The hallway was no longer just a hallway.
It shifted, subtly, like breathing walls. With every step, the wallpaper faded from gold to deep crimson, and the paintings lining the walls whispered.
Literally whispered.
She couldn't hear the words—only the sensation of her name being said in voices she didn't recognize.
"Saira…"
"Do you remember?"
"Don't run again."
She clutched the letter still folded in her coat pocket. The seal was warm against her skin, as if pulsing with something alive. She had no idea where she was, but part of her knew this place was not just made of wood and brick.
It was stitched from memory.
Suddenly, the hallway ended in a sharp turn. One door stood there, carved with a moon and a mirror. Unlike the last, this one didn't wait for her to knock.
It swung open by itself.
---
The room inside was dim, lit only by the glow of a single oil lamp. On the far wall was a giant canvas — covered in white paint.
Blank.
Waiting.
Next to it, an old wooden chair. Someone sat in it.
A man with eyes like smoke and a coat that shimmered like ink in water. He looked young and ancient all at once.
"You're late," he said calmly.
Saira froze. "Late?"
"The house called you months ago. You ignored it."
"I didn't see—"
"No," he cut in. "You didn't want to."
He stood, tall and strange. "I am the Keeper of the Unfinished. This room belongs to those who leave things undone. Promises. Paintings. People."
He gestured to the canvas. "You can't move forward until you finish what you buried."
Saira's throat dried. "I don't paint anymore."
"Then you'll never leave."
She looked at the canvas again.
And the canvas looked back.
A faint image began to emerge. Not painted — but remembered. It was her brother, Jay, sitting by the window in their old apartment, laughing with a birthday crown on his head. She'd started that painting the day before the accident.
She'd never finished it.
Her hand trembled as she reached for a brush that hadn't been there a moment ago.
She painted.
Just one stroke — and the whole room flickered like a broken film reel.
---
Suddenly, she wasn't in the room anymore.
She was in the memory.
Standing in their old apartment. Her brother alive, just behind her, humming to himself.
"Hey, Sai," he said, grinning. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
She couldn't speak.
Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
"Don't worry so much, alright? I'll be fine."
Saira fell to her knees. She hadn't heard that voice in almost a year.
He looked down at her, confused.
And then the room around her cracked — glass breaking from every direction.
Jay faded like fog.
The apartment melted.
She was back in the chair. The Keeper now sat beside the canvas, which was finished.
Jay looked peaceful in the painting.
Smiling.
But beneath the canvas, in carved script, was a sentence that hadn't been there before:
"You were never meant to save him. Only yourself."
---
The door behind her creaked.
Another had appeared.
Smaller, blackened, and locked — with her name engraved across the wood.
"You're not done yet," the Keeper said, watching her. "You've only opened the first scar."