Chapter 3: Voices in the Walls

Amara didn’t sleep that night.

She sat curled in the corner of the study, the flickering fireplace casting warped shadows on the peeling wallpaper. Her knees were drawn to her chest, her hands wrapped tightly around the iron fireplace poker like it was a lifeline. Every creak of the floorboards, every whisper of wind through the chimney, made her heart jolt.

But it wasn’t just the wind anymore.

It was something else.

She could still see that mirror when she closed her eyes—the way her reflection had smiled, calm and knowing, while she stood frozen. That wasn’t a trick of light. That wasn’t her imagination. That was real.

At some point, she checked her phone.

4:16 a.m.

She blinked at the screen. Waited. Watched the numbers. They didn’t move.

Battery: 73%.

Still, the time didn’t change.

She turned the screen off. Then back on.

4:16 a.m.

“What the hell?” she muttered. She stood and crossed the room, pulling open the heavy velvet curtains to peek outside.

Fog.

Thick, unnatural, clinging to the windows like moss. No sunrise. No moon. No stars.

Just grey.

She opened the window and inhaled the cold air. It smelled like seawater, even though the coast was hours away.

Then came the sound.

Soft. Whispery. Like breath against glass.

“Amara...”

She snapped the window shut.

“Nope. No. Not happening.”

She turned back into the room and nearly screamed. The red journal sat open on the floor where she’d dropped it earlier, pages fluttering as if caught in a breeze.

There wasn’t one.

She slowly approached and glanced down at the page it had settled on:

> The house obeys no clocks. Once it begins to feed, time slips through its teeth. You will wait for dawn, but it will never come until it is done with you. You are meat in its mouth.

The air turned heavy.

Meat in its mouth.

She slammed the journal shut, heart pounding.

“Okay,” she whispered to the room. “I don’t know what this is. Some kind of trap house? Gas leak? Am I hallucinating?”

But even as she said it, she knew the truth.

This wasn’t gas. This wasn’t madness. This house—whatever it was—was alive.

The whispers returned.

This time, from the walls.

“Amara... Amara... Amara...”

Different tones. Some soft and pleading, others playful, like children playing hide and seek. One voice was harsh, cracking like dried leaves. But the last one—

—the last one was her own voice.

“Amara...”

It echoed right behind her.

She spun around. No one there.

Her knees buckled slightly as a wave of dizziness hit her. She pressed both hands to her ears, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Stop it!” she cried. “Just stop!”

And for a moment, the house obeyed.

Total silence.

No fire crackling. No wind. No whispers.

Just the steady beat of her heart.

Then—Knock. Knock. Knock.

She froze.

It came from the hallway.

Slow. Measured. Like someone using the back of their knuckles.

She gripped the fireplace poker tighter and stepped out of the study.

The hallway was empty. Shadows hung along the edges like drapes.

She stepped forward, breath visible in the frigid air.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Behind her now.

She turned.

Still no one.

Her ears were ringing.

And then, the sound she feared most—tick... tick... tick...

The grandfather clock in the entry hall had come alive again.

She crept toward it. The hands had moved.

4:17 a.m.

Her chest tightened.

The house is watching me, she realized. It knows where I am. It knows what I fear.

Then she heard it—a faint scratching behind the walls.

She turned her head toward the noise, heart thudding.

The library.

She stepped inside, following the sound.

It was coming from behind the bookshelf.

A long, slow scrape. Like fingernails across old wood.

She pushed the shelf aside. Dust exploded into the air.

Behind it was a narrow wooden panel with a small, circular indent.

She pressed her hand against it—and the wall clicked.

The panel swung inward to reveal a narrow passage. Bare wooden walls. No wallpaper. Just a crawl space leading deeper into the house, illuminated by faint flickers of candlelight from sconces that shouldn’t have been there.

The air that wafted out was ice-cold—and thick with the scent of salt and something metallic.

Blood?

Her instincts screamed for her to close the panel and run.

But something deeper—something older—urged her to step forward.

She took a single step into the dark.

And the door shut silently behind her.

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