Mason led, boots steady but cautious, scanning the terrain with each step. Vera stayed close behind him, clenching the ring of keys in her pocket. Ivy clung to her coat, shivering so hard her teeth clicked, and Leo kept glancing over his shoulder — toward the hotel, toward the trees, toward something.
Something he couldn't name.
They walked for what felt like hours, though it had only been minutes. The forest grew thicker around them, trees heavy with snow and silence. Branches groaned and cracked in the wind like bones breaking under pressure.
Then Leo stopped.
He froze mid-step, eyes narrowed toward the trees up ahead.
"I heard something," he said quietly.
Mason turned. "Animal?"
Leo didn't answer.
The others paused, watching him.
Then—
"Leo…"
A soft voice drifted through the trees, faint, barely above the wind. It came from ahead, from the shadows.
"…Leo."
It was his sister's voice.
But that wasn't possible.
He swallowed hard, eyes locked on the pale stretch of woods. "No," he muttered. "She's dead. She's dead."
"Leo?" Vera asked, alarmed.
"Keep moving," Mason ordered, voice sharper now. "It's not her. Whatever it is — don't look for it."
Leo nodded stiffly, but his face had drained of color. His legs moved, but slower now. The voice didn't come again — but it lingered, inside him.
They kept walking.
Eventually, through the trees, a silhouette emerged — small and dark, set against the snowy landscape.
A cabin.
They hurried toward it. No one spoke.
The door wasn't locked.
Mason gave it a push, and it creaked open with the groan of swollen wood. The interior was dim but intact, the musty smell of old timber and ash thick in the air.
Inside, the space was tight, rustic — lived-in. A single-room living area, lined with dark wood walls and faded plaid furniture. A fireplace sat against one wall, cold and empty, but with split logs stacked nearby. A small sofa, slumped with use, faced it. A worn rug, dulled by age, covered the floor.
"Someone used this recently," Ivy said, brushing her fingers over the dusty mantle.
"It could be Ellis's," Vera replied, uneasily.
"We can't stay out there," Mason said simply. "Not without freezing."
They nodded. Quiet agreement.
Mason moved toward the hallway. "Three doors."
The first room they opened was small, with peeling wallpaper patterned with faded clouds. A tiny wooden bed, a broken toy truck on the floor, and a dresser with cracked mirror glass.
"A kid lived here," Ivy murmured, stepping carefully over the toy.
The next door opened wider — this one larger, but deeply unsettling.
A heavy canopy bed dominated the room, draped in thick, gray covers. At the head of it, mounted directly above the pillow, was a statue of a lamb's head, carved from dark wood and painted white, its eyes glassy and expression blank. It seemed to stare straight down at the bed. A fraying red ribbon was looped around its neck — not tied, just hanging, as if waiting to be pulled.
"This room feels off..." Vera whispered.
No one stepped inside.
The final room was a narrow bathroom, cramped and cold. The mirror was cracked, and a towel still hung on the wall, damp with mold and time.
Ivy backed out first. "I don't like this place."
"Neither do I," Mason said. "But it's shelter."
Leo sat down slowly on the couch, staring into the fireplace like he wished a flame would suddenly appear.
Outside, the wind howled louder — almost like a laugh.
They didn't say it, but they all felt it:
Whatever this place was, it wasn't truly empty.
It was waiting.
---
The silence in the room felt suffocating.
Not peaceful. Not calm.
Heavy, like something unseen had settled into the space with them, breathing slowly in the corners.
Vera didn't say another word. She paced slowly, arms crossed tight over her chest, eyes flicking to the corners of the room.
Ivy stood by the dusty window, breath fogging up the glass. "This place doesn't feel abandoned," she whispered. "Not really."
Leo moved toward the center of the room, arms wrapped around himself. As he stepped, the floor beneath him creaked—not unusual, but something about it was… hollow.
He paused.
Vera noticed. She walked over and stepped beside him. The wood groaned again. Lighter. Echoing.
"…The floor?" she muttered.
She knelt and knocked on the boards. The sound was dull everywhere—except one spot. One knock rang different. Hollow.
A moment passed between them. Then Vera yanked the faded rug back, revealing old planks—one of which had a jagged edge, slightly lifted, just enough to hook her fingers under.
She hesitated.
Then pulled.
The board gave with a crack, revealing a square of darkness beneath.
A trapdoor.
Leo knelt beside her, both of them staring into the hole. The others moved closer.
"What the hell is that?" Ivy whispered.
Mason found a flashlight on the wall near the hallway and clicked it on. He aimed it down the space.
Silence.
Then light.
It wasn't a deep drop—maybe a crawlspace. But the beam illuminated something beneath.
Bones.
Piles of them.
Torn, stained fabric. Shoes. Scraps of jackets. Photographs scattered in the dust—aged and yellowed, with faces scratched out.
And words carved into the floorboards below. Letters, shaking and smeared with old, dried blood.
Vera felt her breath leave her chest. She looked again at the carved words.
> "It lives through him."
Vera stumbled back. Ivy let out a quiet, broken noise and covered her mouth.
Mason stepped forward slowly, leaning over. "These are… people. He's done this before."
Leo's jaw clenched. "Or something else did."
They stood in stunned silence.
Then Vera turned slowly.
> "This isn't a cabin," she whispered.
"It's a cage."
Mason straightened, his voice low but firm. "Okay. Everyone needs to stay calm."
Ivy snapped her head toward him. "Stay calm? We're standing over bones, Mason."
"We don't know when this happened—"
"Does it matter?" Leo cut in, voice sharp. "This place isn't safe. Nothing about this is safe."
Vera kept staring at the floor, her voice hollow. "We can't sleep here. We can't even breathe here."
The wind groaned against the windows again, louder this time — like the house itself was exhaling.
Mason's shoulders tensed. "I'm not saying we stay the night. But we need a plan. Running blind into a storm isn't a plan."
Ivy shook her head, voice trembling. "Neither is waiting to die."
_ _ _
The silence in the room felt suffocating.
Mason raised his hands, trying to steady his own breathing. "Okay—okay, we need to stay calm. Panicking won't help."
Leo snapped, "We're standing in a grave and asha is dead. Calm went out the window an hour ago."
Vera pulled her eyes from the bones and stepped back from the hidden space in the floor, her face pale. "We need to see if there's a map. Anything. We have to know where we're going if we want to survive out there."
Ivy nodded shakily. "There could be something. Someone must've tried to get out before."
They moved quickly, tension like a wire between them. Mason and Ivy checked the cupboards and drawers in the small kitchenette. Leo scanned the bookshelves, pulling old, dusty volumes to the floor. Vera headed into the creepy bedroom—the one with the statue. She hesitated at the door, then stepped in, avoiding the carved eyes that still felt like they watched her.
On the desk beneath a dusty lamp, she found it.
A bundle of letters — their pages crinkled and brown with age, the ink faded… no. Not ink.
Blood.
She picked one up slowly, reading the shaking, scribbled lines:
> To Theo—if you're still alive.
Vera swallowed hard and unfolded the letter. The handwriting was shaky, frantic.
> I keep hearing my father's voice. It started as whispers at night. Now it's everywhere. He's calling me from the woods—I know it's not him. He's been dead for five years. But I want to believe. God help me, I want to believe.
I haven't eaten in days. The hunger gnaws at my mind. I tried to eat bark. Dirt. I can't think straight. I—
The lines below were just slashes. Clawing, broken scribbles. Ink—no, blood—had stained the page at the corners.
A second letter read:
> "Don't make a sound. They can hear you."
Vera backed away just as Ivy stepped beside her, reading over her shoulder.
Behind her, Ivy whispered, "Who are they?"
Before Vera could answer, Mason called from the living room, "I found something!"
They rushed over.
A small, folded map was pinned under a broken clock on the wall. Mason unrolled it over the dusty table — a rough, hand-drawn layout of the mountains, marked with uneven trails. A red X was scratched over the cabin.
Leo leaned in. "It's hand-drawn… this wasn't made to help people. It's a warning."
Then—
From the front of the house, three distinct knocks echoed.
Slow.
Even.
Intentional.
They froze.
Leo's voice came sharp from the living room, barely louder than a whisper. "No one followed us. Right?"
Another knock. Louder.
Then stillness.
Mason whispered urgently, "We're not opening that door."
Vera rushed to the window. "Here. We go through here."
The wood was brittle. Ivy yanked the latch and shoved it open. The cold hit them instantly, biting through their clothes. One by one, they climbed out—the floor creaking behind them as they moved, as if the house itself didn't want to let them go.
As Leo helped Ivy down, he glanced back once.
The statue's eyes were fixed on the door.
And the knocks had stopped.