Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
Wet plaster or drywall shrinks as it dries. If the wall around a newly installed window dries too fast, shrinkage cracks appear.
By October, the cracks had stopped hiding. They weren’t just around the windows anymore; they were framing them. It looked as if the glass was trying to push its way out of the wall, or perhaps something behind the wall was trying to push its way in.
He leaned against the door, gasping for breath in the pitch black. He was safe here. The basement had no windows. It was just concrete and foundation. cracks in walls around windows
He stood up, driven by a sudden, frantic need to fix it. He grabbed his tools. He would rip the drywall out if he had to. He would find the stud, see what was causing the stress.
And then, a voice. Not from outside, but from inside the wall, inches from his ear.
Materials like wood, plaster, and metal expand and contract at different rates as temperatures change. This "tug-of-war" between the window frame and the wall often causes micro-fractures. Scritch
Elias stopped sleeping in the bedroom. He moved to the couch in the center of the living room, far away from the windows. But from that vantage point, he could see them all: the kitchen window, the bay window, the small frosted pane of the bathroom.
"I’m calling the police," Elias shouted, though his phone was dead in his hand. The screen showed a jumble of static.
Elias watched in horror as the frames of the other windows began to buckle. The kitchen window swung open like a cupboard. The bathroom window unhinged. Wet plaster or drywall shrinks as it dries
Elias stood on his stepladder, scraper in hand, frowning. He pressed his thumb against the fissure. The wall felt cold. Not just cool to the touch, but refrigerator cold. He pulled his hand back, rubbing the chill from his fingertips.
But the house, he would soon learn, did not like to be silenced.