Silence.
For the first time since the storm, the mansion was quiet. No whispering, no footsteps in the walls — just the low hum of something immense and sleeping.
I sat at the edge of what used to be the grand hall, though now it looked more like the inside of a dying cathedral. The pillars had warped into organic, pulsing shapes; chandeliers hung low like webs of veins. A faint crimson light seeped through cracks in the ceiling, steady as a heartbeat.
I wasn't sure how long I'd been sitting there. Hours? Days? The clocks had all stopped.
"Maya…" I whispered. Her name echoed faintly, swallowed by the walls. No answer.
She was gone. I'd let her go.
I told myself it was mercy — that she didn't deserve to be trapped here like me. But the truth was uglier. I hadn't saved her. I'd fed the mansion again.
The heartbeat pulsed once, deeper, as if in agreement.
I stood slowly. My reflection in the shattered marble floor no longer looked like me. The shadows clung too closely to my body, and my eyes glowed faintly red, even in the dim light.
I pressed a hand to the wall. It felt warm beneath my palm, the rhythm syncing with my pulse. For a moment, I could swear it sighed.
"You're almost complete."
The voice wasn't spoken aloud — it vibrated through my bones, a whisper beneath my thoughts.
"Who are you?" I asked.
The wall rippled under my touch, forming faint shapes — eyes, mouths, shifting faces half-swallowed by flesh.
"You know me. You made me."
I staggered back. "No. You're not real."
"You built me from every fear, every death, every memory you couldn't bury. I am the echo of you."
My knees buckled, and I fell to the floor. The truth I'd been trying to deny pressed against my skull like an iron weight.
I had built this place.I had made it to cheat death.And in the process, I had trapped everything I'd ever loved within its walls.
The air thickened, heavy with memory. Shadows flickered, reshaping into people — fleeting, translucent figures walking through the ruined hall. My friends, my victims, my ghosts.
Ethan walked past me, eyes hollow. Rachel followed, her face half-lit by candlelight, lips moving silently.
Maya appeared last, her hair drifting like smoke, her gaze fixed on me with a mixture of anger and sorrow.
"Why?" she whispered.
"I didn't want to lose you," I said. "Any of you."
Her expression darkened. "And so you made sure no one could leave."
The phantoms began to fade, one by one, until only darkness remained.
I pressed my forehead against the cold floor, trembling. "What do you want from me?"
The mansion answered in that low, trembling voice that came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"You're the missing piece. The heart needs a mind. The body needs a soul. You are both."
My hands shook. "If I give in, what happens to me?"
"You become what you were always meant to be."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you'll fade — and I'll find another."
I stared at the wall, breathing hard. "No. You don't get to use me anymore."
A sound like laughter rippled through the hall, deep and distorted.
"Use you? Arlen, you are me."
The ground trembled. The mansion's walls pulsed violently, the light growing brighter, redder.
Then — silence again.
The floor beneath me split open.
This time, it wasn't light or fire that waited below — it was memory. I could see every room, every hallway, every life the house had swallowed. All of them orbiting a single glowing core deep beneath the earth.
The Heart.
It pulsed slowly, like a colossal organ stitched together from glass and bone. And beneath it — something was moving.
Something that looked like me.
I leaned over the edge, my reflection rippling across the blood-slick marble. The figure below raised its head. Its skin was translucent, veins glowing faintly, eyes bright red.
It smiled.
"Come home, Arlen."
Then the floor gave way, and I fell.
The air burned as I plunged through layer after layer of the mansion — past rooms that no longer had doors, staircases that spiraled into nothing, portraits that twisted their faces to watch me go.
I hit the ground hard.
When I opened my eyes, I was standing in front of the Heart itself.
It pulsed once. Twice. Then it spoke.
"We are almost whole."