Morning broke with a thick fog soaking the windows. Droplets slid down the dirty glass like translucent fingers, and the sky looked as if it hadn't fully woken. Yuki was still in the same position, sitting on the bed, eyes open and body stiff. He could've sworn he heard the word "stay", like a whisper from someone who no longer had a tongue… but he had no proof. Only fear.
He tried to convince himself it had been a dream. A vivid one, too real… but a dream nonetheless. The kind of illusion a stressed mind produces when trapped in an old, silent house. Nothing to worry about. Just a house… and its ghosts.
He got up. The floor creaked. The silence of the house was so complete that even his footsteps felt disrespectful. He showered with cold water—there was no gas or heater—and when he stepped out of the bathroom, he found something out of place.
The closet doors in his room were open.
He hadn't touched them.
He approached. Inside, among old clothes and dead moths, he found a small leather notebook tied with red thread. He picked it up carefully, and the moment he opened it, his body shuddered.
It wasn't a diary. It was fragments: names, dates, phrases. Some written in ink, others in what looked like… dried blood.
One page stood out:
"The house demands. The house keeps. The house does not forgive forgetting. The guest must stay until he becomes part of it."
He swallowed hard and slammed the notebook shut. He left the room with hurried breath and headed down the stairs to the main hall.
And there he saw it.
A figure standing at the end of the hallway that connected to the kitchen. Motionless, as if waiting for him. Tall, slender, with long dark hair falling over its shoulders. It didn't move, didn't breathe.
Yuki blinked.
The figure was gone.
"No… no, no…" he whispered.
He ran to the kitchen. Empty. He checked every corner, opened cabinets, even the unpowered fridge. Nothing. Just that familiar scent floating in the air—the same one he'd felt in the library the day before: incense, wet wood, and metal.
There was a teacup on the table. A cup that hadn't been there the night before. With steaming tea.
Yuki's heart skipped a beat. He didn't understand why he wasn't running. Why he didn't grab his things and flee to the nearest town. But something, deep inside, told him that if he crossed the door, the house wouldn't let him go. He felt… he no longer owned his steps.
He decided to try.
He ran to the foyer, opened the front door… and found a wall of fog. Literally. A dense white curtain covered the exit, so thick he couldn't even see his outstretched hand. He stepped forward.
The ground gave way beneath him.
He stepped back just in time, before his foot plunged into the void. The porch was gone. So were the trees. And the path. Only fog, and a cliff of darkness beyond the threshold.
He shut the door again, gasping.
"I'm trapped…"
And the house creaked, as if confirming the thought.
He spent the rest of the day on high alert. Explored closed rooms, found portraits of men he didn't know, all of them looking similar. Same features: thin, pale, black hair, sad eyes. All young men. All bearing the same signature behind the frames: Rei.
In one of the rooms in the east wing, he found an untouched bedroom. Bed made, clean curtains, even clothes hanging in the closet. It was as if someone still lived there.
On the dresser, a fountain pen rested beside a crumpled piece of paper. Yuki unrolled it:
"You're still here. You've seen me. Soon, you'll come to me."
No signature.
That night, he lit the gas lantern and locked himself in the library, searching for answers. Every corner echoed the same name: Rei. In book margins, carved into wood, embroidered on a handkerchief he found between the pages of an old alchemy tome.
He sat in the spinning armchair.
"Who are you…?" he whispered to the air.
Silence.
Then, a whisper, as if the walls breathed.
"I'm where you left me."
The flame of the lantern flickered.
Yuki stood up. A shiver ran down his spine. He turned around… and from the corner of his eye, in the library's mirror, he saw it.
A tall figure, dressed in black, standing behind him. But when he turned, there was no one.
He looked back at the mirror.
Rei was still there. Motionless. Watching him.
The image didn't fade.
Yuki, voice trembling, asked:
"What do you want from me?"
Rei's reflection opened his lips.
"Don't leave me again."