Sleep came like drowning.
Evelyn found herself standing in the hallway again.
Lights pulsed weakly.
At the end stood a family.
The pastor's skin looked stretched thin, like something else wore him from inside.
The woman clutched a Bible with blank pages that bled ink.
The children stood rigid. Their mouths were sewn shut with thick thread, still wet.
They knelt together.
The pastor spoke without opening his lips:
"We prayed until heaven went quiet."
The hallway contracted.
The woman raised hollow eyes.
"So we made the house listen instead."
The children began smashing their heads into the walls.
Thud.
Crack.
Wet thud.
The wallpaper soaked red.
Evelyn screamed—
—and woke up still standing.
In the hallway.
Her feet stuck to the carpet.
Behind the walls came knocking.
Not fists.
Skulls.
The house remembered the rhythm.