He stood there, staring at the mirror, the name still echoing behind his teeth like a curse he didn’t understand.

John Waleson.

He tried to say it again, but the syllables caught in his throat, thick as congealed blood. He pressed a trembling palm to the glass. The reflection watched him without curiosity. It didn’t blink. It didn’t breathe.

It felt almost relieved when he looked away.

The silence stretched, expanding until it became a presence in itself—dense and sour, like the air in a sealed crypt.

He turned from the mirror, slow as if fearing that sudden movement would break whatever fragile truce he had with the house.

The hallway beyond seemed longer now. Narrower. As though the walls had crept in by inches while he stared at himself.

He moved forward, bare feet brushing over the dust-choked floorboards. They were cold—cold with a depth that felt ancient, more like the memory of cold than any living chill. Every step pressed that memory into the marrow of his bones.

And as he walked, the air thickened around him. Not like fog, but like something alive, pressing down with invisible hands, testing the softness of his skin.

Somewhere behind him, the mirror still stood, reflecting a shape he no longer trusted.

He didn’t look back.

At the end of the hallway, a door waited—slightly ajar. Its paint curled and blistered, flaking off in papery ribbons. The doorknob sagged sideways, like it had been twisted too many times by hands that never left fingerprints.

A soft dread pooled in his stomach, black and heavy.

He reached for the door.

The moment his fingers brushed the wood, the hinges gave a long, shuddering groan—like something inside had been holding its breath.

The room beyond was dim. A single bulb swung from the ceiling, flickering in a sickly rhythm that set the shadows crawling over the walls like hungry insects.

A clock hung crooked over a low cabinet. Its round white face was unblemished—perfect—except for the absence of hands. No ticking. No time. Just an empty stare.

He stepped closer, compelled by an unease that tasted like rust.

The air around the clock felt wrong—denser, colder, almost liquid. The longer he looked, the more his eyes burned, until tears welled hot and useless.

He tore his gaze away.

The rest of the room resembled a living room, but the word felt obscene here. A couch crouched under the window, cushions sagging as if someone had been sitting there for years, wearing grooves into the fabric. Dust lay in thick drifts across every surface, but no cobwebs clung to the corners—no sign that any living creature had ever dared to build a home here.

This was not neglect.

This was preparation.

He moved to a tall bookshelf. His fingertips grazed the spines of dozens of identical books. The same title, repeated in dull silver letters:

The Weight of What You Have Done.

He pulled one free. Opened it.

Blank pages.

Every one.

He turned them faster, faster, desperate to find words, but the emptiness never changed. Only the smell rose—ash and something older, something like regret that had rotted through.

He replaced the book with shaking hands.

On a side table, a cluster of picture frames stood with their faces turned to the wall. As though they, too, had decided they couldn’t bear to look.

He picked one up.

Turned it over.

The man in the center wore a hesitant smile, the practiced shape of a stranger posing for someone else’s memory. A woman stood beside him, her face blurred to a smear. A small child clutched the hem of her skirt, little more than a faded shape.

But the man...

The man was him.

Recognition struck like a wound. Not a memory—something deeper. An ache in the bones. A knowledge that had always been waiting for him to remember.

His fingers clamped around the frame until it creaked.

He didn’t remember the photo being taken. He didn’t remember the woman. Or the child.

But his hands remembered how to hold them.

A dull sound rasped behind the couch. Not a voice—something lower. A scraping whisper, like nails sliding over old wood.

He turned, each step heavier than the last, as though the house itself had begun to pull him down into its slow decay.

Above the couch hung a large portrait.

Him again.

This time alone.

His expression wasn’t empty. It was waiting—somewhere between sorrow and erasure.

But the eyes were gone.

Blackened holes stared back, scorched deep into the canvas, ringed with radiating cracks like impact fractures.

Beneath the portrait, carved into the frame in jagged strokes:

YOU LET IT HAPPEN.

His breath caught. The words hit something inside him that had no name, no shape—only pain.

The bulb overhead buzzed louder. Louder. The sound grew swollen, an electric snarl vibrating through his ribs.

Then—

The glass shattered in a soft, almost tender crack.

Fragments drifted down like falling teeth. A few landed cold in his hair. He didn’t move.

Darkness swallowed the room.

Only the portrait remained visible, its burned eyes staring through him, seeing everything he could not remember.

And in that blackness, he felt it again—

Not behind him.

Inside the walls.

Inside him.

Watching.

Waiting.

And patient enough to never leave.