(Sound of pages turning)
(Footsteps in the corridor)
(A cabinet creaks open)
I stepped out of my apartment into a world drowning in rain.
Above the city, the sky writhed a shifting mass of shadows, black and silver like a stitched wound crackling with lightning. Streetlights flickered, struggling against the thickening fog. Their glow barely pierced the curtain of water.
But this rain… it didn't feel natural. It wasn't just water. It was heavier, aware. It clung to the streets, muffling all sound like the silence of a cemetery that still remembers the voices buried beneath it.
I tightened my coat around me and made my way to the car.
My fingers trembled as they gripped the steering wheel.
In the rearview mirror, the city dissolved. Its lights were swallowed by a formless void that seemed to breathe behind me.
The road stretched ahead like an endless mouth, waiting to devour me.
Why did I accept this job?
Just a ghost story. That's all it was.
The kind of thing whispered in smoke-filled bars, passed from drunkards to the half-mad.
And yet with every mile I drove something cold coiled tighter around my chest.
Something real.
The road began to crack beneath me. Asphalt gave way to broken stone, then to thick, choking mud.
The headlights caught twisted trees their branches bent like claws reaching from another dimension.
And then the village appeared
A relic from a time long buried.
Crooked houses. Empty windows.
No streetlights. No movement.
Only… a presence.
Eyes stared from those windows not with curiosity, but resignation.
Like they'd already read the ending to my story.
I was almost out of gas when I found a lonely gas station.
Its flickering neon sign pulsed like a dying heartbeat.
Inside, an old man stood behind the counter, his face weathered like an artifact left too long in the rain.
But his eyes sharp as broken glass.
"Be careful," he muttered, voice dry as brittle paper.
He said nothing else.
I didn't ask.
I didn't want to know.
I paid.
And left.
Then… the house.
It waited at the end of the path not merely old, not merely abandoned.
It was dying.
The roof sagged under its own weight, the beams rotting like forgotten bones.
A rusted iron gate stood half open, not to keep intruders out but perhaps to keep something in.
The entire house throbbed with something unseen.
Like its walls had fingers, tightening around the night itself.
I killed the engine.
The rain slowed.
It didn't stop.
It simply… watched.
And then I saw it.
Half-buried in the mud, just before the porch
A tarot card.
A jolt of déjà vu ran through me like electricity.
I picked it up with shaking hands.
No image.
Just one word, written in jagged, uneven letters:
"CLOWN."
My grip locked around the card.
My heart thundered.
My mind whispered:
"I've dreamed this. I've seen this. I already know this."
The house… knew I was here.
A gust of wind slammed against my back.
The front door creaked open
Before I touched it.
Inside: darkness. Dense. Waiting. Breathing.
Then the smell hit me.
Thick. Sweet. Metallic.
Blood.
My entire body locked up.
Instinct screamed run.
But my legs moved forward.
Not because I wanted to…
But because something inside the house wanted me in.
I crossed the threshold.
The door slammed behind me.
The last sound from the outside world.
Then… silence.
But not an empty silence.
A silence that listened.
The walls were painted in shadows.
Not cast by light… but trapped there frozen silhouettes in mid-motion.
They reached outward, fingers stretched toward something unseen.
The furniture was rotted.
The air stank of damp wood… and something older than decay.
And then I saw it.
On a dust-covered table:
A manuscript.
The pages were yellowed, brittle like dry leaves.
But the ink…
The ink was fresh.
My fingers hovered above it.
Despite everything despite the warning in my bones
I turned the first page.
And read.
At first, it made no sense.
Sentences looped, distorted like a scratched vinyl record.
Then, cutting through the madness like a razor:
"The writer arrives at the house. He is afraid, but he enters. The door closes behind him. The manuscript awaits. His hands tremble as he opens it. He reads. He realizes the story is about him. And then… he knows. He was never supposed to leave."
I forgot to breathe.
My hands were ice.
I turned the next page.
"He reads this very page. Sees these very words. Begins to understand. But it's too late. The shadows move. The laughter begins."
From somewhere inside the house:
A dry, gargling laugh.
I slammed the book shut.
The laughter stopped.
Silence again.
But this time it was closer.
I ran to the door.
My fingers fumbled with the knob.
Locked.
I gasped for air.
Then…
A whisper.
"Writer…"
A voice.
Right behind me.
Not one voice.
Many.
Cold air brushed my neck.
I turned.
And what I saw?
I ran. As fast as I could.
My breath came in short, shattered gasps.
Eyes wide, limbs frozen, shadows everywhere.
Footsteps? Creaking floorboards? I couldn't tell.
I heard only one thing:
A deep, monotonous frequency.
I ran for the door.
But it felt like I wasn't moving at all.
Like the room itself was dragging me down.
Then everything stopped.
I reached the door.
And as I opened it…
I froze.
This was not the same world.
And yet… it was.
I knew this place.
But I didn't.
It was Samsara Noctis
A story I had written once.
One I had never finished.