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Chapter 28 - CH-27 The House That Forgot God

The night was too quiet.

The kind of quiet that felt manufactured, as if the world had forgotten how to breathe.

Aarav's footsteps dragged through the overgrown path, his lungs burning with the taste of dust and iron. Aisha followed, her fingers trembling around the cracked lantern she'd snatched from the cabin. The faint flame flickered, painting her face in desperate orange glows.

They had escaped the mirror, but it didn't feel like freedom. Something inside them still hummed — a wrong frequency that refused to fade.

"Do you hear that?" Aisha whispered.

Aarav turned, but there was only wind. Then he realized — she wasn't talking about sound. She was talking about the silence itself.

It moved.

Ahead, a house emerged through the mist. Its shape was wrong — the angles sagged as if gravity had grown bored of following rules. Half the roof had caved in, but the central spire stood untouched, reaching upward like a finger begging for forgiveness.

A sign hung loosely at the gate. The letters were almost erased, but under the grime, a single word glinted faintly — "Sanctum."

Aarav's breath stuttered.

"An old church?"

Aisha shook her head slowly. "No church forgets the name of God."

They pushed the gate open, its rusted scream slicing the quiet. The air inside the compound felt heavy — old prayers, burnt and turned to ash.

Inside, the smell hit first. Damp stone. Mold. And something beneath it — coppery, sweet, almost human.

The hallway was lined with paintings, each depicting faceless saints. Every face had been carved out, eyes gouged to emptiness. In one of them, the carving hadn't stopped — a deep spiral cut through the canvas and into the wall.

Aisha's hand brushed the edge. It was wet.

"Don't," Aarav muttered, pulling her back. But it was too late. The lantern flickered violently — and every painting turned toward them.

Their heads twisted, one by one, until the gouged holes faced forward.

Aarav stumbled backward, hitting a pew. The wood cracked open, revealing bones inside. Not full skeletons — just fragments. Fingers, mostly.

He gagged. "What the hell is this place?"

A voice whispered from above — not words, just intent.

It sounded like something praying backward.

From the shadows, faint outlines began to crawl — shadows of priests or believers, their forms jerking like broken puppets. Each step echoed like dripping blood.

Aisha clutched the lantern tighter, her voice trembling. "We shouldn't have come."

Aarav stared at the altar — a grand, crumbling thing covered in red wax and dust. But behind it, he saw something glinting. A door. Iron-bound. Breathing.

He didn't see it breathe — he felt it. Every inhale made the room colder. Every exhale, the flame dimmed.

The air grew thick.

The shadows stopped moving.

And then a low voice, calm, patient, hungry, slid through the cracks in the walls.

> "You left the mirror open."

Aarav froze. His mind stuttered. "No… we— we broke it!"

The voice chuckled softly, like a priest amused by a child's lie.

> "You broke the glass. Not the reflection."

Aisha's lantern burst, throwing molten oil across the floor. The flame roared to life, revealing the entire hall.

The walls were covered — not with paint, not with moss — but with faces. Dozens of them, stretched thin across the surface, their mouths locked mid-prayer, eyes blackened into pits.

One face, near the altar, still moved.

Its lips trembled. "Leave while He still remembers to ignore you…"

Aarav grabbed Aisha's wrist. "Run."

They sprinted toward the main door, but it wouldn't open. The handle pulsed like flesh. A heartbeat thumped through the wood.

Behind them, the iron door at the altar creaked. Slowly. Patiently.

A crack of cold light spilled out — silver and wrong, a color that shouldn't exist.

From inside came a whisper that wasn't quite a voice. It sounded like their names.

Aisha screamed, covering her ears. Aarav dragged her, desperate, toward the window. He slammed his shoulder against the glass, once, twice—

It shattered.

They fell into the night.

The moment they hit the ground, the church behind them screamed. Every window burst, every bell in the ruined spire rang in discord, and for a heartbeat, the sky split open.

Then silence again.

Aarav lay on his back, chest heaving, staring at the stars. But the stars didn't look right anymore. They shimmered in strange constellations — forming patterns that almost looked like eyes.

Aisha turned toward him, pale and shaking.

"Aarav… that voice… it said—"

But she didn't finish. Because from the distance, the church doors slammed shut by themselves.

And carved onto the wooden gate, glowing faintly in the dark, were new words that hadn't been there before:

> "The House Remembers You."

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