who had previous paranormal experiences, once saw a woman in her fifties dressed in black, standing beside the staircase. It took him a few seconds to tell me—he had frozen in place.
Years went by, and when I was already in college, after several break-in attempts in the neighborhood, someone finally got in. They tied up my godmother. The police came but did nothing. One officer even joked that with a house like that, he’d rob it too. That was the last straw. My parents decided to move to the city, and we left the house behind.
But two years later, I decided to go back.
I invited a friend to try living in the house with me. It was far too much space for just one person. We moved in with her two Persian cats. At first, everything seemed normal. But the moment I stepped through the door, the atmosphere was so thick it felt like I was submerged in a deep pool. In the almost 22 years I'd lived there, I’d never felt such oppressive density as I did that day—it was as if “something” had claimed the house during the time it had been “vacant.”
My friend, much more skeptical than me, didn’t feel anything... at least not at first. But as the months went by, she started to change. We both did. We were exhausted, drained of energy, as if something were constantly feeding off us. The air grew even heavier, nearly suffocating. We didn’t argue, there was no conflict. We simply withered.
One night, around midnight, I walked over to her room. She was lying in bed, in pajamas, glasses on, reading a book. The cats were asleep beside her. I suggested we go out for coffee at the gas station a few blocks away.
We went out just like that, in our pajamas, without thinking. We ordered café con leche and sat at a table. There was a quiet moment where we looked at each other carefully.
“We’re like two old people,” I said. “Look at us. We’re wrecked.”
She chuckled wearily.
“Literally,” I said. “It’s like we’ve been married for forty years, our kids moved out, and we’re still living together out of habit just to avoid the hassle of a divorce. We live with two cats and drink coffee with milk at 1 a.m. like two retirees who forgot to take their sleeping pills.”
We laughed a little more, but not out of amusement. It was more of a bitter acknowledgment of what was happening to us. The next day, I went outside and spoke to some of the older neighbors. After a few careful questions, they confirmed the rumors were true: one of the previous owners had committed suicide in the kitchen with a shotgun, after his partner died in an accident.
The story fit, though it didn’t fully explain what we felt in that house. Because what was there—if there was something—wasn’t just grief or sadness. It wasn’t just a presence either. It was something deeper, more engulfing, as if it had rooted itself in the house. Something that didn’t want to be seen, but didn’t want to be forgotten either. And we were nothing more than two "temporary tenants".
