Act I: The Descent Begins
The street was quiet. Not eerie, just… still. Like it had forgotten how to move. The house at the end of the lane stood with the same bland confidence as the others—boxed structure, beige walls, a lawn that looked maintained just enough to avoid complaints. Yet, to Elias, it felt like it was waiting.
After the collapse of his tech firm and the brutal unraveling of his marriage, Elias had no choice but to leave the city. Too many people, too many whispers, and too much silence in the wrong places. His hometown offered a dull sort of anonymity. The kind you could shrink into. He had inherited the house from his late uncle, someone he barely remembered. But beggars, especially bankrupt ones, couldn't be choosers.
He stepped inside with two suitcases and a mind heavy with failure.
The place wasn't haunted, at least not in the traditional sense. No creaky floorboards or dramatic cold spots. No flickering lights. Just silence. Sterile, overbearing silence. Elias didn't even realize how much noise his old life had until it was gone. He unpacked slowly, placing books he no longer read onto empty shelves, clothes into too-empty drawers.
He found himself sitting in front of the TV that first evening. It wasn't on. He wasn't watching anything. Just… staring. Like his brain was buffering.
Time moved strangely in the house. Not quickly or slowly, but inconsistently. Some days felt like entire weeks; others vanished before he noticed. He chalked it up to depression. A mind playing games, trying to make sense of failure. But that didn't explain the gaps.
He'd wake up on the sofa with his shoes on, or find dishes in the sink he didn't remember using. One morning, he found a window open that he was sure he'd never touched. The breeze was sharp, cold against his bare arms, and yet he stood there for several minutes, wondering what had happened the night before. Nothing ever clicked.
Elias took to writing notes to himself. Harmless ones at first—"Buy milk," "Take meds," "Do laundry." But soon, they became more… desperate. "Don't forget to check the locks." "Did you open the window?" "What time did you fall asleep last night?"
The real fracture happened a week in.
He had gone to bed at 11:30 PM. He remembered the blinking red numbers of the bedside clock. He remembered brushing his teeth, locking the door, pulling the blanket over himself. When he opened his eyes again, he was on the kitchen floor.
The time was 6:17 AM.
No blood, no bruises, no signs of struggle. Just confusion. Cold tile beneath his back and a buzzing fluorescent light overhead. He blinked at the ceiling for a long time before sitting up.
There was a note on the fridge.
Written in his handwriting.
"You left the back door open. AGAIN."
His heart kicked against his ribs. The door was locked. He double-checked. But the note... The pen strokes were his. The slanted 'A', the exaggerated loop in the 'G'. That was his hand. Except he had no memory of writing it.
He stopped writing notes after that.
Days passed, or at least Elias assumed they did. His phone died and he forgot to charge it. The power outlets in the house still worked, but the charger was always somewhere else. The calendar on the wall remained stuck on the day he moved in. He stopped correcting it after a while.
People called, maybe. He stopped answering. The sound of the ringtone became too jarring, like it didn't belong in the air of the house. Like the house rejected it.
Food started to rot in the fridge, untouched. Elias would walk into the kitchen intending to eat, only to forget why he was there. Once, he found a can of beans in the bathroom sink. He had no explanation for how it got there.
He slept a lot. Or he thought he did. Dreams were elusive, slippery things—sometimes vivid, sometimes void. In some, he'd walk through a house that looked like his but wasn't. The wallpaper pulsed like skin. The doors breathed. The mirrors refused to reflect him. He would wake up gasping, drenched in sweat, only to find the bed untouched.
The most terrifying thing wasn't the dreams.
It was the forgetfulness.
It wasn't just time that went missing—it was pieces of himself. He tried to recall the names of his childhood friends, but their faces were smudged in his memory. His favorite color. The name of his high school. His mother's voice.
All blurred.
All fading.
Once, he sat in front of the mirror for over an hour. Just staring.
Trying to convince himself he was still real.
There was a moment—brief, fleeting—when he thought about leaving. Grabbing his bags and just walking out. But when he reached for the door, his hand hesitated. Like a part of him wasn't ready to go. Or worse, like a part of the house wasn't done with him yet.
That night, he dreamed of static. Of whispers in between television snow. Of voices repeating phrases he couldn't understand, but felt meant for him.
When he woke up, the TV was on.
He didn't remember turning it on.
But it was no longer the silence that haunted him.
It was the feeling of being observed.
Not watched. Not stalked.
Observed.
Like something was studying him. Slowly. Patiently.
And maybe, just maybe, it had always been there.