chapter 2: The House Remember
262 Words
Areeba slowly opened her eyes… but everything was dark.
Her head felt heavy, and the floor beneath her was cold. For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was.
Then it all came back.
The old house… the whisper… the photo.
She quickly sat up.
“How did I pass out here?” she whispered, her voice shaky.
She was still inside the same room, but something had changed.
The chair in the middle was gone.
And the photo… had disappeared.
“This isn’t real… this can’t be real,” she said to herself, trying to calm down.
But then her eyes fell on the wall.
Deep scratches had appeared on it, as if someone had carved words into the surface.
“WELCOME BACK, AREEBA”
Her heart stopped.
“No… how does it know my name?”
Suddenly, the lights flickered above her.
The door she remembered… the one that turned into a wall… was back.
Slightly open.
Areeba took slow steps toward it, her breathing uneven. Every step felt heavier than the last.
As she reached the door, a cold breeze came from inside.
And then she heard it again.
A whisper.
“You came back…”
Areeba pushed the door open.
But instead of the room she expected…
There was a long, dark corridor.
A corridor that hadn’t been there before.
At the end of it stood a shadow.
Still.
Watching.
It slowly moved as the lights above flickered and died.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Areeba took a step back, her voice trembling.
“I’m not alone in here…”
- Writer
