The basement steps groaned under my weight, each creak sounding like a bone breaking. The blue fire cast long, wavering shadows that licked at the walls but left no burns. Anya—or the thing wearing her skin—stood perfectly still at the center of the nine burning chairs, her head tilted at an angle no human neck could manage.
"Breakfast is getting cold," she said, her voice splitting into harmonies that made my teeth ache.
Li's fingers tightened around mine, his nails sharpening into points. "You should sit down, Dad." He gestured to the ninth chair—the one holding my wedding ring. The metal glowed white-hot, but the plastic seat beneath it remained untouched by the flames.
Something moved in the darkest corner of the basement. A slow, wet sound, like meat being dragged across concrete.
I took a step back.
Li sighed. "You always do this."
---
The First Truth
The walls weren't just covered in writing. Up close, I could see they were made of it—layer upon layer of etched letters forming a lattice of warnings:
she is not anya
the child is older than the house
the pills are made of your memories
The fifth chair held the scalpel. Its blade reflected the firelight in jagged bursts, showing glimpses of things I shouldn't have been able to see:
- A laboratory where a woman who looked like Anya strapped a sobbing child to a table
- The original Lu Chen burying something in a shallow grave
- Myself, in another life, plunging that same scalpel into a golden-eyed boy's chest
Li climbed onto the sixth chair, swinging his legs. "You're being rude, Dad. Mom worked so hard on this meal."
On the concrete floor, the firelight revealed a pattern I'd missed before—a spiral of tiny handprints, each one smaller than the last, leading to the shadowed corner.
The dragging sound grew louder.
---
The Second Truth
Anya's smile stretched. Not metaphorically. The corners of her mouth split open with wet, tearing sounds, revealing rows of needle-thin teeth. "You used to love my cooking," she said, and the thing beneath her skin pulsed in time with the words.
The eighth chair held the bullet. When I reached for it, the metal seared my palm, branding me with numerals: *9-217-1*.
Li giggled. "That one's mine! I made it in arts and crafts."
The first chair—the one with the champagne flute—suddenly contained a man. He was naked, his skin covered in the same etched writing as the walls, his mouth sewn shut with piano wire. His terrified eyes locked onto mine.
I knew that face.
It was mine.
---
The Third Truth
The dragging sound resolved into footsteps.
A figure emerged from the shadows—a hunched, spindly thing with golden eyes and too many joints. It moved like a broken marionette, its limbs twitching in unnatural rhythms.
Li clapped his hands. "Grandma's here!"
The thing that was not Anya curtsied. "Welcome home, Mother."
The creature's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. When it spoke, the voice was Mu's, but filtered through something far older:
"You were always my favorite project, Chen."
It extended a hand.
Not to me.
To Li.
The boy's grin turned feral as he took it. "Told you he'd figure it out," he said, and for the first time, I heard the heir's true voice beneath the child's pitch.
The basement walls began to bleed.
---
The ninth chair burst into flames so bright they cast no shadow.
Through the fire, I saw:
- An operating room where a faceless surgeon stitched golden eyes into a screaming infant
- A funeral with nine empty caskets
- A house that wasn't a house at all, but a gaping mouth lined with teeth of broken glass
Li leaned close, his breath smelling of pennies and spoiled milk. "Time to choose, Dad." He pressed the scalpel into my hand. "Do you want to be part of this family..."
The thing wearing Anya's skin reached for me.
"...or do you want to be dinner?"
The basement door slammed shut above us.
And the walls began to breathe.