The House That Remembers
They told Elias never to go near Blackwood Manor.
Even as a child, he’d heard the stories—how the house stood on the edge of town, abandoned for
decades, its windows like empty eyes watching the world decay. No one lived there, not since the
Warrens vanished without a trace in 1903. But some nights, people swore they saw lights flickering
inside. Others claimed they heard whispers, the kind that slipped into your bones and stayed there.
Elias never believed in ghost stories. But now, with nowhere else to go, he stood at the manor’s iron
gates, rain sliding off his coat, his suitcase heavy in one hand.
It had been a long fall from grace. His debts had swallowed everything—his home, his reputation, his
future. But then came the letter, neatly folded and waiting for him at his lowest.
"Mr. Elias Warren,
You are the last of your bloodline. The estate is yours.
- A Friend."
Bloodline? He had no family. Not anymore. But desperation is a cruel thing. It makes you ignore the
warnings, ignore the way the world shifts around something that should not be.
The gate creaked open on its own.
Elias stepped inside.
—
The house smelled of dust and age, yet something lingered beneath it—something metallic, like rusted
iron. He ran his fingers over the grand staircase, the wooden banister smooth despite the years of
neglect. Paintings of unfamiliar faces lined the walls, their dark eyes following him as he moved.
At the heart of the house stood a single door.
It shouldn’t have caught his attention, but it did. It was different—newer than the rest of the house, its
wood unstained by time. The handle was cold against his palm.
Something shifted behind him.
A whisper. A breath.
He turned—nothing. Only the portraits.
Their faces had changed.
Where once they had been neutral, now their mouths stretched wide in silent screams.
Elias’s pulse hammered. He tried to step back, but his body refused to move. A pressure built behind his
eyes, a memory clawing its way free.
The Warrens had not disappeared.
They had been swallowed.
By this house.
By the door.
It had been waiting for him.
The whisper came again, this time from inside his skull.
"Come home."
The door creaked open, revealing nothing but darkness. Not empty space, not another room—just a
void, deeper than any night.
Elias tried to resist, but his body was no longer his own. His feet moved forward. The darkness reached
for him.
And the house remembered.
The next day, Blackwood Manor stood as it always had. Silent. Waiting.
And in one of the old portraits, a new face had appeared.
Mouth open.
Screaming.
