He returned to the basement door. It stood open, waiting.
Inside was not a staircase, but a vast pit lined with the shapes of faces pressed into the walls — men, women, and children — all silent, all unmoving. Their mouths gaped slightly as if mid-breath.
Rowan's flashlight rolled to the edge and stopped, its beam catching a pile of papers. His blueprints.But the lines were different again.
This time, the basement wasn't blank.It had a new chamber.
At the center, labeled in neat ink:"Rowan Hale's Room."
He looked around, heart hammering. The walls began to move, tightening like ribs around a lung.
The faces in the walls inhaled together — and the last sound he heard was the house whispering his name back to him.