The basement stretches longer than she remembers, the darkness pressing in thicker now, hungrier. The stranger does not follow, yet she can feel his presence wrapping around her like a lingering shadow.
She stops before the door. Something about it is different now. The wood cracks open like veins, pulsing with something deeper beneath its surface. The doorknob is no longer brass; it gleams silver, smooth, expectant, waiting. Her heartbeat hammers against her ribs.
This is the moment.
Janelle lifts the key. As she slides it into the lock, she feels it before she hears it; the shift, the undeniable sensation of crossing into something irreversible.
A click. Then, a whisper.
“You were never meant to leave,” Janelle sensed the house speaking to her.
The door swings open, and the mansion inhales Janelle whole. The world beyond the door isn’t immediate. It stretches, shifts, and breathes. Janelle doesn’t step forward. She is pulled. The air thickens, threading through her lungs with the scent of old paper and damp earth. The darkness doesn’t sit idly; it moves, curling like fog, pressing against her skin as if testing her resolve.
A single flicker of light pulses ahead, weak and hesitant. It casts distorted shadows, bending shapes into something almost recognizable but refusing to settle. Then, a voice, soft, strained, familiar.
“You came back.”