The clock ticked.
2:16 a.m.
Ethan stood frozen in the doorway of his childhood bedroom, his fingers gripping the wood so tightly his knuckles burned. The hallway below was packed with people who should not exist—faces pale, eyes hollow, bodies standing too still, as if held upright by invisible strings.
At the center of them all stood Lily.
She looked exactly as she had the night she died. Same white dress. Same small scar near her eyebrow from when she fell off her bicycle. She even smelled the same—soap and rain and something faintly sweet.
"Come down," she said again, her voice gentle, loving. "You don't want to be late."
The clock clicked forward.
2:17 a.m.
The air changed instantly.
The house exhaled.
Walls stretched, bones groaned, and the ceiling lowered just enough to make Ethan feel trapped inside a closing rib cage. The breathing pit beneath the house roared awake, its rhythm now fast, hungry.
Ethan stepped back.
"No," he whispered. "You're not her."
Lily smiled wider.
Her teeth were wrong.
Too many.
Too sharp.
"You always say that," she replied. "Every time."
The people in the hallway tilted their heads in unison.
Ethan's heart stuttered.
"Every time?" he echoed.
The house answered for her.
Memories flooded his mind—not his own, but others'. Different Ethans. Different years. Different faces wearing his fear. Men who looked like him but older… thinner… broken.
All Walkers.
All led down the stairs.
All feeding the house.
Ethan screamed as the visions tore through him. He saw one Ethan trying to burn the house. Another smashing mirrors. Another hanging himself in the orchard—only to wake up again inside the walls.
None escaped.
"You're not the first," Lily said softly. "You're just the last."
The crowd parted.
The staircase opened.
Black veins crept along the walls like veins beneath skin, pulsing faster with every breath the house took. The scent of iron filled the air.
Ethan turned and ran.
The bedroom door slammed shut behind him.
The walls closed in.
The mirror across the room began to ripple.
Rule Three screamed in his head.
Mirrors are doors after midnight.
The glass bulged outward, as if something pressed from the other side. Fingers formed. Faces followed—twisted, screaming, begging.
Ethan grabbed a chair and hurled it at the mirror.
The glass exploded.
Instead of shards, darkness poured out, spilling across the floor like liquid night. Hands grabbed his ankles, cold and desperate.
"STAY," the house thundered.
Ethan kicked free and burst through the bedroom window.
Glass tore into his arms as he fell.
The ground did not feel like ground.
It felt like flesh.
The orchard twisted around him, trees bending inward, their bark splitting to reveal veins and pulsing growths. The moon hung low and red, watching.
Ethan staggered to his feet and ran toward the old well.
His father's voice echoed in his head.
You still have time. Before the next feeding.
The well was older than the house.
Older than the deal.
Ethan reached it just as the ground behind him split open.
The house rose.
Not the structure—the thing inside it.
The earth cracked as something vast shifted beneath the foundation. The breathing pit opened wide, and the house stretched upward, windows becoming eyes, doors becoming mouths.
The crowd emerged from the walls, stepping into the orchard.
They surrounded Ethan.
Lily stepped forward.
Her face peeled open down the center, revealing darkness beneath.
"We don't need blood," the house said through her mouth. "We need memory."
Black veins erupted from the soil, wrapping around Ethan's legs, his torso, his throat. Visions slammed into him—every guilt, every regret, every forgotten moment ripped open and consumed.
He screamed as the house fed.
Then—silence.
The veins loosened.
The pressure faded.
The house recoiled.
Something had gone wrong.
Ethan gasped, collapsing to his knees. His vision swam. The orchard trembled violently.
From the well came a sound.
A voice.
Ancient.
Angry.
"You were promised containment," it said. "Not indulgence."
The ground shook as light burst from the well—blinding, white, burning. The shadows screamed.
The house shrieked.
For the first time, it was afraid.
Jonathan's voice echoed.
"Now, Ethan!"
Understanding slammed into him.
The house wasn't the monster.
It was the lock.
Ethan crawled to the well and looked down.
There was no bottom.
Only light… and something vast moving inside it.
He turned back to the house.
It lunged.
Ethan made his choice.
He jumped.
The world exploded.
---
Ethan woke to silence.
Real silence.
Birds.
Wind.
Sunlight.
He lay in the orchard grass, shaking.
The house was gone.
In its place stood a ruin—collapsed stone, dead wood, nothing breathing anymore.
Villagers gathered at the edge of the clearing, whispering.
A woman stepped forward.
"You stopped it," she said.
Ethan stared at his hands.
They were not entirely his anymore.
Black veins pulsed faintly beneath his skin.
From deep within his chest, something breathed.
Slow.
Patient.
Ethan smiled weakly.
The house was gone.
But the hunger…
It had learned a new home.