Speaker 1: The house was small, one of those mid century two
beds with a low roof and lumpy lawn, but as
kids we never thought of it as cramped. It had
a just enough hallway to race through, just enough corners
to hide behind. We knew which kitchen floorboards squeaked when
he stepped on it. The hallway had this one sharp
corner where backpacks always scraped the paint. Every September, my
mum would repaint it like clockwork, and every year we
wore it down again. By Christmas, we had this ugly
green and gold carpet in the living room. My brother
once swore he saw a face in it, and then
convinced me it changed expressions. That was the kind of kid.
He was magnetic in the way that kids only are
before the world start standing them down. He was two
years younger than me and twice as brave. He could
climb anything, say anything, befriend anyone. Adults loved him because
he was funny without trying to be. He made up
rules for every game. Sometimes they were fun, like you
couldn't step on the third floorboard in the hallway because
that was lava, But some didn't make sense, like if
you touched the wall. After dinner, you were it until
someone blinked twice with him. Hide and seek had its
own law. Our parents leaned into the chaos in the
best way. Dad was a big guy who would chase
us around the house, growling like a bear, capturing us
in an inescapable but gentle hug. Mom was the planner
clipboard type, always humming some old song and slipping snacks
into every bag we owned. Together, they made the kind
of house that felt inevitable, like it had always existed
just for us. Friday nights were movie nights, pancakes on
Saturday mornings, and after dinner, while dishes soaked and the
kitchen steamed, we played Hide and Seek. Lights off. No
peeking and no hiding in the garage Mum's rule. But
every round someone would float toward the coat closet at
the end of the hall. It wasn't because it was
a great hiding spot, but because it was dangerous enough
to feel like cheating. Behind the coats and the old
scarves was a small wooden door, the crawl space. Dad
always told us not to mess with it, but never
in a serious way, more like, don't go in there
unless you want spider eggs in your ears, or that's
where we keep the tax demons. We used to dare
each other to knock on it. Once my brother opened
it a crack, just the proof he wasn't scared. I
slammed it shot before he could crawl in. We both shrieked, laughing.
It was an ominous just grown up house stuff off limits,
in the same way the breaker box was or the
shed with the rusted hedge trimmers. We didn't think of
it as dangerous. We didn't think about it much at all.
My brother always counted fast, always made me count slow,
and whenever he finished counting, he grinned ear to ear
and shout it like a spell. Ready or not. I
hear those words now and my stomach reacts like I'm
still twelve, like I'm still crouched behind the couch holding
my breath, waiting to be found. It was a rainy evening,
one of those muggy summer nights with a window fog
up even though the fans are on full blast and
the smell of wet grass hangs in the house like steam.
We'd just finished dinner and the four of us were
still sitting around the table. My brother had been antsy
all evening, bouncing on his knees, making silly faces, trying
to get a rise out of Dad. As soon as
Mom started stacking the dishes, he piped up one more round,
come on, last one, promise. Dad groaned like he always did,
but the corner of his mouth curled. Mom shot me
a look that meant watch him, don't let him climb anything.
I rolled my eyes and nodded. That was the unspoken deal.
I was the older sibling, the seeker more often than not.
So I stood in the corner of the dining room,
hands over my eyes and started counting one, two, three.
I could hear him scamper off, his shoes slapping against
the wood floor, a door creaking somewhere, a muffled laugh,
the same rhythm as always. He was never good at
being quiet, but he was good and making you second
guess where it gone. He'd liked a double back, leave
distractions once, he said, the hallway fan and a timer
to start right as I passed, just as spook me
eighteen nineteen twenty, Ready or not, I turned already grinning
and walked slowly on purpose. I checked on to the
couch behind the curtains, in the linen cupboard where he
crammed himself last time. Each spot was empty, but not suspiciously,
so just part of the game. Ten minutes past, maybe
fifteen miles, I called out, okay, you in come out. Nothing.
I started getting annoyed, seriously, I'm not playing this all night.
Still nothing. I checked the bedrooms, the laundry room, even
looked under the car in the garage. By the time
I made it back inside, Mum and Dad had picked
up on the silence. Dad took it in stride, grabbed
a flashlight, and stepped out to check the garden. Mom
headed upstairs, muttering something about checking the airing cupboard. I
paced the hallway, hands on my hips, trying to think
like him, where would he go to really stomp us?
And then I noticed it. The coat closet door opened,
just a crack, just enough for a sliver of dark.
I opened it gently. The coats hung just as they
always had, swaying slightly from the shift. The floor beneath
was clear, but the little door at the back, the
crawl space door, wasn't latched. It tilted inward half an inch,
and I could smell that old, dry, sharp scent of
insulation and wood dust, like untouched attics. Come on, Miles,
I called out, still trying to sound light, A kay,
you got us, come out nothing. Dad stepped back inside,
just then, wiping his shoes. I gestured to the closet.
I think he's in the crawl space. Dad gave me
a look half disbelief, half resignation, and crouched down. He
opened the door the red of the way. The hinges
squealed like they hadn't been used in years. He turned
on the flashlight and aimed it into the dark. I
couldn't see his face clearly from where I stood, but
I heard it in his voice. The first shift, like
something pulled a thread tight in his throat. Come on, jamp,
he said, game's over. Silence long enough that I took
a step closer. That's when he spoke again, low and firm.
Get mom. That was the first time I ever heard
fear come out of my father. The police came that night, dogs, flashlights,
neighborhood parents walking the fence lines with flashlights and tight expressions.
People called his name. I remember someone brought over a
hot chocolate in a travel mug and set it on
the porch. They searched the crawl space first, then again,
then with more people, different tools, full of floorboards, cut
into dry wall, measure gaps between beams. Nothing, no drag marks,
no signs of struggle, no trail. Eventually the news crew
showed up. They used words like disappearance and tragedy. A
few weeks later, other words started creeping in neglect, lapse, accident.
It became a humiliation, a shame you could feel between
phone calls. Everyone had a theory. None of them helped.
My mom changed. First. She stopped sleeping, fully, kept a
notepad by a bed to track door status, started locking
things that weren't supposed to have locks, the fridge, the
utility drawer. It wasn't paranoia exactly, it was control. Her
world had slipped loose, and she was pulling on every
string she could find. Dad went quieter, still did the
school run, still asked about homework, but he snapped more
at the little things. Spilled milk, left shoes me. I
became the one left behind. Everyone kept saying how lucky
I was. What they meant was you're still here. Every
time I coughed, someone asked if I was okay. I
couldn't close my bedroom door at night, without my mum
opening it again. Eventually I stopped trying. There were moments
that cut deeper than the rest. One morning, Mom set
four plates on the table by reflex. She caught it
midway through pouring orange juice and stared at the extra,
setting a sad lock in her eyes. Dad drove past
playgrounds and slowed down for no reason, eyes locked on
the monkey bars. For two years, they still bought birthday gifts,
just in case little ones, a new jumper, a bocky
would have liked. They kept them in a hall drawer
that no one opened. Family photos started vanishing, first, the
ones with just him, thin ones with all of us.
Mom said she was reorganizing, but the frames stayed empty.
I grew up, left the house, refused to look back.
Couldn't stand closets for years, couldn't fall asleep in silence.
The absence of noise made me listened too high. I
kept a fan by the bed. Still do They never
got closure, No body, no confession, no footprints leading away.
The crawl space was eventually resealed. Dad screwed in a
metal latch, then a second one. I watched him a
hammer strip of wood across the frame, as if it
were a coffin lid. I built a life elsewhere, flat
job someone I love. I got good at pretending it
was something that happened to other people, that I was
just a witness, not a participant. But last week Dad
died heart problems. I think Mom couldn't handle the house
on her own. She's moving to a place with call
buttons and staff that don't blink when she checks the
locks twice. So now it's me. I have the key,
the deed, the to do list with bullet points like
pack mum's things, sort donations, and schedule valuation. I stood
outside the house, hand on the door, and when I
pushed it open, it swung in, slow and smooth, like
it had been waiting for me. The front door opened
like it remembered my hand. The first thing I noticed
was the high chart on the hallway wall. The pencil
lines were faded, smudged by time and careless elbows, but
they were still there. My name and his stacked side
by side like a slow motion race. I used to
be proud of the way my marks climbed faster than his.
Now they just looked like a record of something unfinished.
I touched the wall, expecting it to feel smaller. Somehow
it did. The whole house did. The ceiling felt lower,
the hallway narrower, like everything had shrunk slightly or I
had grown too large for it to hold me anymore.
Boxes were everywhere, some half packed by Mum, others untouched.
I passed the old coat rack with its single wobbling peg,
ran a hand along the scratched banister, and paused in
the living room doorway For a moment. I forgot what
I was doing. The room still smelled like furniture polish,
an old carpet, still at that faint, sweet detergent smell,
Mom's kind. It made my chest tighten. I started with
the drawers, junk first, old manuals, tangled cords, expired coupons.
I opened one and found a box of crayons, still
snapped and worn at the end, still arranged by someone
who didn't care about color. Order mine, then the brother's things.
They hadn't been touched. There was a plastic bin labeled
miles in, faded sharply inside a pair of socks with
cartoon spiders, one bald, the other folded. A handheld game
console that wouldn't turn on a red match box car
with chipped paint and one stiff wheel, the kind of
things that only have value because of who they touched.
The house was quiet, save for the occasional groan of
settling wood. It should have been comforting, but it wasn't.
Something about the stillness felt too deliberate, like the house
was listening, like it had paused just slightly to watch me.
I moved room to room, making notes on what toss
and what to keep, but every so often I'd glance
up and feel off. The living room felt too wide,
the kitchen too shallow. The hallway didn't lead quite where
my eyes expected. One door didn't a line right when
I closed it. Another wooden latch without force. Small things,
house things, nothing worth calling strange, but they added up
in the back of my mind like static. The closet
at the end of the hall was still there, the
one we used to hide in, the one with the
crawl spaced door. It had changed. A thick new latch
had been bolted across the wood, the metal dulled and
slightly bent. Additional screws lined the edges, and a strip
of plywood had been nailed to the frame. Someone Dad
probably had taken it seriously. No more jokes, no more
spider eggs in your ears, Just the door that wasn't
meant to open again. I didn't touch it. Later, while
clearing out the bookshelf in the guest room, I found
a slip of paper tucked behind a stack of year
books I folded three times and stained by a mystery
clear liquid inside inunmistakably childish and writing when names miles seven,
Me five, Mom three, Dad nine, It was a tally
sheet hide and seek. My heart sank at this, knowing
the number has never changed and never will. Happiness frozen
in place by grief. That night, I lay down on
the old twin mattress in my childhood room. I brought
a fan out of habit. The soft hum masked the
creeks and pops of the house, but it didn't help
with a feeling that crept through me. Occasionally things fell familiar,
safe and assuring, but it had been so long that
it had an alien feel, like I was lying in
a memory, not a real, tangible space. Just as I
was about to drift off, I heard the sound of
small feet padding across floorboards, and then a voice soft excited,
just as I remembered it, ready or not. The next morning,
I recalled the sounds, unsure if it was a dream
or my resting mind playing tricks on me. Still, I
left the fan running when I walked to the house.
Something about the silence had begun to feel reactive, like
it was waiting for me to stop moving. I started
in the kitchen, sorting through drawers stuffed with half dead batteries,
manuals for appliances we no longer owned, and unopened packs
of birthday candles. I had a trash bag open, headphones
in a podcast, playing too loud, just to keep the
background noise busy. But even through the headphones, I heard
a soft scuff down the hall behind me, like a
sock sliding across word. I pulled the buds out and
held still nothing. I waited a few seconds longer, then
moved toward the hall. The air felt heavier there. I
turned and caught just a glimpse The coat closet door
was open, just a few inches, enough for the dark
to show between the coats. And then I heard it.
A child's laugh, soft, quick, almost affectionate. It came from
just behind the door. Then click, the door shut on
its own. I didn't think. I lunged forward and yanked
it open. Nothing just coats and the sealed, cross baced
door still latched and heavily sealed shut. My hands were shaking.
When I pulled out my phone, I texted my partner,
just weird, been back. The house feels smaller than I remember.
I didn't mention the door or the laugh. I wasn't
ready to hear how it would sound coming from someone
else's mouth at night. I tried to, but my body
didn't trust the bed. I kept turning toward the walls
like I expected something to lean close and breathe at me.
Eventually I drifted off. I woke up with a start,
mouth dry, next stiff, and the bedroom was colder than before.
The fan was still on, humming steadily, but something had changed.
A wooden sign, hand painted with the words basement equals
off limits. It had been hung at my doorknob. I
hadn't seen it in years. We made those as kids,
signs for every hiding spot. Mom made a stop after
we taped one to the cat. This one hadn't been
there last night. I stood still for a long time,
long enough to hear it a whisper, steady and precise,
right next to my ear, even though nothing was near
me eighteen nineteen twenty. A pause, then softly, almost giddy,
Ready or not. I stood in my childhood hallway and
understood with absolute clarity that whatever was in this house
was playing my brother's game. I didn't move at first
after the whisper, Ready or not. My whole body locked
up like I was twelve again and hiding behind the couch,
certain that ever even shifted my weight I'd be found.
I stood in the hallway for what fell like hours.
The fan down the hall was still running. The closet
door was shot, but no sound came from the rest
of the house. But it wasn't silence. It was waiting. Eventually,
I backed into the living room, forcing myself to keep
my eyes forward. I sat on the edge of the
couch like a guest and stared at the front door.
Every instinct said get out, but I couldn't make myself
cross the hall again, not past the closet, not when
I knew it could be right behind the coats listening. Instead,
I did what I've always done when I don't know
what to do. I reached for something. I could control
something real. Dad's study was just off the living room.
I stepped inside and shut the door quietly behind me.
Even in the dim light, I could tell nothing had
been moved in years. His old dad was still cluttered
with receipts, tax folders, and coffee stained notepads. I opened
the lower drawer, the one I'd avoided the day before,
and found the documents. I remembered police statements, search maps,
grief arranged by stables, and paper clips. I flipped through
it with a focus that only fear brings. I wasn't
looking for answers, not yet, just something in black and
white to tell me I wasn't insane. And then I
found the evidence log. I didn't breathe as I read it.
Item one child's shoe right recovered wall cavity, coat, closet
date seventeen days post incident. My hand went numb around
the paper. I remembered those shoes, little white trainers we
with low crow straps. Miles wore them everywhere, even though
one strap always came loose and flapped when he ran.
Mom had nagged him about it that night, he'd ignored her,
as usual. They'd searched the whole house, the whole yard.
They never told me anything had been found, but here
it was buried in a file. No one meant for
me to see one shoe inside the wall. I pressed
the paper flat against the desk, trying to focus, trying
to make it fit into something that wasn't terrifying. But
the longer I looked at it, the more the idea decayed.
This wasn't a clue. It was a confirmation the rules
of this house were wrong. They always had been. From
the hallway, I heard movement, a single step, then another,
perfectly spaced. I froze, heart hammering. The steps were soft
and deliberate, tracking across the floor outside the study, like
someone matching my breath, one sound at a time. I waited,
the steps stopped. I opened the study door, a crack. Nothing.
The hallway was empty, the closet door still shut, but
the air felt heavier. I stepped out, slowly, barefoot, avoiding
the creaky floorboards like I used to when sneaking snacks
past bedtime. I reached the front door, locked. I was
about to try open it when I heard it. Three
knuckles against the wood, A knock from inside the house.
I stood still. Another knock followed slow, curious, like it
was trying to understand why I hadn't responded yet. The
knock came again, this time from just behind me, the
other side of the front door, but I hadn't heard
it move, hadn't heard anything cross the living room. I
held my breath and leaned in just enough to listen.
A voice came through the wood like it wasn't muffled
at all, like it didn't care about barriers. It sounded
like some one standing right next to me, too close.
The whisper came through the door, like warm breath. I'm
coming For a second. I stood perfectly still and still
on the lock, forehead almost touching the wood, as if
my body couldn't decide whether to flinch away or press
closer to hear it again. The voice had my brother's
shape to it, the same soft confidence, the same pleased,
little lilt, but it didn't belong in a grown man's house.
At nine in the morning, I told myself, open the door,
walk outside, get in the car. Drive until this place
is a dot in the rear view mirror. I turned
the handle. It didn't give. I tried again, harder, shifting
my grip and plushing my shoulder into the frame, like
a stubborn seal might be stuck from the humidity. The
latch clicked faintly, as if mocking the effort, but the
door held firm. It felt anchored. I backed away from
the door, breathing through my nose so I wouldn't make
any noise i'd regret. The living room looked the same
as it had five minutes ago, green and gold carpet,
so of a cushions slightly sunken from where I'd sat,
the old family photo on the mantel with a frame
turned down. Everything normal enough to be cruel. Then the
coats in the hall shifted, just a soft rustle, fabric
against fabric. I didn't look toward the closet. I couldn't.
I had a sudden, irrational certainty that if I turned
my head too quickly, I'd see my brother standing in
the doorway like nothing had ever happened, like had been
playing hide and seek for twenty years. And it finally
decided to end the round. I moved instead, slowly and carefully,
placing my feet as if I were crossing thin ice.
I turned off the lights as I went. It wasn't
a plane at first, just instinct, some childish part of
my brain believed darkness made you less visible, as if
the rules of hide and seek still applied, as if
the house itself was a playground and the seeker couldn't
find what it couldn't see. I slipped into the kitchen
and shut the door behind me, then locked it, Even
though the locks in my childhood home felt absurd. I
stood there, back pressed to the wood, listening nothing. The
silence returned. It held my breath with it. I waited,
counted without meaning to one, two, three. A soft knock
came from the other side of the kitchen door, a
kind of polite knock you give if you weren't sure
whether someone was busy. My skin went tight all over.
I didn't answer. The doorknob turned once, slowly, feeling for resistance.
Then it stopped. A pause followed long enough for a small,
pathetic hope to flare. Maybe it can't open doors. Then
something dragged along the wall outside, low and gentle, like
a finger trailing across paint. It moved from left to right,
stopping in places, as if tracing my outline through the plaster.
I covered my mouth with my hand. The sound continued patient,
almost fond. When it reached the edge of the doorframe,
it paused again, and the voice came close enough. Then
my stomach folded inward. I can wait. I didn't know
how long I stayed in that kitchen, listening to the
house breathe around me. The fan in my bedroom humphed
faintly somewhere in the distance, steady as a lie. I
moved again only when my legs began to cramp, and
even then I did it carefully, shifting my weight the
way you do when you're trying not to creak a floorboard.
I crept across the tile toward the pantry and ease
the door open. The pantry was narrow lined with shelves
packed with mom's old habits, tins stacked in neat towers,
jars of dried past her spice bottles with faded labels.
It smeled like dust and oregano. I stepped inside and
pulled the door almost shut, leaving a thin slit of light.
My breathing sounded too loud in my ears. I tried
to make it smaller, tried to make myself smaller. Outside
in the kitchen, something moved again, not searching wildly a
measured pace, as if it already through the hiding places
and was simply choosing the order. A soft footstep, then another.
It stopped right in front of the pantry door. I
stared at the crack, eyes stinging, unable to blink. A
faint sound came from the other side, a small inhale,
like someone smelling the air. Then the pantry door began
to open. I didn't pull it closed. I couldn't. My
arms had locked, my sides, muscles refusing to obey. The
door swung with a slow smoothness that made my throat tighten.
Lights spilled across the shelves and over my shoes. In
the hallway stood a childlike silhouette framed by the kitchen light,
head angled slightly as if it were listening for the
moment I slipped. It didn't step into the pantry. It
simply waited, and I realized then what it was doing.
It was allowing the rules to do the work, playing
exactly the way my brother had played, the way kids play.
When they want you to feel seen, A seeker doesn't
have to grab you. A seeker just has to make
you move. That was the rule. That was why it
stood there. And didn't cross the threshold. Why it knocked
instead of slamming. Why it traced the wall with fingers
instead of tearing it down. It wanted me to break first.
My knees trembled a tin, and the top shelf wobbled
slightly as my shoulder brushed it. The sound was barely
a sound at all, a tiny metallic tick. Still, the
silhouette's head tilted in immediate response, sharp as a bird
catching motion. The breath on the other side of the
doorway changed, the patience drained out of it. It moved
to the sound, pretending that I wasn't there, And then
from somewhere deeper in the house, I heard that laugh
again as it pretended to search. It carried a kind
of satisfaction that made my stomach turn, like a child
whose pretending to play nice has finally gotten bored. It
knew where I was, but had to give a grace
sperioit for me to move to a new spot. That
was how we played. I bolted. I couldn't help it.
My body made the decision before my mind could veto it.
I shoved past the pantry door, sprinted into the hallway,
feet hammering hardwood shoulder clipping the wall. The house answered.
Lights flickered as I ran, just the ones ahead of me,
blinking as if they were warning the seeker which way
had gone. The air in the hall felt denser, tighter,
like the walls had drawn in by a few inches.
The familiar corridor suddenly seemed too long, stretched like taffy.
Each step took more effort than it should have. Behind me,
the laughter followed. I felt it, the sense of being
followed by something that didn't need to hurry, because the
board was already set. It didn't rush yet, it was
still catching up. I threw myself into the closet door,
the coat clauset, and slammed it shut so hard that
the hangers rattled like bones. My hands fombard for the latch.
The reinforced metal scraped under my grip. I forced it
down and leaned my weight against the door, chest heaving
coat sleeves, brushing my face. I saw it. The crawl
space latch, the extra one Dad had installed, was trembling, trapping,
small rhythmic pressure from the other side of the wood,
as if something was pressing knuckles against it, testing it,
repeating it in the exact tempo of a familiar game,
and from right beside my ear, so close I could
feel the word to my skin. There you are. The
second I heard it whisper, I ran again. I didn't
stop to think, didn't look behind me. I just moved
full sprint down the hall showed a clip in the corner.
As I tore back into the foyer. My heart was
in my throat, thudding against bone, louder than my footsteps.
I turned to the windows, tried one in the living room,
then another. I unlatched them, shoved upward hard. The glass
didn't move, not even a groan, like the frames had
been painted shut from the inside of a dream. Panic
burned from my ribs. I yanked out my phone and
darled nine one one. It rang twice, then clicked, just
a dead screen. I backed away from the window and
into the hallway again. That's when I heard the footsteps,
just after the side, as though it wanted me to
see it only when it was ready, like it was
tracing a circle around me, shrinking. I turned toward the kitchen,
but laughter trickled out from the entryway. My brothers laughed,
twisted by distance. I tried the stairs again, but a
light bulb burst above them, sharing the landing and glass.
I ended up back in the main hall, breath raw
or handshaking. Every exit was met with something guarded. It
wasn't chasing me, it was hurting me. And there it
was again, the coat closet, the only place that didn't
have sounds of danger. I shoved myself in and looked
at the crawl space because something in me understood the rules.
Now it wasn't trying to kill me or scare me
for fun. It was playing a game I already knew,
one with structure, with boundaries, with old, sacred rules, and
the crawl space had always been off limits. It was
the one place we never hid, the one place left
untouched by the seeker. That's why I might not be
found there. Now. Dust wafted out, like breath held too long.
The smell hit first old wood, mold, rusted nails, the
dry mineral stink of insulation, insect bodies and whatever else.
Time forgets. I crouched, slid the bold aside, and pulled
open the hatch. The silence changed the moment I dropped inside.
It was like crossing a threshold between worlds. The house
above dilled to a distant hum. The sound of my
own breath felt loud against the plaster and the grown
of floor joists. Under pressure, I couldn't trace. For the
first time since the game began, I wasn't being hunted.
I crawled forward. The floor was uneven, packed with dirt
and broken insulation, old beams, full of splinters and rusted nails.
A child's jacket lay half decayed in one corner, as
if it had slipped through the cracks above and been
left rat My phone flashlight beams jittered with every breath.
Further in, the space widened, the air got cooler, My
shoulders stopped brushing the joist. It felt, in some horrible way,
like descending into a church. Quiet, wrong but reverent. And
then I saw it, and the far end of the
crawl space, huddled between two support beams, was a shape
child sized, still folded into itself, knees drawn to chest,
the back curved in an unnatural arc, one shoulder slump
lower than the other. The feet were bare, skin darkened
with mold and dirt. The toes curled inward like they've
been clenched for years. I whispered, miles move. I crawled closer.
One elbow at a time. My phone light trembled in
my hand. The shirt was his, red and gray stripes,
frayed at the edges, pants, one leg torn open from
ankle to knee, hair long and matted, fused to the
floor in black webbing. I aimed the light at its face,
and the head turned irrotated, smoothly, like there were no
muscles resisting the motion, like there was no bones underneath
the get in the way. The face that looked back
at me was soft in the wrong places, sagging where
it shouldn't. The nose collapsed, the jaw sunken, one eye
lower than the other. Yet the eyes moved, They saw me, focused,
and it smiled, pleased, like a friend reunited at the
end of a very long game. Then it spoke, in
a voice so familiar it knocked the breath from my lungs.
Found you. I kicked backwards. My heel struck wood, My
shoulder clipped a beam. Every breath scraped against the damp air.
As I scrambled in reverse, trying to put distance between
me and the thing wearing my brother's voice. I twisted sideways,
caught my elbow on a nail, and hissed through my teeth.
When I looked up again, it was closer. But it
wasn't crawling, not moving in any normal way. It just
was a glitch in the dark, skipping across space without
crossing it, poppeteered by unknown forces in an unknown scenario.
His arms were still wrapped around its knees, its face
half buried in its own limbs, but now it was
nearer than before. The light trembled in my grip. I
tried not to blink. Then it lifted its head again, slow, unharrid,
and the voice came quieter, this time, like we were
sharing a secret. He was good at the game. My froze,
its jaw barely moved as it spoke. The words came
from deep in the throat, unbothered by breath or structure.
He lasted a long time, so long I thought he
might win. But I learned his rules. I liked them
a lot more. The way it said the rules made
my skin crawl, like it didn't mean limits, like it
meant ritual. It hinged for the distance between us shortened,
as if the world behind it folded inward. He didn't
want to stay, he murmured, almost sadly, but he was mine.
He taught me the game. I couldn't breathe. The realization
hit me hard. He didn't die, not like we thought.
He was kept, claimed, turned into a blueprint for whatever
this thing had become. His laugh, his voice, his habits,
worn like a coat stretched too tight across alien's shoulders.
The thing in front of me didn't understand him. It
just repeated him, memorized this shape and stitched together with
rot and insolation. I shifted again, trying to retreat my
leg brush something cold. I angled the light. A set
of old keys. Beyond them, a child's shoe, a cracked
plastic ring, a coin blackened with age, bone, maybe a tooth,
none of which looked familiar. Dozens of them, half buried
in the dirt, tucked into the corners, trophies from other players.
How many had come here? How many had tried to hide?
I stared at the beam beside them. Dozens of small
scratches ran across the wood, evenly spaced, gouged, deep tally marks.
It had kept count of the rounds, or maybe the days,
maybe both. The thing tilted its head, as if watching
me understand was more satisfying than catching me. It gets boring.
He said softly. No one hides right, No one remembers
the rules. I swallowed hard. My mouth felt full of copper.
Why me, I whispered. It smiled again. You played with him,
You know the rules. You'll make this a fun game.
I should have run or screamed, or swung my arm
out in de fence, but none of that would have mattered.
I knew it. This wasn't something that could be outrun.
It lived in the walls. It was the house. There
were no doors left the slam, only choices. I looked
at the tunnel behind me, already narrowing, already folding inward,
like it had no intention of letting me crawl back
the way I came. I could feel the house closing in,
and the thing wearing my brother, whatever it truly, was
leaned in, eyes gleaming in the dim beam of my
flickering light. I hid so long it said, now it's
your turn, and then the phone light died. I was
left in perfect black, no glow from the house above,
no trace of light bleeding through the boards. Just silence.
Except it wasn't empty. It was expectant. I didn't move,
couldn't my breath rest softly in my ears. Miles. I whispered,
hoping there was some semblance of my brother, left, a
glimmer of Marcy. Nothing. I tried again, quieter, Still no answer,
and I knew that voice, the one that laughed, the
one that counted. It had my brother's shape, but not
his soul. It had never been him, It never needed
to be. It just wanted to sound like him. I
turned and started crawling back the way I came, or
tried to. The path was narrower now. Beams that hadn't
touched my back before pressed against my shoulders. The air
felt thicker. Fiberglass dragged in my sleeves and scraped my cheek.
My knees sank deeper into the insulation that hadn't been
there on the way. In the house wasn't holding me,
It was closing around me. I crawled forward, breathing hard,
pushed with elbows and toes. My hands scraped something sharp
buried in the dirt. I flinched, thought it was glass,
but it clinked against my knuckle and stayed warm in
my palm. I held it up and flicked it open
a zippo. The weak flame flared to life, and I
recognized it instantly. My dad used to keep it in
his sock draw I'd taken it once as a kid,
tried to light pine cones and fire behind the shed.
He grounded me for a week. I hadn't thought about
it in years, So what was it doing down here?
Was it another trophy? Was this how my dad truly died?
I looked around the way the floorboards had been gnawed
out from below, had the empty space beneath the hallway,
beneath the place he always paused when we played, the
place he was seen last. Dad had come down here,
He'd known the reinforced door, the extra latch, the way
he'd gotten so quiet after Myles disappeared. Had he seen it?
Had he bargained with it? Did he leave this for me?
I didn't have time to ask. Behind me, something moved,
the sound of skin dragging across the wood, slow and uneven,
like something big folding itself through two small spaces. Then
the voice came again, stretched now but bright as if smiling.
Do you remember the part where you freeze? I turned
and saw it, lit only by the thin flickering flame
cupped in my hand. The figure shifted out from behind
a beam. It wasn't pretending anymore. From the way it moved,
he now looked wrongly, arranged, like someone had thrown a
brittle corpse down an air ducted. The limbs sagged and
shook with each movement, joints rotating past natural limits. His
fingers dragged behind it, twitching in the dust. The face
it had pieces patches of hair clumped into a shape,
a white grin split across too much teeth, teeth blackened
and small, clattered faintly when it breathed. It looked like
something that had eaten him, and tried to remember the taste.
And somewhere in the center of that melted face he
saw the eyes focused, bright, hungry and patient, waiting for
me to move. I swallowed my throat, raw from smoke
and dust, and forced the words out, Is he still
in there? The thing tilted its head the way a
dog tilts its head when it already knows the trick
is done. It smile, didn't widen, didn't soften. There was
no flicker of recognition underneath the rot, just ownership. He was,
it said easily. That was it, No hint that anything
human remained behind those eyes. Whatever my brother had been,
whatever had laughed and invented the rules and begged for
one more round had been used up a long time ago.
The realization settled into me with a cold, terrible calm.
There was no ending with the game resolved cleanly. It
didn't want closure. I wanted repetition rounds, new players. It
wanted to play cat and mouse with me, savoring my
investment in its familiar form until I joined its collection.
But to me, the only way out wasn't to win,
It was to end the board. My fingers tightened around
the zippo. The flame wavered as my hands shook, Then
steadily I leaned down and pressed it into the shredded
insulation packed against the beam. At first, nothing happened. The
fibers blackened, curled inward, giving off a bitter chemical stink.
Then the fire found purchase. It caught fast, orange raised
along the dry dust and fiberglass, licking outward with a
hungry sound. He bloomed against my face. Smoke poured up,
thick and choking, stealing the air from my lungs. Behind me,
the thing screamed in fury. The sound wasn't human. It
was the noise of rules being torn. Apart of a
game interrupted mid round. The crawl space shot as it lunged,
the laughter collapsing into something jagged in shrill. I crawled, hands, burned, knees, scraped,
smoked clawed down my throat As I dragged myself forward
through splinters and falling debris. The house groaned overhead beams, flexed,
nails shrieked as they pulled loose. I heard footsteps hammering
above me, frantic and fast, like the house itself was
searching trying to get ahead of me. The hatch came
into view. I slammed my shoulder into it once twice.
The wood cracked. I kicked, screamed, and shoved with everything
I had left, and the panel gave way. I spilt
into the hallway, coughing hard enough to wretch eyes, steaming
smoke rolling out after me, black and alive. Somewhere inside
the walls, laughter fractured and overlapped, voices mocked and stretched
until it meant nothing. I staggered to my feet and ran.
The front door loomed ahead of me, close, tight like
it had been before. I didn't slow down. I hit
it shoulder first once twice. On the third impact, it
flew open. So suddenly that I nearly fell through it.
The force of it was like a breath finally expelled.
I tumbled onto the lawn, gasping, tearing at my throat
as cool air rushed back in. I rolled onto my
back and stared up at the house. The fire spread
at an unreal rate. Smoke was already curling from the eaves.
Flickers of orange dance behind the windows, lighting up familiar
rooms in broken pulses. No alarms sounded, and no neighbors
came running. The streets stayed quiet, as if it had
agreed not to notice. I lay there, shaking, watching my
childhood burn down. A pain settled in my heart seeing
it all go, but a relief settled in the back,
knowing that it was hopefully over. I'll never know what
it was that took my brother in order to create
its sick, twisted game, set up in such a way
that it could have kept it up indefinitely. But if
there was one last thing my brother taught me from
years of play, no one can win or lose a
game if someone flips the table