The house fell quiet after Ryan disappeared.
Not peaceful quiet.
Not empty quiet.
This was a listening quiet.
The kind that presses against your ears until you're sure something is standing just behind you, breathing softly, memorizing the sound of your fear.
Four of us remained.
Aiden. Mira. Jonas. And me.
Four heartbeats echoing inside a house that already knew how each of them would stop.
The hallway stretched longer than it had moments ago. The doors that had consumed Ryan's memories were gone now, replaced by blank walls covered in pale wallpaper that pulsed faintly, like skin stretched over veins.
Mira clutched my arm so tightly her nails cut into my flesh.
"It knew his mother," she whispered. "It knew exactly what to show him."
Jonas laughed weakly. "Of course it did. It's been inside our heads since the moment we stepped through that door."
Aiden didn't speak. He was staring ahead, jaw clenched, eyes sharp with a terrible clarity.
"We keep moving," he said. "Standing still is how it wins."
The floor creaked as if in agreement.
We walked.
Every step felt heavier, like the house was slowly increasing gravity just to feel us struggle. The air grew warmer the deeper we went, thick with a smell like old breath trapped in a sealed room.
Then I felt it.
A tug.
Not physical.
Something inside my chest tightened—like a hook had lodged itself around my ribs and pulled gently forward.
I stumbled.
Aiden caught me. "Damien?"
"I—I don't know," I said. "It's like… something's calling me."
The hallway split ahead.
Left: a stairwell descending into darkness.
Right: a narrow corridor bathed in dim, amber light.
The tug inside me pulled right.
Harder.
Mira shook her head violently. "No. No, no, no. We're not splitting up."
The walls whispered.
"He belongs here."
My name slid through the air, soft and intimate.
"Damien…"
Jonas pressed his hands over his ears. "It's in your head. Don't listen."
But the pull intensified. My vision blurred, edges darkening like ink bleeding across paper.
I knew, with a certainty that chilled my bones, that the house wasn't guessing.
It remembered me.
Aiden saw it in my face.
"Why you?" he asked quietly. Not accusing. Afraid.
Before I could answer, the corridor to the right brightened.
A door appeared where there hadn't been one before.
Dark wood.
Familiar scratches near the handle.
My stomach dropped.
"That's impossible," I whispered.
The nameplate read:
DAMIAN CROSS
Not Damien.
My full name.
The name only my father used when he was angry.
The door creaked open.
Inside—
My childhood home.
Perfectly recreated.
The living room smelled like dust and old coffee. The cracked leather couch. The framed photo of my mother smiling before she got sick. The clock on the wall stuck at 3:17.
The time she died.
Mira cried out behind me. "Don't go in!"
But my legs moved on their own.
I crossed the threshold.
The door shut.
The house exhaled.
I stood alone in memory.
The television flickered on.
Static.
Then my father appeared on screen, sitting exactly how he used to—slumped, hollow-eyed, a bottle just out of frame.
"You always did disappoint me," he said.
I shook my head. "You're not real."
He smiled.
"That's what you told yourself, isn't it? When you left. When you ran."
The room darkened.
The walls peeled away, revealing the truth beneath—blackened wood carved with symbols, words scratched deep enough to bleed.
CHOSEN
MARKED
OPEN
I staggered backward, heart pounding.
The floor softened beneath my feet.
Pulsed.
I realized with horror—
I wasn't standing in a room.
I was standing inside the house.
Inside its body.
The walls contracted.
Something wrapped around my ankle—tendrils of shadow, cold and slick, pulling me down.
I screamed.
Outside the room—
Aiden heard it.
"DAMIAN!"
He threw himself against the door.
Jonas joined him, smashing his shoulder into the wood.
Mira sobbed, praying, screaming my name.
Inside, the house spoke clearly for the first time.
Not whispers.
Not tricks.
A voice that vibrated through my bones.
"You were always meant to return."
Images flooded my mind.
Me as a child, standing at the edge of these woods.
My parents arguing behind me.
The storm clouds gathering.
A door in the trees.
I remembered it.
I had been here before.
I had run away.
"You opened us once," the house said. "You will open us again."
The tendrils tightened.
I felt myself sinking into the floor, swallowed inch by inch.
My lungs burned.
I thought of my friends.
Of Leah screaming.
Of Ryan stepping into that room.
Of the house choosing.
"No," I gasped. "I won't let you."
The house laughed.
"You already did."
The floor pulled me under—
And then—
Pain.
Sharp. Real.
Aiden's voice cut through the darkness.
"DAMIAN—GRAB ON!"
Light exploded as the door shattered inward.
Aiden stood there, bleeding, holding the broken chair leg like a spear, plunged deep into the floor.
Jonas pulled at my arms.
Mira screamed encouragement through tears.
The tendrils shrieked.
The house screamed.
Not in anger.
In hunger.
I was ripped free as the floor snapped shut beneath me.
We tumbled into the hallway as the door slammed closed behind us, the nameplate falling off and clattering to the ground.
Silence.
We lay there, gasping.
Alive.
For now.
Aiden pulled me to my feet, gripping my shoulders hard.
"You were right," he said. "It wants you most."
Jonas wiped blood from his mouth. "Because he's already connected."
Mira stared at me with terror and awe. "You've been here before… haven't you?"
I nodded slowly.
"I escaped once," I whispered. "That's why it brought us here. It didn't forget."
The walls trembled.
Leah's voice echoed through the halls, layered and monstrous now.
"Three left," she sang. "But only one belongs to us."
The lights went out.
Total darkness swallowed us.
And somewhere beneath our feet—
The house began to open again.