The door did not knock again.
That was worse.
I stood in the hallway for a long time, staring at it—the grain of the wood, the dull brass handle, the faint scratch marks near the bottom as if something had been dragged through it many times before.
I did not touch it.
I went back to bed instead, pulled the blanket over my head like a child, and told myself it was stress. Trauma. Hallucination.
By morning, the door was gone.
But the space it had occupied remained wrong—a faint chill in the air, a pressure that made my ears ring when I passed that section of wall.
I knew then what the house had done.
It hadn't escaped with us.
It had nested.
The calls begin
Aiden called that afternoon.
"I need you to come over," he said. His voice was steady, but I could hear the strain beneath it. "Now."
When I arrived, he didn't let me step inside right away. He pulled me aside, lowered his voice.
"Before you enter," he said, "tell me—have you seen any doors?"
My stomach sank.
"Yes," I replied.
Aiden closed his eyes.
Inside his house, the garage door was open.
At the back wall, behind his workbench, stood a narrow wooden door that had never been there before.
"It appeared last night," he said. "I didn't open it."
"Good," I said quickly. "Don't."
"I can hear things behind it," he added.
I swallowed. "What kind of things?"
Aiden hesitated. "Jonas."
Silence stretched between us.
"You're sure?" I asked.
"No," he said honestly. "But it knows what I want to hear."
That was the rule we'd learned too late.
The house never lies.
It rearranges truth.
Mira breaks first
Mira didn't answer her phone for two days.
When we finally reached her apartment, the smell hit us before the door opened—stale air, sweat, something faintly rotten.
She sat on the floor in her living room, surrounded by chalk symbols and torn pages from books she didn't remember buying.
Her eyes were bloodshot.
"It keeps changing," she whispered when she saw us. "Every night."
Aiden crouched beside her. "What does?"
"The doors," she said. "They move closer."
I felt cold spread through my spine.
"How many?" I asked.
Mira laughed weakly. "I stopped counting after seven."
Seven.
There had only ever been six of us.
She grabbed my wrist suddenly. Her grip was painfully tight.
"It wants me to choose," she whispered. "It says if I open the right one, it'll give Jonas back."
Aiden stiffened. "Mira—"
"I know it's lying," she said quickly. "I know. But what if it's not? What if it's just… bargaining?"
The house loved bargaining.
Because bargains implied hope.
Ryan's reflection
Ryan didn't come to Mira's.
He never left his apartment anymore.
When I went alone to check on him, he wouldn't open the door at first.
"I can see you," he said from inside. "You're not the problem."
When he finally let me in, I understood.
Every mirror in his apartment was covered.
Except one.
The bathroom mirror.
"I tried smashing it," Ryan said quietly. "It came back."
I looked.
My reflection stared back at me.
Ryan's did not.
Instead, something else stood behind the glass—wearing his face incorrectly. The smile was too wide. The eyes too knowing.
"Don't look too long," Ryan warned. "It learns faster that way."
The reflection leaned forward slightly.
And winked.
The realization
We regrouped that night—Aiden's place, all lights on, no doors left unchecked.
Mira sat between us, wrapped in a blanket. Ryan stood with his back to the wall, refusing to face anything reflective.
Aiden spoke first.
"It's not haunting us," he said. "It's testing us."
"Yes," I replied. "It let us leave to see what we'd do afterward."
Mira frowned. "Do about what?"
"Guilt," I said. "Fear. Loss."
Ryan swallowed. "Choice."
The room fell quiet.
"The house doesn't want bodies," I continued. "Not really. It wants decisions. Regret. People who hesitate. People who look back."
Aiden nodded slowly. "And you," he said. "It wants you most."
I didn't deny it.
Because every night, I dreamed of rooms I hadn't seen yet.
Rooms that were being built for me.
The invitation
It arrived the next morning.
Not as a door.
As a letter.
No stamp. No return address.
Just my name, written in careful, deliberate handwriting.
Inside was a single sentence:
COME BACK ALONE.
OR THE OTHERS WILL.
Mira began crying the moment she read it.
Ryan backed away from me like I was already contaminated.
Aiden grabbed my shoulders. "No," he said firmly. "We don't do this. We find another way."
"There is no other way," I said quietly.
I could feel it now—the pull, the alignment, the way the house had already made space for me.
It hadn't followed us randomly.
It had followed the weakest lock.
Me.
The choice the house wanted
That night, the door returned to my apartment.
This time, it stood open.
Inside was the forest.
Not dark.
Not stormy.
Waiting.
Aiden stood behind me. "If you go in there," he said, voice breaking, "you might not come back."
I looked at him.
"I already didn't," I replied.
The house whispered—not aloud, but deep inside my chest.
Not hunger.
Not malice.
Expectation.
I stepped forward.
And the door closed behind me.