Do Not Speak It’s Name

The house felt different.

Ethan had always thought of his home as a place of safety, a barrier between his family and the chaos of the outside world. But now, it felt like something else entirely. It felt like a trap—a space no longer under his control, where something unseen had set its roots deep into the walls, into the air itself.

Noah stood stiffly beside him, still clutching the thermal camera, his knuckles pale from the grip. The growl from behind the closet door had faded into silence, but it left behind an undeniable truth.

They weren't just dealing with a ghost.

This was something older.

Something patient.

Something that wanted them to know it was here.

Noah finally spoke, his voice lower than before. "We can't stay here tonight."

Ethan turned to him. "And go where?"

Noah's jaw tensed. "Anywhere but here. I don't know what this thing is yet, but I know when something is staking a claim. And it's claimed this space."

Ethan hesitated. His eyes flickered toward the hallway, toward Daniel's room. "I can't just leave my son."

Noah sighed. "I get it, man. But listen to me—if we stay, we're giving this thing more time to sink its claws in. And trust me, the longer it latches on, the harder it is to get rid of."

Ethan knew he was right. But something about the thought of leaving felt wrong. Like if he walked out of this house now, he might never be able to come back. At least, not as the same person.

He shook his head. "No. I'm not running."

Noah clenched his jaw. "Then we need to figure out what we're dealing with. And fast."

Ethan rubbed his temples. His thoughts were tangled, racing too fast for him to keep up. "You said this isn't just a ghost. Then what is it?"

Noah hesitated. "There are… things that exist outside the rules we understand. Spirits, yes. But some are more than that."

Ethan frowned. "Like what?"

Noah exhaled. "Things that never lived. That don't have human souls. Some of them pretend to be ghosts. Some of them wear familiar shapes. But they don't follow the same rules."

Ethan felt a cold prickle crawl up his spine. "Are you saying this thing isn't just haunting the house? That it's… something else?"

Noah nodded. "That would explain the temperature drop, the voice, and the way it responded to the salt. A regular ghost? It wouldn't growl like that."

Ethan swallowed hard. "So what do we do?"

Noah pulled out his phone and scrolled through his notes. "First, we try to identify it. If we know what it is, we'll know how to fight it."

Ethan took a deep breath, his pulse still hammering in his ears. "How do we do that?"

Noah glanced at him. "We start by looking for its name."

The dining table was covered in books, old notebooks, and Noah's laptop, all opened to pages about hauntings, demonic entities, and supernatural lore. The glow from the screen cast long shadows against the walls, making everything feel more distorted, more wrong.

Noah scrolled through his notes. "Okay. From what you've told me, it doesn't just linger—it interacts. It speaks. That means it's intelligent. And if it's intelligent, it means it wants something."

Ethan frowned. "What could it possibly want?"

Noah shook his head. "That's what we need to find out."

Ethan glanced at one of the books, his eyes skimming across old illustrations of shadowy figures with elongated limbs, empty eyes. Pages filled with symbols, wards, and desperate warnings from people who had clearly seen something they were never meant to see.

His gaze landed on a passage in one of the books.

"There are some entities whose names should never be spoken. To name them is to invite them in."

A chill ran down Ethan's spine. He turned the page, but the words stuck with him.

Names had power.

And right now, there was something in his house that had no name.

Yet.

Noah suddenly stiffened. "Shit."

Ethan's head snapped up. "What?"

Noah turned his laptop screen toward him. It displayed an old case file—grainy black-and-white photographs of a burned-out house, its windows shattered, its walls collapsed inwards. The report was dated twenty years ago.

Ethan scanned the document.

"Unexplained Phenomena – Case #47: The Hollow Man."

His blood turned to ice.

"What the hell is this?" he asked.

Noah's face was grim. "A house in this neighborhood burned down twenty years ago. Official reports say it was an accident, but everyone who lived nearby said otherwise."

Ethan's hands clenched into fists. "What did they say?"

Noah's voice was quiet. "They said the family that lived there… started seeing something in their son's room."

Ethan's breath hitched.

Noah kept reading. "They heard knocking in the walls. Whispering at night. The closet door would open no matter how many times they locked it."

Ethan's stomach dropped.

It was the same.

Noah looked at him, his expression unreadable. "The night before the fire, the father of the house—he started talking about a voice. Said it was speaking to him."

Ethan's mind flashed back to his own experience.

"He's waiting for you."

His pulse pounded. "What happened?"

Noah hesitated. Then, he scrolled further down. "They found his body outside. He'd clawed at his own throat until he bled out."

Ethan's entire body went cold.

Noah exhaled. "The mother and son? They died in the fire."

Ethan didn't speak. He didn't know what to say.

Noah leaned forward. "This thing—it's not just haunting Daniel's room, Ethan. It's been here long before you moved in."

A deep unease settled in Ethan's gut. He looked toward the hallway, toward his son's bedroom door.

A thought whispered in the back of his mind, unbidden and terrifying.

What if it had been waiting for him all along?

A sudden creak split the silence.

Both men turned.

From down the hall, the closet door in Daniel's room had slowly begun to open.

Noah shot up, grabbing his bag. "We need to leave. Now."

Ethan barely registered the words. His eyes were locked on the thin sliver of darkness behind the closet door.

Something stood there.

A tall shadow.

Watching.

Smiling.

The whispers returned. Closer. Louder. Crawling through his ears, through his mind.

"Ethan."

His breath caught.

"You already know my name."

And then—

The door slammed shut.