Silence lived around House 27.
Not peaceful silence.
Arranged silence.
Even the wind avoided the gate. Leaves froze mid-fall near the trees, landing only once they crossed the property line. Aarohi stepped forward cautiously, each footfall echoing slightly too long, as if the ground was remembering her weight.
Her suitcase rolled ahead of her again, bumping gently into the front steps and stopping as though obedient.
The front door shifted.
Slowly.
Not pushed.
Not forced.
It opened inward with a patient, breathing sound.
The air inside smelled like old rain mixed with iron — the scent of storms trapped indoors for decades.
Aarohi hesitated at the threshold.
Then the house inhaled.
She stepped in.
The hallway stretched farther than the outside shape allowed. Shadows clung unnaturally to corners, refusing to detach. Frames lined the walls. Family portraits. But the faces were wrong — blurred, scratched, stitched over with dark paint like someone had tried to erase their identities violently.
Then she saw one untouched frame.
Her own face stared back at her.
Eight years old. Yellow dress. Hair braided by her mother. Same tiny scar above her eyebrow from falling off her bicycle.
Her knees weakened.
At the bottom of the photo, written carefully in red ink:
WELCOME BACK, AAROHI.
Her throat closed.
"I've never been here," she whispered.
The door behind her moved.
Closed.
Not slammed.
Sealed.
The click echoed like the end of a sentence.
The air thickened.
Somewhere deep in the walls, something adjusted itself — as if the house had just learned her shape.
A faint whisper drifted through the corridor.
"Aaru…"
Her grandmother's voice.
Dead for three years.
Tears stung instantly.
"No," Aarohi murmured. "You're gone."
But House 27 did not believe in gone.