Yuki had never set foot outside the city, much less imagined living in the countryside. Yet there he was—standing before an old Victorian-style mansion, hidden among the trees of a perpetually misty forest. The air smelled of wet earth and trapped humidity. The porch boards creaked beneath his boots, and the decaying wood of the front door seemed to beg not to be touched.
The lawyer who contacted him spoke in a hoarse, skeptical voice.
"Your great-uncle, Katsuro Moriyama, left you this property. It has no market value… but it's yours."
Yuki, orphaned since the age of twelve, hadn't even known he had a great-uncle. Still, with overdue bills, unemployment, and the feeling that his life was a windowless room, he decided to accept the inheritance without asking too many questions. An escape, he thought. A new beginning.
The rusty key turned with a rough, almost pained sound. The door opened on its own with the slightest push, revealing an interior frozen in time. Furniture covered with yellowed sheets, crooked antique paintings on the walls, and a staircase that curved upward like a broken spine.
He stepped inside.
Dust rose in soft clouds with every footstep. He turned on the flashlight on his phone, and its beam revealed strange details: hand-carved frames, stained-glass windows depicting human figures that seemed to move when seen from the corner of the eye, and a covered piano that, according to the lawyer, hadn't been played in over fifty years.
Yuki dropped his backpack in the main hall, took off his coat, and began to inspect the house cautiously. There was something about the silence that felt unnatural. It wasn't the absence of noise—it was the presence of silence itself: thick, pulsating, as if the house were listening.
"Just for a week," he muttered to himself, trying to break the tension with his own voice.
The kitchen had candles melted down to the base, broken plates still in the cupboard, and what appeared to be a half-written letter pinned to the table with a rusty dagger.
"May God forgive us."
That's all it said. No signature, no date. Yuki laughed nervously and climbed the stairs, trying to convince himself it was all just paranoia.
The second floor was a maze of locked rooms. Only one door stood slightly ajar, and from it came an indescribable scent: a mix of wet wood, incense, and something metallic.
The room was a library.
Thousands of books lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Some were in old Japanese, others in languages he couldn't recognize. In the center stood a swivel armchair, draped with a black blanket. And on the table, a portrait. Yuki approached. The frame was carved with diving birds—crows. The image showed a young man with a thin face, sharp eyes, and a stern expression. Hair black as ink, and a gaze… unsettling.
The name carved into the base read: Rei.
As he stared at the painting, Yuki felt something he had never experienced before. His chest tightened, as if an invisible cord were being pulled inside him. He forced himself to look away, but the feeling lingered.
Back downstairs, night had fallen. He lit a gas lantern he found in a closet and prepared dinner: hard bread, canned tuna, and lukewarm tea.
He lay down in one of the least dusty rooms and quickly drifted off to sleep.
And that was when he heard it.
A soft murmur, almost like a muted chant, coming from the hallway.
He opened his eyes.
The house was completely dark. The gas lantern had gone out, though he was sure he had turned it off properly.
The murmur came again.
Yuki stood up slowly, his skin crawling. He walked to the door. There was no wind, no open windows. Just an echo. A voice. Or perhaps breathing.
When he peeked into the hallway, he saw no one. But a fleeting shadow moved from one room to another—too tall to be human, too quiet to be real.
He ran to turn on the lights. None worked.
"Must be the old wiring," he said aloud, though he didn't sound convinced.
He spent the rest of the night awake, sitting on the bed with a candle in his hand and his back against the wall. Outside, the wind howled like a wounded animal. Inside, only his breathing and the echo of his own thoughts.
But before dawn, he heard the murmur again.
This time, closer.
And among the whispers, only one word was clear:
"Stay."