It started with a whisper.
Jon woke up in the unfamiliar guest room of his friend’s countryside house, the air thick with something old, something *watching*. The whisper had no source—just a faint breath in the silence, curling around his ears.
He shook it off. It was probably the wind sneaking through the cracks of the ancient wooden walls. But when he turned over, the mirror across the room showed his reflection—except it didn’t move with him.
Jon’s chest tightened. He sat up, watching as his reflection remained frozen, eyes locked on him like an intruder in his own skin. Then, slowly—horribly—it lifted a hand and pointed behind him.
Jon whirled around. Nothing. Just the darkened corner of the room. But the whisper came again. This time, closer.
*"You shouldn’t be here."*
He stumbled to his feet, heart hammering. The house creaked as if exhaling. His phone was dead. The hallway beyond the door stretched unnaturally long, the paintings on the walls shifting in the corner of his eye. The faces were changing. **Watching. Smiling.**
"Tom?" Jon called, hoping his friend was still awake. No answer—just the slow, rhythmic sound of something breathing in the walls.
He ran toward the stairs, but the steps stretched *downward*, spiraling endlessly into a darkness that didn’t belong to the house. He turned back, but the hallway behind him had changed—the doors warped, melting like wax, revealing gaps where hands began reaching through.
Panic surged. He sprinted, turning blindly into a random door—only to find himself back in the guest room. His reflection was already inside, waiting.
It smiled.
*"You took too long."*
The whisper returned, no longer faint. It was inside his head now, **filling** it.
*"The house remembers who dies inside it."*
The lights flickered. The mirror shattered. And Jon understood—**he had been here before.**
And he had never left.