The corridor narrowed as we climbed, twisting through impossible angles. The walls were no longer made of stone or wood but something else—smooth and pulsing, like veins carved from darkness itself. Every step echoed, not in the air but in our bones.
Rachel's breathing grew weaker. The black veins had spread across her neck, faintly glowing now, as if responding to the mansion's pulse. Her skin was pale, slick with sweat, her eyes glassy.
"We can't keep pushing her," Maya whispered, voice trembling. "She needs rest, Ethan."
Ethan shook his head. "Rest where, Maya? Every room in this hellhole is a trap. You saw what happened in the last one."
Maya's jaw tightened, her eyes flashing. "She's not just some burden. She's one of us."
Ethan opened his mouth to argue, but I raised my hand. "Enough. Both of you. We move. Arguing won't help anyone."
They fell silent, though the tension hung heavy between them. We pressed forward, the mansion's hum deepening into something like a growl. The air was thicker here, almost solid, pressing against our chests.
The corridor ended abruptly, opening into a vast stairwell spiraling downward into blackness. The stairs were carved from the same strange material as the walls—dark, slick, and faintly alive.
Maya's voice quivered. "Where does it go?"
Ethan leaned over the edge, staring into the abyss. "Down," he said grimly. "Always down."
I felt it too—a pull, deep and instinctive. The mansion was guiding us, dragging us toward its heart. Every step we took brought us closer to whatever lay beneath.
Rachel whimpered, clutching her chest. "It's calling me," she whispered. "Can't you hear it?"
Maya froze. "What?"
"The voice," Rachel breathed, her eyes unfocused. "It's whispering my name. It wants me to come to it."
The shadows around the stairwell thickened, bending toward her like smoke caught in invisible currents. Ethan swore softly. "We can't let her listen to that."
I moved closer to Rachel, gripping her shoulder firmly. "Ignore it. It's not real. It's the mansion, trying to draw you in."
But deep down, I wasn't sure. Because even I could feel the faint echo of the whisper now—a voice like silk brushing against the inside of my skull. It didn't speak words, exactly. It felt them: hunger, longing, inevitability.
We began the descent.
The air grew colder with every step. The light from the candelabrum dimmed until it barely pierced the darkness. The walls closed in, throbbing with faint pulses of red light. The stairway seemed endless, stretching far beyond logic or physics.
Ethan's footsteps echoed sharply. "How far down does this go?"
Maya glanced at Rachel, who was shaking uncontrollably. "Too far," she whispered.
The whispers grew louder. They came from everywhere—above, below, inside us. Sometimes they sounded like Rachel's voice; sometimes they sounded like mine.
"Come closer… you belong to me…"
Rachel's head snapped up suddenly, her eyes wide. "It's here," she gasped. "It's waiting!"
Her body convulsed violently, and Maya cried out, catching her as she fell to her knees. The veins along her neck glowed brighter, spreading like cracks of light through her skin.
Ethan swore. "She's burning up—"
"No," I said, staring. "She's transforming."
The realization hit like a blow. The infection wasn't just killing Rachel—it was changing her. The mansion was molding her into something new, something that belonged to it.
Rachel's breath came in short, sharp gasps. "It's… inside me… it wants… out…"
Maya held her tighter, tears streaking her face. "Fight it! Please, Rachel, fight it!"
The air around us shuddered violently. The stairwell groaned, walls pulsing faster, as if reacting to Rachel's pain. The black surface beneath our feet rippled, and from the cracks between the steps, a dark mist began to seep upward.
Ethan grabbed my arm. "We need to move, now!"
I hesitated, staring down into the void. The whispers grew deafening, all merging into one voice, deep and terrible.
"Bring her to me…"
Rachel screamed, her body arching back violently. The glow beneath her skin flared blindingly bright, and the mansion's pulse synced perfectly with hers.
For a moment, everything stopped.
Then the light died, and Rachel collapsed into Maya's arms, trembling, weak but alive.
Maya looked up at me, her face streaked with sweat and fear. "What… what was that?"
I shook my head slowly. "The mansion just marked her. Whatever's down there—it knows she's coming."
Ethan stared down the spiraling stairs, his expression grim. "Then we're walking straight into its mouth."
I met his gaze. "We were already inside."
The darkness below shifted, pulsing faintly with crimson light. Something deep within the mansion stirred, answering Rachel's cries.
And as we began our descent once more, I realized that we weren't just walking toward the heart of the mansion.
We were walking toward its awakening.
The deeper we went, the more the stairway changed. The steps began to slant unevenly, warping beneath our feet. The walls pulsed with light—red, then black, then red again—like the mansion was breathing through its veins. The sound of the heartbeat was constant now, echoing in our bones instead of our ears.
Rachel's strength came and went in waves. She clung to Maya, trembling, eyes half-open, whispering things none of us wanted to hear.
"It's down there," she kept saying softly. "It's waiting for me. It knows my name."
Maya tried to hush her, brushing a strand of sweat-slicked hair from her face. "You're not going anywhere. You're with us. You're safe."
But none of us felt safe. The stairway felt endless, curving through dimensions that shouldn't exist. The air was cold, wet, metallic—like we were walking through the lungs of a corpse.
Ethan's flashlight flickered. "My light's dying," he muttered. "Battery was full ten minutes ago."
"Of course it's dying," I said quietly. "This place doesn't want us to see what's coming."
Maya glared at me over her shoulder. "Then stop talking like that. We need hope, not doom."
I wanted to believe her. I really did. But the deeper we went, the harder it became to pretend this was something we could fight.
The stairway leveled out suddenly, opening into a wide landing. The air here was warmer, heavy with dust. Carved symbols covered the walls—spirals, runes, strange markings that shimmered faintly when the light hit them.
Ethan ran his fingers over one. "These look… old. Way older than this mansion."
Rachel stirred weakly. "They're not old. They're alive."
We all froze. Her voice wasn't her own anymore—lower, almost melodic. The black veins along her neck glowed faintly.
"Rachel?" Maya asked, voice breaking.
Rachel looked at her, and for a moment, her eyes flashed crimson. "It speaks through me," she whispered. "It knows you. All of you."
Ethan swore and stepped back. "We have to tie her hands—something's taking control—"
"No!" Maya shouted, pulling Rachel close. "She's still in there! Don't touch her!"
Rachel's lips twisted into something between a smile and a grimace. "You can't stop it. It's already inside the walls, the air, the light. You breathe it in. It's part of you now."
A sound echoed through the stairwell then—a long, slow scraping, like claws dragging along metal. It came from below, climbing upward toward us. The temperature dropped instantly, frost crawling across the stone.
I raised the candelabrum higher, flame trembling. "Move. We're not waiting to see what that is."
Ethan didn't argue this time. We hurried down the next flight of stairs, Rachel half-carried between us. The sound followed, closer with every step.
Halfway down, the whispers started again—dozens of voices, overlapping, pleading. Some sounded like strangers. Others… didn't.
I froze. Among the chaos, one voice rose clear above the rest. My sister's voice.
"Help me, please…"
The sound cut straight through me. My sister had died three years ago. I'd buried her. I'd seen her coffin lowered into the ground.
But here—here she sounded alive. Terrified.
I spun toward the echo. "Lila?"
Maya grabbed my arm. "Don't. That's not real."
"I heard her," I snapped. "I know that voice!"
Ethan's flashlight flickered wildly, and for a heartbeat, the stairwell changed. The walls melted into hospital tiles. The pulsing red light became the flicker of emergency lamps. A figure stood below—small, trembling, hands reaching upward.
"Don't leave me again," the figure whispered.
My breath caught. "Lila…"
Maya yanked me backward. "It's not her! It's the house!"
The image shattered like glass. The stairway returned, and the whispers vanished. My knees nearly buckled.
Rachel had gone quiet again, head resting against Maya's shoulder. The black veins had spread to her jawline now, pulsing faintly in rhythm with the mansion's heart.
Ethan's voice was low, tight. "It's getting into our heads. Showing us what we want. Or what we fear."
"Both," I said.
We kept moving. The scraping below grew louder, closer. Then the stairway ended abruptly at a massive door—twice our height, made of black wood veined with faint red light. It pulsed with every beat of the mansion's heart.
Rachel stirred weakly, eyes opening. "It's here," she murmured. "Behind that door."
Ethan stepped back. "We are not opening that."
"We might not have a choice," I said. "It's driving us toward it. There's no other way left."
The heartbeat thundered, shaking the stairs beneath us. Cracks spread across the walls, dust raining from above. The mansion was demanding we move forward.
Rachel's eyes met mine, half-lucid, half-lost. "It wants to see you too," she said softly.
I stared at the pulsing door, and every instinct in my body screamed to turn back. But there was no way back now.
There never had been.
The door wasn't made to open—it was made to feed.Every surface shimmered with veins of light that pulsed in sync with our heartbeats. When I pressed my palm to it, the surface flexed under my hand like warm skin.
"Don't," Ethan warned, stepping closer with the flashlight raised. "We don't know what's—"
The door exhaled.
A rush of air, heavy with rot and something sweet, blew across us. The red light running through the wood flared, and the thing began to split down the middle. Not like a door unlocking—more like a wound opening.
Rachel screamed. The sound wasn't human anymore; it vibrated through the walls. She collapsed, clutching her stomach, and when Maya tore her hands away, we saw dark tendrils writhing beneath her skin, pressing upward like roots growing toward the light.
"She's—she's changing!" Maya shouted.
"Back!" Ethan grabbed her arm, but the floor lurched violently beneath us, throwing him off balance.
The door yawned wider, revealing a massive chamber beyond. No ceiling. No corners. Just an expanse of darkness filled with a sound like wet breathing.
And then we saw it.
A pulsing mass suspended in the air—neither flesh nor stone, but something between. It looked like a heart, enormous and ancient, hanging from tendrils that sank into the walls. The light that filled the mansion was coming from it. Every beat sent ripples through the floor.
"The heart of the house," I whispered.
Rachel's voice joined the rhythm. "It's alive because of us… it remembers us…"
"Shut up, Rachel," Ethan said, panic cracking his voice. "You're not yourself!"
She stood slowly, trembling, eyes blazing red. "None of us are. It's been eating pieces of us since we came in."
Her skin began to blister, smoke rising off her body. She staggered forward toward the heart, smiling faintly.
"Rachel!" Maya ran after her, but I caught her arm.
"Look," I said hoarsely. "She's not fighting it anymore."
Rachel reached the center of the chamber. The heart's tendrils descended like serpents, curling around her arms and shoulders. She didn't resist. Her body lifted from the ground as the tendrils pierced her chest.
Her scream shook the air—and then stopped.
The light dimmed. The heartbeat slowed.
When she turned back to us, her eyes were black voids.
"It knows your names now," she said. "It's waiting for you."
Maya fell to her knees, sobbing. Ethan stepped backward, flashlight shaking in his hand. I couldn't move.
The heart pulsed once—twice—then the entire chamber inhaled.
A rush of hot wind pulled us forward. The air reeked of decay and iron. Ethan dropped the light; it clattered across the floor and went out.
In the darkness, I heard Rachel's voice—no, not hers anymore. Something speaking through her.
"You came seeking shelter. Now you are part of the house. Every fear, every memory, every drop of blood—you belong here."
The floor rippled. Faces formed in the stone, mouths open in silent screams.
Maya clutched my arm. "We have to run. Please—"
"There's nowhere to go."
The truth hit like a hammer. The stairs were gone. The doorway we'd entered had closed, sealed over with living flesh. The only way left was down.
Below the heart, a spiral pit opened, black and endless.
The whispering rose from it—thousands of voices, crying, laughing, begging. Some of them sounded like people we'd known. Others sounded like us.
Ethan stepped forward, flashlight flickering back to life in his trembling hand. "If we don't stop it, it's going to eat us too."
"How?" I asked.
He stared into the pit. "We find the bottom."
I wanted to laugh. But the words made sense, in a horrible way. If the mansion had a heart… it must have a stomach.
We took one last look at Rachel—floating, smiling, her body tangled in the tendrils like an offering—and then we climbed down into the pit.
The heart's pulse followed us.
Slow. Heavy. Patient.
Waiting.