The house was no longer silent.
Aika pressed her forehead to her knees, curled up on her bed as the soft, sickly tune drifted through the locked door. Her mother's voice—low, sweet, slow—rolled through the cracks like a fog. A lullaby that wasn't a lullaby. A song with no words she could recognize, only long, dragging syllables that scraped at the inside of her skull.
It was the same melody Mother had always sung to her and Hana when they were little. Back then, it was comforting, the way a blanket could be comforting even when it hid something waiting underneath. Back then, Aika hadn't known better.
But now she heard the truth in it.
Each note felt like a binding, a chain cinching tighter around her body and soul. She realized with sick clarity that she had never heard that song anywhere else—never at school, never from friends, never on TV. It belonged to this house. It belonged to whatever lived beneath the skin of her mother's face.
And it wanted her.
Aika shifted her weight carefully, trying not to make the bed creak. Her dresser was wedged against the door, a barricade of flimsy hope. The windows were shuttered, the curtains drawn tight, but she knew they wouldn't save her. The walls themselves felt like they were breathing, the wallpaper pulsing faintly if she stared too long.
Outside her door, Mother's footsteps shuffled in a slow, swaying pattern. Back and forth, back and forth, as if rocking something—some thing—to sleep... or waking it up.
Then, a different sound. A faint click.
The vent.
Aika lifted her head sharply, heart hammering against her ribs. The air in the room had dropped ten degrees without warning. She could see her breath in the darkness, little plumes of fog curling upward like offering smoke.
The lullaby continued, but underneath it, there was something else. A whispering, barely audible. A second voice joining her mother's song, threading through it like black thread through raw flesh.
She turned toward the vent near her desk, drawn by a primal dread she couldn't resist.
That was when she saw it.
A shadow, fluid and alive, slithered out from between the slats. It wasn't flesh—not entirely—but it wasn't air either. It was something in-between, something that shouldn't exist. It curled downward like a heavy mist, and then solidified—forming a long, tendril-like arm that coiled around the leg of her bed.
Then, it found her ankle.
Aika's blood turned to ice. She felt the thing's grip, cold and firm, squeezing tight enough to bruise. It pulled—hard—dragging her toward the vent, toward the gaping, breathing darkness.
Panic erupted in her chest. She kicked wildly, gasping, her hand scrabbling for anything to defend herself. Her fingers closed around her lamp—a cheap, heavy ceramic thing.
With a scream that tore from her throat, she swung the lamp down onto the shadow's grip. It connected with a sickening crunch, and the shadow let out a screech—a sound that wasn't sound at all, but pressure, like the air itself was trying to scream through her ears.
The tentacle recoiled, retreating into the vent with a wet slither.
Aika didn't waste time. She stuffed the nearest clothes into the vent, blocking it as best she could. Her hands moved on instinct, fueled by terror and rage. She reinforced the dresser against the door, then sank to the floor, breathing hard, her entire body shaking.
For a long moment, she just sat there, clutching her knees to her chest.
The memories began to trickle back.
The black mold she once thought was just the house aging—it had moved when she wasn't looking.
The nights Hana would stand in the hallway with empty, soulless black eyes.
The mornings she woke with unfamiliar symbols carved into her arms, bleeding and forgotten.
This house wasn't a home. It was a nest.
Mother wasn't Mother anymore.
And Hana... maybe Hana had never been Hana. Maybe she had been something else, a puppet, a sacrifice waiting for her final purpose.
Was this always the plan? Had Aika just been too blind to see it?
She wiped tears off her face with the sleeve of her bloodstained shirt. No more waiting. No more hiding. She would find a way out. Somehow.
And if she didn't?
She would make damn sure no one else ever suffered inside these walls again.
If she didn't make it—someone had to burn this house to the ground.
Someone had to end it.
[Date: 7/11/20XX – Continued]
[Time: I don't know… maybe midnight?]
She's singing it again.
That song. That lullaby.
I always thought it was some old folk tune from when she was little—maybe something passed down in the family, like a weird cultural heirloom. But now I realize I've never heard it outside this house. Never at school, never from neighbors or online. The melody makes the air feel heavy. It's low and slow, with syllables that don't make sense in any language. It always calmed me down as a kid. But now? Now it makes my skin crawl.
And I think… I know now.
It's not a lullaby.
It was never a lullaby.
It's part of the ritual.
Part of the summoning.
Maybe part of the binding.
She's outside my door humming it softly, voice carrying through the cracks like smoke. I can hear her footsteps shifting side to side like she's swaying—like she's rocking something to sleep… or to wake up.
Then the vent.
I should've paid attention. It got so cold. The humming didn't stop, but I swear I heard a whispering underneath it, like another voice joining in from behind the walls.
And then it happened.
A tentacle.
Not like an octopus or anything from the sea. No… this was shadow. Alive. Fluid. It came out of the vent in the corner by my desk, long and slow, wrapping around the leg of my bed—and then me.
It wrapped around my ankle. Tight. Cold like ice in my bones. It pulled hard and I screamed—kicking, thrashing, grabbing the first thing I could find. My lamp.
Ceramic, heavy, and blessedly solid.
I swung it hard and hit the thing. It shrieked—a horrible dry hiss like a vacuum trying to suck the soul out of the room—and it retreated.
For now.
I shoved my dresser tighter against the door. I stuffed clothes in the vent. I'm shaking so bad I can barely write, but I need to get this down. If I don't, I'll forget. Just like I forgot all the other weird things that happened as a kid.
Like the black mold in the walls that would move when you weren't looking.
Like Hana waking up at night and walking around with pitch-black eyes.
Like the symbols I'd carve into my own arms in my sleep.
This house is cursed.
Mother is something else.
And Hana… Hana let it happen.
Was she protecting me?
Was she giving herself up so I'd be spared?
Or… was this always meant to happen next?
I'm not going to die tonight.
I don't care what that thing is.
I don't care if Mother's not human anymore.
I will get out of here.
I have to.
If anyone finds this diary, and I'm gone—burn this house to the ground.
– Aika Mori