The night had stopped pretending to be night. It was something else now — a black, breathing organism that swallowed sound and spat back silence. Aarav stood on the threshold of the house that had once belonged to Aisha's family, his breath frosting in air that should not have been cold. Behind him, the road had already dissolved; there was no return.
The front door pulsed once, like a heartbeat under wood. Then it opened on its own.
Inside, the corridor twisted as if space were drunk. Every frame on the wall showed the same photo — Aisha smiling at someone just outside the picture. But in every copy, the shadow behind her grew longer, thicker, almost hungry. Aarav's steps echoed like knocks on a coffin lid.
"Aisha?" he called.
No answer. Only the soft weeping of the wind through the gaps in the walls.
Then, from upstairs, a single word floated down, too calm to be human.
"Write."
He clutched his satchel. The black leather journal inside trembled, reacting as though it recognized the voice. He'd burned that journal a week ago. He'd watched it crumble to ash. Yet here it was, heavy and warm against his chest.
He climbed.
Each stair was softer than it should have been, like stepping on lungs. The house exhaled with every move he made. When he reached the landing, the hallway stretched impossibly long. Doors lined both sides — each one painted with words that changed when he blinked: Guilt, Silence, Forgive, Erase. He opened the last one.
Aisha sat at a desk made of bone-white wood, her back to him. She was writing furiously, her hand moving faster than any human could. Pages filled themselves, black ink crawling across them like veins spreading through flesh. When she spoke, her voice was his.
"You came back late," she said.
Aarav's throat tightened. "What are you doing here?"
"Finishing your book." She turned around.
Her eyes were hollow wells, black and reflective. Inside them, he saw himself — not standing in the doorway, but hanging from the ceiling, smiling. The image blinked out, leaving only darkness.
"You can't finish it," he whispered. "It ends with—"
"With me dying?" She smiled. "It always does."
The air shivered. The walls began to melt, dripping paint that smelled like decay. Aisha rose from the chair; the pages followed her, fluttering around like wings of dead birds. "The house wants its story told, Aarav. You wrote it. You breathed it. And now, it's alive."
He stumbled back. "That wasn't real—it was fiction!"
"Then why," she said softly, "does fiction remember you?"
The ceiling cracked. From it, dozens of eyes opened—wet, glassy, blinking in sync. They watched him the way a grave watches a mourner. The floor buckled, pulling him toward the desk. He caught the edge, nails tearing. The house whispered through its many mouths:
"Write what you bury."
The journal burst open. Its pages glowed faintly blue, showing moments from Aarav's life — the accident, Aisha's scream, the blood he couldn't wash off. His confession had been written once before, but he had torn it out. Now the pages re-stitched themselves, every lie exposed.
Aisha stepped closer, her body flickering between flesh and memory. "You thought you could kill me with words. But words don't die. They rot. They wait."
He looked up, tears stinging. "I'm sorry."
"Then finish it."
She offered the pen. Its tip bled instead of ink. Aarav hesitated, but the room began to shrink around him, walls pressing inward like the closing of a throat. He took the pen. The instant it touched the page, pain exploded behind his eyes. Images poured out — Aisha drowning in the mirror, the house feeding on her name, his reflection watching with delight. Each word he wrote turned into a wound on his arm.
When he finally dropped the pen, his blood had written the last line:
> The house devoured the sky to keep its stories alive.
Everything stilled.
The eyes closed.
Aisha vanished.
He was alone again — except for the quiet hum beneath the floorboards. It sounded like someone breathing… reading. The desk drawer slid open. Inside lay a single page, untouched by blood. On it, in neat handwriting, were four words that weren't his:
"Chapter 31 — She Returns."
Aarav's stomach knotted. "No," he whispered. "You're gone. I finished it."
The lights flickered. The window burst inward, and the night itself flooded the room, thick and alive. Through the storm of ink-black wind, he saw her figure outside — standing under the twisted tree, face pale and still. Aisha raised her hand slowly and pointed at the house.
Then the house answered with a groan so deep it cracked the foundation. The roof bent upward, opening like a jaw. The walls peeled away to reveal an endless void above, starless, sucking light and sound. The sky was being eaten.
Aarav ran for the door, but the hallway had turned into a throat of wood and flesh. He clawed at it, gasping as splinters pierced his skin. The floor tilted, sliding him toward the center of the house where the desk now burned with blue fire. Pages spiraled around him like screaming ghosts. The journal landed in his hands again — blank.
A voice whispered inside his skull:
"If you stop writing, it stops breathing."
He opened the journal. The blank page pulsed once, waiting.
And despite everything—despite the terror, the guilt, the madness—Aarav felt the familiar pull of the story. His hand began to move on its own, scrawling words faster and faster until the room blurred into white.
Outside, the last fragment of sky disappeared into the house's open mouth. The world fell silent.
And somewhere between the ink and the void, Aisha began to hum.