The room smells of copper and mildew. Somewhere far above, rain claws at the roof, but down here you breathe only dust, rot, and the sour sweetness of spilled blood.
You cannot move. You cannot sleep. You cannot look away.
You are the eyes.
Sylus stands at the edge of the circle of light, hands folded behind his back like a teacher waiting for pupils to fail. His shadow bends upward, crawling the walls until it vanishes into the ceiling beams, a shape larger than him, stranger than him.
Sylus: They will keep coming. They always do. Lost ones. Stragglers. Curious moths, burning to know. The house calls them, and they answer.
You want to scream at him, to demand release, to claw your eyes out before the next horror—but the word-chains tighten. They know your thought. They refuse it. They anchor you here.
The door creaks.
Another figure steps inside. A boy, no older than fifteen, soaked from the storm. His hair clings to his forehead, his clothes heavy with rain. He looks like he's been running for miles.
Boy: H-hello? I… I was looking for shelter—
Sylus smiles. He approaches with slow, deliberate steps.
Sylus: Shelter, yes. That's what Clara wanted too.
The boy blinks.
Boy: Who's Clara?
Sylus kneels so they are face to face. He places a hand on the boy's shoulder with unsettling gentleness.
Sylus: She was the first to hum against the silence. She sang until the walls answered her. She begged the house to spare her companion. It did not listen.
The boy shakes.
Boy: I-I don't want to know this.
Sylus: You don't get to choose.
The syringe hisses. The boy shrieks as it pierces his throat. You see the veins blacken, spreading like lightning under his skin. He collapses, body writhing, then stills. His eyes roll to yours. You are forced to stare into them as they fade—his gaze clinging to you, accusing, pleading, damning.
You try to look away. The chains drag your head back into place.
Sylus: (softly, to you) Every witness is a rung. Every death raises you closer to the truth. Don't look so horrified—you're complicit now.
The body is dragged away by unseen hands. You hear its nails scratching against the floor until they snap.
The door creaks again.
This time, a woman enters—her dress torn, her breath ragged. She clutches a book against her chest.
Woman: Please—I found this on the road. It—it led me here.
Sylus takes the book from her hands. Its cover is blank. He opens it. The pages are filled with nothing but repeating words: help me, help me, help me.
He turns the book toward you. The words rearrange themselves into your name.
Sylus: (to you) The house knows its chosen eyes.
Then he slams the book shut, and the woman flinches.
Sylus: Clara wrote once too. She etched her doubts into the plaster. She thought words could anchor her. (beat) But words betray. They always betray.
The woman sobs.
Woman: Please—just let me go.
Sylus: There is no "go." There is only down.
The syringe punctures. Her scream cracks the rafters. She convulses, and the book bursts into flame without heat, the ashes scattering into symbols you almost recognize before they vanish.
Your body trembles. Your eyes ache, burning with the weight of what they've been forced to hold. You feel you will go blind from seeing too much.
Sylus leans close.
Sylus: Don't collapse on me now. You're too valuable. Clara survived only because someone watched her. Someone like you.
Your heart lurches. Did he say survived?
The door creaks again.
This time, it's not one figure, but three. A family—a man, a woman, a little girl clutching a stuffed bear. Their faces are pale with confusion, fear.
The little girl looks directly at you.
Girl: Why are their eyes open like that, Mommy?
Sylus crouches before her, lowering himself to her height.
Sylus: Because they must see. That's what the house requires.
He lifts the bear from her arms. Its head lolls unnaturally, stitched where it shouldn't be. He whispers something to it in a language you don't know.
The bear answers back.
The family screams as Sylus injects them one by one. The mother thrashes. The father chokes. The little girl only stares at you until the life drains from her eyes, her lips mouthing silent words you cannot hear.
The bodies vanish into the dark, absorbed by the floor.
You feel the truth pressing closer, crawling beneath your skin. Every death feeds you a fragment, though Sylus alone shapes the words.
He whispers again, to you this time:
Sylus: Clara is beneath. But not where you think. She lingers in the marrow, yes—but also here. In you. Her last words, her last song, her last dream—they are trapped in your gaze. Do you not feel her, scratching to be seen?
The floor swells, like a lung inhaling. The walls pulse red, faint, then stronger. The air tastes of iron.
Sylus grips your jaw, forcing your head upward.
Sylus: Look closer. See what I made from Sarid's doubt. See what I became.
His face splits like paper tearing. Behind it, you glimpse the house itself—endless corridors, bleeding staircases, windows that open into nothing. And at the center, a woman's silhouette. Clara's.
Her hands press against the invisible glass. Her mouth moves—singing, pleading, warning—you can't tell.
Then the vision snaps shut. Sylus's face is whole again.
Sylus: Do you understand now? She's waiting.
He pats your cheek almost kindly, then steps away, syringe gleaming, as the door creaks again for the next victim.
And you? You are still chained. Still forced open. Still nothing but eyes.
But deep in the marrow of your sight, Clara lingers, and you realize with a sickening twist—she can see through you too.