Ethan woke slowly, with the uneasy awareness that he was not alone.
The first thing he noticed was the sound of breathing, steady and measured, coming from somewhere beyond his own body.
It took several seconds for him to realize that the rhythm did not belong to any of them. The sound came from the walls themselves, as though the house were inhaling and exhaling around him.
He opened his eyes and found himself lying on a narrow bed inside a small room. The walls were pale and unadorned, the corners too clean to feel natural.
There were no windows, no furniture beyond the bed, and no visible seams where the walls met the ceiling. A single light glowed overhead, bright but not warm.
His wrists throbbed painfully, and when he lifted his hands, he saw faint red marks where restraints had held him earlier.
The memory of the chair returned in flashes that made his stomach twist. The glass wall. The man's calm voice. The images of the others inside their rooms.
Ethan sat up too quickly, and the room tilted. He steadied himself, breathing through the pressure building behind his eyes.
The whisper lingered at the edge of his thoughts, quieter now but no less insistent.
He swung his legs off the bed and stood, ignoring the weakness in his knees. The door stood directly across from him. When he pressed his palm against it, the surface felt warm, almost alive.
"Liam," he called, his voice hoarse.
There was no response.
"Maya," he tried again, louder this time.
Silence answered him.
Just as panic began to rise in his chest, the door slid open smoothly, revealing the corridor beyond, and the others were already there.
Maya stood closest to him, her posture tense and drawn inward, with her eyes were red and swollen, and she clutched a small stuffed animal against her chest as though it were the only solid thing left in the world.
The fabric was darkened in places, stained in a way Ethan did not want to think about.
She looked up when she saw him. Relief crossed her face for a brief moment before something darker replaced it.
"You saw it too," she said quietly.
Ethan nodded.
Liam leaned heavily against the opposite wall. His face was pale, and his hands trembled as though he had lost control over them entirely.
The clothing he wore now was different from before, simpler and darker, and angry red marks circled his wrists.
"I read everything," Liam said, staring at the floor. "Every letter. Every receipt. Every lie he told himself."
Noah sat on the ground nearby with his back pressed to the wall. His knees were drawn to his chest, and his eyes were unfocused, and his mouth twitched occasionally, as if he were trying to form a joke and failing every time.
Chloe stood apart from the rest of them, her arms folded tightly across her chest. She looked composed at first glance, but Ethan could see the strain in her jaw and the unnatural stillness in her posture.
He stepped toward her. "What did you hear on the phone?"
She did not look at him immediately. When she did, her gaze was sharp and unsettlingly calm. "I heard myself," she said. "Leaving a message. Telling the police where we were."
Maya let out a soft, broken sound.
Chloe continued, "I remembered standing outside the house before the storm. I remembered hesitating. And I remembered you telling us we should go inside."
Ethan felt the floor shift beneath him. "I did not force anyone."
"You convinced us," Chloe replied.
"Whether you meant to or not."
The lights dimmed slightly, as though the house were paying closer attention.
A low chime echoed through the corridor, resonant and deliberate. It sounded three times, evenly spaced, and then a door slid open at the far end of the hall.
Beyond it lay a large room.
They moved together without speaking, driven by the unspoken understanding that hesitation would only make things worse. The room was circular, with a high ceiling that vanished into shadow. At the center stood a long wooden table, dark and heavy, surrounded by five chairs.
Words were carved deeply into the wall behind it.
WELCOME TO THE FIRST CASE
Beneath that, in smaller lettering, was another message.
TRUTH REQUIRES PARTICIPATION
Five objects rested on the table:
A sealed letter marked with red wax.
A small music box shaped like a child's toy.
A silver locket.
A bundle of photographs tied together with string.
A notebook stained dark with dried blood.
Liam stared at them. "This is my room," he said.
Maya shook her head slowly. "No. This is mine."
"It is all of ours," Chloe said, her voice tight.
Ethan felt the pressure behind his eyes intensify. The whisper grew clearer.
You know this story.
The man appeared near the edge of the room without warning.
"The first round is observational," he said calmly. "You will examine the evidence. You will reconstruct events. You will decide what happened."
"And if we decide wrong," Noah asked weakly.
"The house will correct you, with a price," the man replied.
Liam reached for the letter.
The moment his fingers touched the wax seal, the room shifted.
The walls darkened. The air grew heavy with the scent of medicine and decay. The circular chamber dissolved around them, replaced by a cluttered study.
A man sat hunched over a desk, writing frantically.
Silas Blackwood.
Liam's hands shook as he held the letter. "He writes about his daughter," he said. "Her illness. The treatments. The debt."
The scene changed.
They stood in a child's bedroom filled with drawings and toys. Maya lifted the music box, and it began to play on its own, the melody slow and warped.
"She was afraid," Maya whispered. "She knew something was wrong."
Chloe picked up the photographs. They rose into the air around them, showing images of the house at different stages of construction. Hidden rooms. Basement levels that should not have existed.
"He built a space underneath," Chloe said. "For something ritualistic."
Noah opened the locket and recoiled. Inside was a tiny portrait of a girl and a lock of hair.
Ethan opened the notebook. Blood flaked from the pages as he read aloud. "She says the house remembers. She says the rules matter."
The vision shifted again.
They stood in the basement. Candles surrounded a circle drawn on the floor. A small body lay at its center.
Maya screamed.
The image froze.
"The father believed sacrifice would create a vessel," the man said. "He was mistaken."
"The girl still died," Chloe said.
"Yes," the man replied. "And so did others."
The room returned to the table.
The objects rearranged themselves violently, and the letter burned to ash.
The music box snapped shut. The photographs tore apart. The locket cracked. The notebook slammed closed.
New words appeared on the wall.
CASE INCOMPLETE
Maya collapsed to her knees. "What did we miss?"
The man looked at Ethan.
"You," he said.
Ethan's head filled with noise. Memories surged forward.
A chair.
A countdown.
A promise whispered through tears.
"You were present," the man continued.
"Not as yourself. But as witness."
"This is not real," Ethan said, his voice shaking.
"It is real enough," the man replied.
The walls began to close in, with darkness flooded the room again, and something began to move within it.
Maya grabbed Ethan's hand desperately. "Do not let it choose for us."
Ethan squeezed her fingers, his heart pounding. "Then we choose," he said.
The darkness breathed.