Claire backed away from the portrait, bile rising in her throat. Her brother's painted eyes seemed almost wet—as if tears were trapped behind the canvas.
She looked around the foyer, heart pounding. Everything looked the same, yet wrong. The shadows reached longer. The ticking grandfather clock in the corner ticked… backward.
And then the walls began to breathe.
With each inhale, a cold gust passed her cheek. With each exhale, whispers emerged. Some begged. Some warned. Some simply screamed.
Claire pressed her hands over her ears, but the voices pressed inside anyway.
"It's watching through the walls."
"He's still waiting."
"The house remembers everything."
The whisper collector's voice returned, louder now, distorted and hungry:
"Every secret. Every lie. Every scream. It keeps them all."
Claire turned to run, but the door she came through was gone.
In its place, the wall now bore a large crack—one that pulsed slightly, like a vein.
Against all instinct, she stepped toward it. As she did, the air shifted. Cold and wet.
Then, something moved inside the wall. Something big.
Claire reached out and placed a hand on the crack. A shock rippled through her body, and suddenly she wasn't alone.
She saw flickers—visions—of the house's past.
Children crying in locked closets. A woman pacing in the attic, her hair tangled like vines. A man digging a hole in the basement. Digging. Then laughing. Then—
The vision snapped.
Claire gasped, her body stumbling back. Her palm was now marked—branded—with a strange sigil glowing faintly beneath her skin.
A mark.
She had been claimed.
And now, the house was no longer just listening.
It was speaking.
Through her.