The walls of the basement cracked open like splitting skin.
Behind them—eyes. Dozens. No… hundreds. Blinking in unison. Watching.
Evan clung to Claire as the temperature dropped sharply. Frost began to bloom across the stone floor. The house wasn't just alive now.
It was awake.
Claire stumbled back, dragging Evan with her. The walls pulsed with breath. The very ceiling heaved. The house groaned not from age, but from hunger.
Something massive shifted beneath the floorboards. A deep, guttural thrum echoed up from the earth.
Claire looked down. The glowing sigil in her palm was dimming.
"We have to move," she said, her voice hoarse.
But the staircase behind them had vanished.
Only one path remained—a dark corridor that hadn't been there before. It sloped downward. Deeper into the earth. Deeper into the house's heart.
"It's leading us," Evan whispered.
"No. It's luring us," Claire said.
But they had no choice.
They stepped into the corridor, the walls whispering as they passed.
Names.
Her name. His name. Other names.
Some she recognized.
Some she didn't want to.
The air thickened. Grew heavy. Like it remembered every scream ever made inside it.
They reached a circular chamber at the end. And there, carved into the stone floor, was the source:
A giant ear—an anatomical sculpture, grotesque and fleshy, embedded in the rock. It pulsed faintly. Whispering. Listening.
Claire stepped closer.
A voice called out—not from the walls, not from within the chamber.
From inside her own mind.
"Speak, Claire. Tell us the truth."
The sigil on her palm blazed again.
Memories rushed back. Her brother's disappearance. The night she locked the closet. The secret she never told anyone.
She had heard him screaming. And she had been too afraid to open the door.
Tears streamed down her face.
"I'm sorry…" she whispered.
The ear shuddered. The whispering stopped.
And then…
Silence.
Pure. Deep. And final.
Then, a single word rumbled from beneath the stone:
"Accepted."
Suddenly, light burst through the cracks in the walls. The weight in the air lifted. The mark on Claire's hand faded—then vanished.
Evan gasped. "Is it over?"
Claire shook her head slowly.
"No. It heard me. But now… it wants more."
Behind them, a new passage opened.
And a voice echoed softly:
"The attic still waits."