The House that was meant to be Gone

     She wakes up on a bed she instantly recognizes. She's no longer in her current house, the one she got when she was running from something she can't quite remember. However, when she properly looks around after the haze leaves her eyes, a horrifying realization sets in. This is her childhood home, the one that got torn down years ago...the house that's supposed to be gone. 

    Yet here she was, lying in her childhood bed. It's the same ceiling stain, same wallpaper, peeling at the corners like the place had only just been abandoned. She sits up slowly, afraid that sudden movement might wake something. Her body knows this place better than her mind can catch up; her shoulders curl inward on instinct, her feet avoid the cold patch on the floor near the door. She does not look towards the closet. "I've got to be dreaming..." she says out loud, because that's the rule. Say it and it loses power.

    The house doesn't respond. She opens the bedroom door. The hallway stretches longer than it should, the walls too close together, the light dimmer than memory allows. Family photos line along the walls, but each time she glances back at them, the faces blur a little more. Her mother's smile is thinned, and her own childhood face is dark around the eyes. Her father, however, his place has been clawed out of every photo.

    She walks towards the bathroom, but when she reaches for the door, it is no longer the bathroom, but the kitchen instead. The table sits crooked, one leg shorter than the others. The chair at the head of it scrapes backwards by itself, just slightly, like someone had just stood up. Her chest tightens as she backs out of the room. 

    The hallway is different now, narrower. The carpet is darker, damp in certain spots. A door appears where there had not been one before. Something told her in her head that it led into the living room. She does not want to go in there. Her hand shakes as she reaches for the knob. The metal is warm...not sun-warm, but body-warm.

    Inside, the furniture is arranged wrong. The couch is too close to the wall, the lamp is facing inward, almost like it was watching, the television is playing static at a volume just low enough to cut through the deafening quiet. She remembers sitting on that floor as a child, knees pulled to her chest, watching movies that would make her forget reality for a while. 

    The floor creaks behind her, but when she spins around, there's no one there. However, the door she had entered through is now gone. Instead, there's a staircase. The house never had a second floor. Her breath comes faster now, shallow and tight. Still, she climbs because not moving feels worse. Each step groans under her weight, the sound too loud. Halfway up, the walls begin to change. Handprints appear in the paint, the paint starts to look more decayed. At the top of the stairs was her parents' room, the door already open. She stands in the doorway, heart hammering, every nerve screaming at her to run. 

    The room smells wrong, like sweet and rotten at the same time. The bed is made too neatly, the sheets pulled tight like they're hiding something underneath. On the nightstand is a glass of water, untouched, a thin film clouding the surface. "Don't," she whispers, to the room, herself, and to whatever memory still lives here that's been blocked in her mind. The light flickers. For a moment, she's small again. The ceiling seemed higher, the bed seems larger, and the air feels heavier, pressing down on her chest until breathing becomes difficult.

    She does not see him, and that is worse. The room begins to contract, the walls inching closer, the floor tilting forward as if urging her inside. She stumbles back, and suddenly she was no longer in the bedroom, but the basement. Concrete walls, no windows, a single bulb hanging too low, swinging gently even though there's no breeze. Her mind has snapped back, and she's not her childhood self anymore. "I survived," she says, louder this time. "I left, and you're gone." The house disagrees. The stairs behind her collapse into a wall, the bulb shatters, darkness rushing in like it had been waiting for this the whole time.

    When the light returns, she is back in her childhood room. Morning light filters through the curtains, birds singing outside...the house feels calm, but she knows better. Something is clearly wrong. She stands there, trembling, wondering what the hell is happening. 

    Then, she notices the marks on her arms, the ones her father had put on her many years ago. I need to get out of here. This can't be a dream...I feel everything. The house answered her thoughts. The hallway outside her bedroom stretch suddenly, pulling away from her like it's being drawn backward into itself. The light dims, the air thickens worse. Somewhere below her...something moves, slow at first.

A footstep...then another, too heavy to be hers.

    She starts running, the floorboards groaning beneath her feet. As she turns the corner, the walls peel back, exposing bare studs and rot beneath the paint, as if the house is shedding its skin. The staircase appears again, but warped, bending inward like a throat. Behind her, the sound changed. It's no longer just footsteps, but something wet, uneven, dragging itself forward with effort, but gaining ground all the same.

    She glances back once; she shouldn't have. The thing wearing her father's face moved wrong, his features sagging, his mouth split too wide, his eyes set too far apart, blinking out of sync. His body bends at angles a human spine can't manage, limbs folding and unfolding as if unsure how they're meant to work. It smiles at her with a sickening familiarity. "Don't run," it says, voice layered, his and her voices and something older underneath. "You always made it worse when you ran."

    She bursts into the living room and doves behind the couch, pressing herself flat against the floor, holding her mouth shut. The television blares to life on its own, flashing old home videos she doesn't remember recording. The thing enters the room. Its shadow stretches first, spilling across the walls like an oil stain. She can hear it breathing now, too close. She holds her breath to keep from making any sounds. The couch shifts, not enough to reveal her, but enough to let her know that it knows. The front door appears across the room. She waits for a moment before sprinting, the thing behind her coming after her. Its limbs slam into walls, the house reshaping itself to help her. She hits the front door hard, wrenching it open. Light pours through, and she gasps, laying sprawled on concrete. The breeze runs through the trees, and when she stands up and turns around, there's no more house, no door. That thing...what the hell? She turns around and starts to walk, but something shifts within her, a resolve that's never been open before.