The house exhaled as they approached it.
A long, shuddering breath rolled out of the broken doorway, carrying the reek of mildew and something far older. Aiden stopped cold. Houses didn't breathe. Not even haunted ones—at least, not in the reports he'd read.
Gabriel didn't pause. "Masks on."
Aiden slipped his filter mask over his face. "You hear that?"
Gabriel checked his weapon, the iron blade catching moonlight. "Yeah."
"That doesn't bother you?"
"It will," Gabriel said, stepping through the doorway, "if we stand out here asking questions instead of fixing the problem."
Aiden swallowed a retort and followed.
The darkness inside shifted, like the shadows were adjusting to their presence. Floorboards curled upward beneath their boots, brittle from age but strangely warm. The air hung heavy, thicker than the fog outside, as if the house itself were holding its breath again.
Aiden whispered, "Something's listening."
"Good," Gabriel said without turning. "Means we aren't wasting our night."
They moved deeper. Each footstep echoed too loudly, as though a second set of steps followed half a beat behind. Aiden spun twice, but the hallway remained empty. Dust. Cobwebs. Silence. Nothing else.
But he could feel eyes crawling over his skin.
"Victim?" Aiden asked.
"Sixteen-year-old boy," Gabriel said. "Jonah Marrin. Missing three days."
"And his friends left him here."
"Kids run. Bad things don't."
Aiden clenched his jaw. That hit too close, too close to the night he watched his own family leave him behind with something in the dark. Something with eyes like burning tar.
Gabriel slowed. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," Aiden lied.
"Then focus. If the entity is a feeder, we don't have much time."
They reached a narrow staircase. The wood looked wet, like it had absorbed something thicker than water.
"After you," Aiden said.
Gabriel snorted. "Nice try."
He ascended first, flashlight beam slicing through dust-filled air. Aiden followed, each step groaning like a wounded animal. Halfway up, the whispering began, thin, fragile voices drifting from the walls.
Help me.
Please.
Help me.
Aiden's breath hitched. "Did you..."
"Yes," Gabriel muttered. "Ignore it."
"How?! It's a child!"
"It's bait." Gabriel didn't slow.
Aiden hated how easily Gabriel dismissed it. Saving people meant listening. Trying. Believing the innocent weren't just tools monsters used.
At the top of the stairs, the hallway stretched long and crooked, like someone had pulled both ends until the walls warped. Paint peeled in strips, curling like dried skin.
Aiden stepped forward.
The whispering stopped.
Silence.
Then a soft thump above them.
Another.
Then a long, dragging scrape across the ceiling.
"What kind of ghost does that?" Aiden breathed.
Gabriel lifted his flashlight.
Aiden's stomach twisted.
A figure clung upside-down to the ceiling, limbs bent backward, head swiveling unnaturally. Its hollow eyes glowed the color of old bone. A mouth too wide curled open, revealing rows of needle-like teeth.
"That," Gabriel whispered, "is not a ghost."
The creature dropped.
Aiden jumped back as Gabriel slashed upward, iron meeting flesh that hissed and blackened. The thing recoiled, reforming in a swirl of smoke and claws.
"Anchor object!" Gabriel shouted. "Aiden, find it!"
"How do I find an anchor?!"
"Look for whatever the house wants to hide!"
Aiden scanned the room, broken furniture, mold-black carpet, shattered picture frames...
There.
Under a rotted dresser.
A wooden box, faintly glowing, as if lit from inside.
Aiden dropped to his knees and reached for it...
The creature materialized in front of him, claws hooking into the floorboards inches from his face.
Teeth snapping.
Breath cold enough to burn.
Aiden froze.
The creature leaned close, head twitching.
Then it whispered, clearly, horribly:
"He didn't save me."
Aiden's blood ran ice-cold.
It knew.
It knew about his parents.
He jerked back, but the creature lunged...
Gabriel tackled it, driving iron into its side. "Aiden! NOW!"
Aiden grabbed the box.
It pulsed in his hand.
Warm. Alive. Breathing.
"What's in this thing?!" he gasped.
"Break it!"
Aiden raised it...
The box's lid snapped open on its own.
Light spilled out.
And a skeletal hand shot upward, grabbing Aiden's wrist.
He screamed...
As the box yanked him downward...
And the floor gave way beneath him.