Chapter 20
The house shifted.
It wasn't a tremor—not entirely. It was more like breath… held too long and finally released, exhaling rot through every beam, every nail, every inch of the structure. The walls creaked with remembrance. The chandeliers swayed gently, though no wind blew.
Lila clutched her head as a piercing sound sliced through her skull.
A scream.
But not hers.
"Do you hear it?" she gasped.
Henry was already at the door, pushing against it. It didn't budge. "What the hell was that?"
Olivia rose unsteadily, the color slowly returning to her cheeks, though her voice still echoed with that low, fractured resonance—like a tuning fork struck in a forgotten crypt. "It's awake. Whatever lies beneath… it knows we're here."
"The first bones," Lila whispered. "They're not just the house's foundation. They're its mouth."
Henry turned, pale. "You said it needed to be buried."
"It can't be," Olivia said. "Not until we know what it is."
The floor groaned again—louder this time. A gust of hot air burst from the cracks in the boards, and every candle in the room extinguished at once.
Darkness swallowed them.
Then—
Click.
A door opened where none had existed.
The wall beside the altar melted into shadow, revealing a descending staircase carved from obsidian. The air pouring from it was thick with decay… and something sweeter. Like honey left in the sun too long.
Henry looked at the others.
"No turning back," Olivia murmured.
They stepped inside.
—
The descent was endless.
Each step down warped the air. The wood became stone, the stone became flesh—walls lined with carvings that moved when no one watched. Faces formed and dissolved. Some smiled. Most screamed.
Lila walked in silence, her hand brushing the wall now and then, feeling the heartbeat beneath it. It thrummed in time with her own.
"We're not walking into a room," she said quietly. "We're walking into a memory."
The steps ended.
They found themselves in a chamber—round, domed, and covered in runes that pulsed faintly, like embers in old ash. In the center stood a monolithic slab, slick and veined like muscle. Chains ran from its corners into the walls, taut and humming.
On the slab, a figure lay still.
Female.
Familiar.
Olivia stepped forward, blood draining from her face. "No…"
It was her.
Another Olivia.
Or what remained.
Mouth sewn shut. Ribs cracked open. A heart pulsing, not inside her chest—but beside her body, cradled in a bowl of salt and bone.
"She was the first," Lila breathed. "The first vessel before Scarlet. Before the names. Before time."
Henry backed away slowly. "This is what they built the house on. This is why the house is alive. It was never a place. It was a body."
The air trembled.
The figure on the slab opened its eyes.
And smiled.
"I remember you," it crooned, voice liquid and wrong. "All of you. My daughters. My sins."
Olivia shook her head. "You're not me."
"I was," the thing said. "I was all of you before you knew yourselves. I held the curse. I passed it down. And now… I want it back."
Chains snapped.
The walls screamed.
And the first vessel sat up.