The dream always began the same way.
Elise found herself standing at the edge of a dark, endless hallway. Shadows swallowed the walls, and a heavy silence pressed down like invisible hands.
A staircase coiled downward, the steps cracked and slick with something damp. Without a choice, she descended.
Her footsteps echoed in the void until she stumbled into an open clearing — a graveyard hidden underground. Tombstones rose from the earth like broken teeth.
One stone stood, cracked down the center, yet strangely polished. Strange writings — twisting, ancient symbols — were carved into its surface. Above it hung a portrait nailed to the cavern wall: a woman and her daughter, both pale and smiling too widely, their eyes black voids.
As Elise reached out to touch the stone, the woman's portrait seemed to blink.
She woke with a choked scream, drenched in sweat, the sheets twisted around her limbs like chains. It was the third night she had the dream.
Elise, seventeen years old, sat up in bed and hugged her knees. The small rental house her family stayed in for now creaked and groaned in the night winds. They were a family of five: her parents, her younger brother Matthew, her little sister Anna, and herself.
They had been searching for a permanent home for months now, and the strain was starting to show. Downstairs, she heard the low rumble of her parents talking — about money, about moving, about new beginnings.
She barely registered their words before exhaustion pulled her back down into a restless sleep.
A few days later, while driving out to visit a new property listing, Elise sat in the backseat, earphones in, staring blankly at the winding forest road.
Her dad kept one hand on the steering wheel, the other fiddling with the radio. Her mother tapped on her phone, scrolling through listings.
Suddenly, her father gasped. Elise ripped out one earbud.
"What's wrong?" her mother asked sharply.
"I—I don't know," he said, wiping his forehead. "I felt... dizzy. Like a sudden blood pressure drop or something. Everything just—shifted."
Before anyone could react, something black — a cloth-like creature, swirling and thrashing — swooped across the windshield with a shriek that rattled the glass. Elise screamed.
Her father jerked the wheel instinctively. The car skidded, tires screaming, and smashed into a low stone fence bordering an old house half-hidden by towering pine trees.
The world went white.
When Elise opened her eyes, the dust was settling. Miraculously, no one was seriously hurt — just bruises and rattled nerves.
A man came sprinting from the house, panic flashing across his features.
"I'm so sorry!" Elise's dad said as he climbed out, hands raised. "I'll pay for the damages!"
The man, a gaunt figure with deep-set eyes, only shook his head.
"Maybe... maybe you can pay in a different way," he said with a strange smile.
Within an hour, he had offered to sell the old house to them at a suspiciously low price, waving away formal inspections. Desperate for a solution and still rattled from the crash, Elise's parents agreed.
By week's end, they had moved in.
The house groaned under their presence, old wood protesting every step. The backyard stretched into a wild, unkempt forest, shadows gathering thickly under the boughs. Elise felt watched from the moment they unpacked the first box.
On the first night, unable to sleep, she climbed up to the rooftop terrace — a sagging platform surrounded by a crooked iron railing. From there, the forest stretched black and endless under the sliver of a moon.
She scanned the trees — and froze.
Something stood at the forest's edge. Humanoid, yet wrong: too tall, too thin, its skin a mottled gray-white. It raised one elongated hand and waved.
Elise stumbled backward, heart hammering. She didn't scream. Somehow, she knew it was listening. The thing turned and vanished into the woods without a sound.
Moments later, her dad called up to her, asking her to come inside.
Days passed. Elise tried to ignore the house's constant creaks, the scratching sounds in the walls, the fleeting shadows just at the edge of her vision.
One evening, her parents decided to visit one of their uncles — leaving Elise, Matthew, and Anna alone for the weekend.
Before leaving, her mother said, "Stay inside, okay? Lock the doors. And don't go near the woods."
No need to tell Elise twice.
That night, the dream came again.
The dark hallway.
The endless stairs.
The graveyard underground.
But this time, the portrait on the wall had changed. It was Elise's own face now, staring back at her with hollow eyes.
She jolted awake to a soft scratching sound outside her bedroom door.
At first, she thought it was Matthew or Anna playing a prank — until the door handle began to rattle violently.
"Elise," a whisper came from the other side. "Let us in."
Her blood turned to ice. It was not the voice of her brother or sister but that of an old man, the words rasping from a thin, pale throat.
She scrambled to her feet and shoved her dresser in front of the door. Heart racing, she backed into the corner of the room, hands shaking.
The rattling stopped. Silence returned. But still, she didn't leave her room.
As Elise made her way down the dim hallway to grab a glass of water, she caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye.
Standing at the end of the corridor, half-shrouded in shadows, was the figure of an old man — thin, hunched, with hollow, sorrowful eyes.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, but she forced herself to keep walking, staring straight ahead, pretending she hadn't seen him.
She knew if she acknowledged him, if she gave him even a moment of recognition, he might never leave.
Morning brought no comfort.
Matthew and Anna claimed they hadn't left their rooms all night. Their pale faces convinced her they were telling the truth.
"Hey, we're back," her mom called out cheerfully. "Everything okay here?"
Elise opened her mouth to respond — but froze.
Shock rooted her to the spot.
Anna was with them.
But last night... Anna had been here. They had all been together. Elise had checked every room before sleeping, locking every door.
Her father noticed her frozen expression.
"Elise? You good?"
She nodded slowly, forcing herself to breathe. Maybe she was overtired. Maybe she had imagined it.
But deep down, she knew she hadn't.
Last night, someone had been with them. Someone who wasn't Anna.
Later that afternoon, Elise's father stepped outside to smoke and clear his head.
From the porch, he spotted a small crowd gathered at a house across the street.
Curious, he wandered over, Elise trailing behind him at a distance.
A funeral was underway.
Neighbors in dark clothes clustered together, murmuring in low, somber tones. At the center, a closed casket rested under a white canopy. A black wreath hung above it, the name "Mr. Edwin Crawley" etched in elegant script.
Elise's father caught sight of a woman he vaguely recognized and approached.
"Who passed?" he asked quietly.
The woman sighed, wiping her nose.
"Old Mr. Crawley. Lived here nearly sixty years. Had a heart problem, but..." she shook her head, "no one really knows what happened. He was doing fine last week. Then, suddenly... gone."
Elise shivered despite the warm breeze. A cold knot twisted in her stomach.
Her father thanked the woman and turned to go back. Elise lingered for a moment longer, staring at the casket. A heart problem. But not the real cause.
Just like everything else around here — wrong, hidden behind a thin layer of normalcy.
Back home, her father shared the news with the rest of the family over dinner.
"Poor old guy," he said, shaking his head. "He must've been close to ninety. Always said he had a bad ticker."
Elise pushed her food around her plate, barely listening — until a question bubbled up, unbidden.
"Dad," she asked slowly, "how did he look? I mean... before he died?"
Her father glanced up, confused.
"Uh... old," he said. "White hair, skinny, wrinkled. About eighty-something. Why?"
Elise's hands tightened around her fork.
"Because..." she said quietly, "the voice I heard last night — the one whispering outside my room — it sounded like an old man."
The room fell into silence.
Matthew stopped chewing mid-bite. Anna lowered her spoon, staring wide-eyed at Elise.
Her mother frowned, about to say something comforting, something logical — but even she seemed unsure.
Her father cleared his throat.
"You're probably just rattled," he said gruffly. "All that's been going on lately... it messes with your head."
But Elise saw the flicker of doubt in his eyes.
He heard it too, she thought. Or something like it.
That night, sleep didn't come easily. Elise lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening.
The house groaned and shifted around her.
The trees outside whispered against the windows.
The darkness pressed against the walls.
Somewhere, faint and distant, she thought she heard a low chuckle — like an old man trying to hide a laugh.
And she realized that the door was open.
Some things don't just haunt houses.
They haunt people.
And once they choose you...
They don't let 𝚐𝚘.