Chapter 1: The House That Waited Too Long

They say the Withered House weeps when someone lies inside it.

I didn't believe in ghost stories, not until I heard my name whispered through a locked attic door at midnight.

"Aanya..."

It wasn't the wind. It wasn't a dream. And I knew it because the voice that said it sounded like a sin waiting to be touched.

That moment split me open. Not in fear—but in knowing. A knowing I couldn't explain. That whisper didn't come from the attic. It came from the past. From a night I spent on the edge of a kiss I was never meant to taste.

The next morning, mist hugged the old estate like a secret. Everything felt heavy. Alive. The walls groaned when I moved. The chandeliers creaked in patterns. This house wasn't dead. It was just—waiting. Like it had been holding its breath until I returned.

And then I saw him.

Veer.

Leaning against the rusted iron gate, half in shadow, half in memory. Five years of silence coiled between us like the vines choking the estate.

"It found you too," he said. No greeting. No warmth. Just that voice. The same voice that once whispered things into my skin under a monsoon sky—things that weren't promises but still felt like them.

"You shouldn't be here," I said, breath hitching. My hands were trembling, but not from the cold.

"Neither should you. But the House doesn't care what we should or shouldn't do. It only wants one thing."

"What?"

His eyes darkened. "Blood remembers."

---

I tried to escape into the house, to pretend this wasn't happening. That I hadn't seen the mirror crack last night without anyone touching it. That I hadn't found old photos of myself as a child in rooms I never remembered being in.

The House was rewriting my memory.

My aunt's death hadn't felt real. A simple heart failure, they said. But her body was found facing the attic—eyes wide, mouth open. As if she had heard the whisper too.

As if it called her name first.

---

That night, I unpacked slowly. Room by room. Trying to hold on to reality. But when I touched the doorknob of the attic, it pulsed beneath my fingers.

Alive.

And on the mirror down the hall, the condensation hadn't formed a fog. It had formed words.

"Don't let him in again."

Was it warning me? Or was it warning Veer?

Because the Veer I once knew—the boy who burned poems instead of reading them—was gone. In his place was a man who moved like shadow, who watched like he was memorizing how I broke.

And something inside me wanted to shatter just for him.

---

Outside, the wind howled like a girl denied her name. Inside, the floorboards whispered when I stepped. Not creaked. Whispered.

I don't know when the House started speaking to me. I just know it already knew my name before I ever said it.

But it wasn't just my name it whispered.

That night, as I passed the mirror again, I didn't see my own reflection. I saw a boy I didn't know.

He was smiling. But not at me.

At something—someone—behind me.

And when I turned around, there was nothing.

Except a whisper.

"Let the past in. Or the House will."

---

🖤 Author's Note — From Unstoppable Aish:

My bold little Shadow Hearts... the House has opened its first door, and Aanya has stepped in. What she finds next will chill your skin, tempt your soul, and burn like a curse you've tasted before.

Which character has already tangled itself around your spine? Is it Veer and his hollow secrets? The whispering mirror boy? Or the House itself?

Drop a comment, scream in the shadows, and vote if you're already hooked.

Because this isn't just a story. It's a ritual.

And once you're inside...

The House never lets you leave. 🕯️🔥

With sin and ink,

Unstoppable Aish 👑