**The Homecoming**

Asha stepped out of her car and inhaled deeply, her eyes sweeping over the familiar silhouette of her grandparents' house. Twenty-five years had passed since she'd last been here, but the memories remained vivid - summer afternoons spent on the porch, her grandmother's cooking, and her grandfather's gentle laughter. But now, both were gone. The house stood eerily quiet, its windows dark and uninviting. After completing her medical studies and securing a job at a nearby hospital as a cardiovascular surgeon, Asha decided to move back. It was a practical decision: the house was free, and it was close to work. She didn't believe in lingering spirits or haunted places. Life, for her, was science, logic, and reason.

The first night, Asha felt something - a chill in the air, a fleeting shadow in the corner of her eye. It was easy to dismiss. The house was old, and her nerves were on edge from the stress of starting a new job. As the days passed, strange occurrences continued. The creak of footsteps echoed in the hallway when no one was there. Objects moved from their original places, and sometimes, she could swear she heard whispering when the wind howled through the trees.

But Asha, ever the rationalist, chalked it all up to the quirks of an aging house. "Old pipes, faulty wiring, nothing more," she would tell herself as she shrugged off another oddity.

One evening, while she was walking back from the hospital, an elderly nun crossed her path. The woman stopped, staring at Asha's house with wide, fearful eyes.

"That place... there's something dangerous inside," the nun muttered, her voice trembling.

Asha forced a smile. "I don't believe in ghosts or spirits. It's just an old house."

The nun grabbed her arm, eyes desperate. "Not a ghost, child. Something much worse. You need to leave."

But Asha pulled away, refusing to let superstition take root in her mind. She returned home, pushing aside the unnerving encounter. It was late, and she had surgeries to perform the next morning. There was no time for nonsense.

Over the next few weeks, things escalated. The electricity flickered constantly, casting unsettling shadows in every corner. A foul odor began to permeate the air, growing stronger each day. Still, Asha convinced herself it was just mold, decay from the house's long abandonment. At night, her dreams were vivid, filled with darkness, screams, and a presence watching her from every shadow. Yet, when she woke, she dismissed it all as stress.

One night, while reviewing patient files late into the night, she heard a knock at the door. The noise was soft, but persistent. She glanced at the clock - it was almost midnight. Cautiously, Asha walked to the door and opened it. No one was there. Yet, the sense of being watched grew stronger. Her skin prickled, and a sudden wave of nausea hit her.

Still, she convinced herself that it was nothing. Sleep, she thought. She just needed sleep.

But that night, the dreams were worse. She was no longer the observer - this time, she was being pulled into the darkness. Cold hands gripped her, and something whispered in her ear, promising things she didn't want to hear.

When she woke up, the whispers didn't stop.

The line between reality and nightmare began to blur. The presence in the house was no longer something she could deny. It was there, always. Watching, waiting. But she fought it. She was a doctor, a woman of science. There was no room in her life for superstition.

One morning, Asha passed a mirror and stopped, staring at her reflection. Her eyes - there was something wrong with them. Something hollow. As if a part of her was missing. But just as quickly as the thought came, she shook it off. Schizophrenia ran in her family; her mother had been institutionalized for it. Perhaps this was just a genetic curse finally catching up to her.

But no amount of rationalizing could explain what happened next.

It started with the overwhelming urge. The urge to hurt. To destroy. One night, she drove to her family's home for the annual family dinner. The urge was so strong she couldn't resist anymore. Her hands felt as though they weren't her own, moving in ways that frightened her. She met everyone, her mother, dad, younger sister and her family dog, Sheba. As she saw the knives on the table being laid, she couldn't resist herself to just pick it up and stab it into her father's neck and do it until she could see his spine.

She had to get a hold of herself- she went to the bathroom to wash her face and to snap out of the horrendous thoughts she had about her own father, whom she loved and cherished. After washing her face she looked up, who she saw in the mirror wasn't her... It was a skull, full of maggots and rotten skin falling from the cheekbones and teeth with leeches in them. As she saw herself, her anger grew.... which led her to the kitchen and finding a butcher knife and killing everyone, even the dog within half an hour. She had too much power, it was as if the entity was a part of her, just like the nun described. There was nothing but blood and pieces of human meat and broken bones across the dining room, and of course, Asha's laugh. Her laugh showed the pleasure she got from murdering her entire family.

No sooner after that, she fell unconscious to the floor. When she woke up, she was her true human self and seeing what she had done made her petrified. She quickly called the cops and tried to turn herself in.

When the police found her, her hands were covered in blood. The once brilliant surgeon was now a hollow shell, eyes empty, muttering incoherently. Her family lay dead in the most brutal, unspeakable manner.

In the investigation that followed, doctors diagnosed her with hereditary schizophrenia. But there were those - those like the nun - who whispered that it wasn't just madness. They believed the entity in the house had consumed her, possessed her, and used her to carry out its dark desires.

No one ever went near the house again.

But at night, some say, you can still hear the whispering from within.

And if you listen closely enough, you'll hear Asha's voice among them, pleading for release.