The house stood at the end of the lane like it had been placed there on purpose—separate from the others, untouched by time. No footprints disturbed the dust before it, yet the gate hung open, creaking softly as if someone had passed through only moments ago. I paused at the threshold, a strange certainty tightening my chest. I had never been here before, yet something in me knew the way.
The front door was not locked.
That alone felt wrong.
Its wooden surface was old, darkened by years of weather and silence, but the handle was warm. Not sun-warmed—alive-warm. I pulled my hand back instinctively and listened. The house did not make the sounds houses usually make. No settling beams. No wind slipping through cracks. It was quiet in a way that felt intentional, like a held breath.
I had not planned to enter.
Yet my hand returned to the handle without my permission.
The door opened inward, slowly, without resistance, revealing a narrow hallway swallowed in shadow. The smell inside was unfamiliar—neither rot nor dampness, but something faintly metallic, like rain hitting rust. As the door creaked wider, the air shifted. Cooler. Heavier. The silence behind me pressed forward, urging me inside.
When I crossed the threshold, the door closed.
Not slammed. Not pushed. It simply closed, softly, as if concluding a long wait.
I turned sharply, heart pounding. The handle did not move when I tried it. There was no lock—no visible mechanism at all. Just wood and iron, smooth and unbroken. The house had sealed itself around me.
That was when I felt it.
Awareness.
Not presence. Not movement. Something closer to attention. The hallway stretched ahead, lined with doors on both sides, each one identical, each one shut. I felt the strange sensation of being measured, like a thought being examined before it was allowed to exist.
A faint sound drifted from somewhere deeper inside. Not footsteps. Not a voice. More like the echo of something remembering how sound used to work.
"Hello?" I called.
The word fell flat, swallowed before it reached the far end of the hall.
The lights flickered on suddenly, one by one, though there were no switches in sight. The walls were bare, but the longer I looked, the more I sensed impressions beneath the paint—scratches, marks, patterns that disappeared when I focused on them.
This house had been lived in.
No—this house had observed.
As I moved forward, I noticed something carved into the wood beside the first door. Not a name. Not a warning.
Just a single sentence, shallow but deliberate:
You're late.
A chill crawled up my spine. Late for what? Or for whom?
Behind me, the front door creaked softly again—as if settling into place.
Or as if it had finally decided I was home.