He stumbled backward, breath shallow,hands trembling.His skin felt too tight-like it barely fit him anymore. His heart pounded not from fear,but recognition.

He'd been here before.

Not in body, but in memory. Or in something worse than memory-something that gnawed at the edges of his mind without ever letting him see its shape.

The darkness pressed closer, thick as old velvet, brushing the sides of his throat with invisible fingers.

A sound broke the silence. A soft creak.

Somewhere beyond the living room, a door had opened.

Not slammed. Not forced.

Just opened, like it was inviting him in.

His gaze drifted back to the ruined portrait, the words carved into the frame-YOU LET IT HAPPEN-still crawling down his spine like insects searching for a way inside.

But what?

What had he done?

Or worse-what had he failed to do?

He turned back to the hallway. The bulb overhead was gone, shattered to dust, and the darkness there was thicker than before, as if it had swallowed the memory of light.

He moved anyway, feet carrying him before he decided to follow.

The silence wasn't empty anymore.

It was full.

Full of eyes. Full of breath that wasn't his.

He passed crooked picture frames with faces scratched out, each one turned slightly in his direction as he passed. A single frame fell from the wall and burst into glass splinters at his feet, but he didn't flinch.

Something worse waited ahead.

At the very end, a white door stood slightly ajar. Its paint warped and blistered. A dark red smear gleamed on the handle.

His hand shook as he reached for it.

The hinges sighed, releasing air that smelled of cold ash and something sweeter-like old flowers left too long in a sealed coffin.

A child's room.

The smell hit him first.

Not rot. Not mildew.

Grief.

It clung to the walls, soaked into the toys scattered across the floor-a headless teddy bear, a wooden block split in half, a small pillow stained dark.

He stepped inside.

Crayon drawings covered the far wall-hundreds of them layered over one another in frantic color.

At first glance: suns, houses, smiling stick figures.

But as he looked longer, the shapes twisted.

A figure standing outside a burning house.

A child with no mouth.

A tall shape drawn entirely in black, arms too long, standing behind a smaller figure that was only a silhouette.

One word scratched over and over at the margins in a child's shaky hand:

Home?

His chest tightened until he thought his ribs would snap.

On a dresser sat a music box.

He lifted the lid.

The melody that drifted out was warped, slowed to a crawling moan.

Inside, a porcelain ballerina spun in endless circles-headless, armless, just a cracked torso pivoting over and over.

He closed the lid. The music didn't stop.

He turned toward the closet.

He didn't want to.

But something pulled him anyway.

The bulb overhead flickered as he opened the door.

Inside, beneath a row of hanging baby clothes, sat a small box.

Smoke curled up from its seams in lazy ribbons.

He knelt.

Opened it.

A melted child's shoe.

A photograph burned around the edges-half of a woman's face still visible.

A toy car stained black.

And at the bottom, a cassette recorder.

It clicked on by itself.

A voice, hoarse and wet with tears:

"You said ten minutes, John. You said you'd be right back. We waited. The smoke-God, the smoke-"

A crackle.

Then a small voice, whispering:

"Daddy... why didn't you open the door?"

He dropped the recorder.

Something inside him cracked.

But no memory came.

Only grief.

The kind that sticks under your nails and won't wash away.

He didn't remember leaving the room.

One moment, he was staring at the box.

The next, he was standing in the kitchen doorway.

The kitchen was untouched by time-but wrong in every possible way.

Every cupboard stood open, empty.

Every surface clean and gleaming, except for the table.

A single plate rested in the center.

On it: raw meat, thick and dark, glistening wet under the flickering light.

He didn't know what kind it was.

His stomach turned to acid.

Beside the plate, a folded note:

You let them go hungry. But you fed yourself.

The meat pulsed once, as if something inside it had remembered how to breathe.

He staggered back.

Vomited nothing.

His mouth was full of ash.

On the wall, a clock ticked.

This one had hands.

But they moved backward, each second marked by a wet scraping sound, like flesh dragged across tile.

Tick.

Tick.

Behind him, the kitchen groaned.

The table bent inward.

The plate of meat shivered.

Slowly, he turned to the oven's glass door-

-and saw the reflection of a figure standing behind him.

Tall.

Motionless.

Wrapped in black.

A crown of thorns pressed into the shape of a skull.

It did not move.

It did not speak.

But its presence emptied the air from the room.

He blinked.

Gone.

He stumbled out into the hallway again, every breath scraping raw against his ribs.

The walls pulsed softly, like a living lung exhaling rot.

At the far end, a mirror waited.

He looked.

And this time, the reflection didn't bother pretending.

It only stared.

Its mouth moved.

"You forgot again."

The house groaned around him, old wood flexing like bone.

A door appeared where there had been none.

And behind it, something waited.

Watching.

And waiting for him to remember.

"You forgot again."

The house groaned.

A new door appeared where there was none before.

And behind it, something waited.

Watching.