Chapter 11: The House Opens Its Eyes

We didn't speak much after the third mark carved itself into the table.

Liam sat at the edge of the couch, hunched forward like something was pressing down on his shoulders. His fingers were twitching—tiny spasms like they were remembering something before his brain caught up. I knew the feeling.

He looked up at me.

"I heard it last night. Clearer than ever. A voice under my bed. It said, 'You carry my silence.'"

I nodded. "It's not just a haunting. It's a task."

"Task?"

"The house is the mouth now," I said. "But it needs a tongue. It needs us."

He stared at the ceiling. "What happens if we don't do what it wants?"

We both knew the answer.

It wouldn't ask again.

---

That afternoon, we walked the property.

Not because we thought we'd find answers. We just needed air. Room. Distance from the house's humming skin.

The woods out back were still thick and untamed, branches curling like ribs, roots pulsing with something just beneath. I noticed a small mound of dirt a few dozen feet from the edge of the property. An unnatural shape—too square. Too deliberate.

We didn't speak. We just started digging.

Our fingers found something within the hour.

Fabric first. Then wood.

A box.

We cleared the earth until the whole thing sat exposed—an old wooden chest, reinforced with iron bands. It smelled of mildew and rot, but something darker oozed from the seams.

Liam ran his hands along the top.

"No lock," he said.

I shook my head. "If it wanted to be kept closed, it would've stayed buried."

We opened it.

Inside was a book.

Bound in leather, brittle and cracked. The pages were yellow and stiff, covered in smeared ink and water damage. The language was English, but the words made no sense—sentences curved in spirals, bled into one another like chants or curses.

And at the center of the book: a symbol.

A spiral of nails.

Burned into the page.

I touched it.

Everything inside me screamed not to—but I touched it.

And I saw the house before.

A memory. A vision. A place soaked in blood.

I saw Walter Griggs sitting in the kitchen, trembling, surrounded by people with blank eyes. They weren't chanting. They weren't praying.

They were listening.

To him.

And what he said… it wasn't just words. It wasn't meant for ears.

It was for something older.

Something deeper.

Something beneath the floor.

---

I stumbled back, gasping.

"What did you see?" Liam asked.

I looked at him, but the words caught in my throat.

He grabbed the book next.

As soon as he touched the symbol, his eyes rolled back. His body convulsed—only for a moment—but when he came to, he looked older.

Not in wrinkles or hair.

In the eyes.

Like he'd lived through something he couldn't name.

"We opened it," he whispered.

---

We took the book back to the house.

The moment we crossed the threshold, the temperature dropped.

The lights flickered once.

Then twice.

Then held steady—faintly red.

We set the book on the kitchen table.

The tally marks were gone.

In their place was a single word, etched deeply into the wood:

"NOW."

---

That night, the dreams were worse.

Not nightmares—instructions.

I walked corridors that shouldn't exist. Stood in doorways made of bone and candlewax. Heard voices call me "Herald." Felt mouths open along my spine, whispering things in languages I almost understood.

And always—always—I saw the nail spiral.

Turning.

Tightening.

Waiting.

---

When I woke up, I knew what had to be done.

So did Liam.

We didn't question it.

The house had awakened, and we were its hands now.

---

We moved furniture aside.

Cleared the living room floor.

At the center, beneath the rug, was a panel of wood unlike the rest—softer, darker, warm to the touch.

We pulled it up.

Underneath was a pit.

Shallow, but lined with stones. And in the center, a carved depression the size of a human chest.

"The altar," I said, without knowing how I knew.

Liam nodded.

We opened the book again and turned to the final pages.

There was a list. Names.

Three of them.

Not ours.

But familiar.

The old woman across the road.

The librarian.

The man from the bakery who once warned me not to live here.

Witnesses.

Carriers.

Silent ones who never spoke of what they knew.

The house wanted them.

Not dead.

Awakened.

And it had chosen us to do it.

---

That evening, we knocked on the old woman's door.

She answered with dead eyes.

Like she'd been waiting.

"I wondered when the floor would call you," she said.

"You knew this was coming."

"I knew silence doesn't last forever," she whispered. "Neither does guilt."

"We need you," Liam said. "You're part of this."

She stepped outside without another word.

No shoes.

No hesitation.

Like she'd dreamed it too.

---

One by one, we brought them.

The librarian was already standing on her porch when we arrived.

The man from the bakery didn't even lock his door—he walked out, eyes glazed, as though sleepwalking toward the truth.

---

Now we were six.

Three hearers.

Three sleepers.

The moment we crossed the threshold together, the house sang.

A low hum, like wind through hollow bones.

The windows fogged with breath.

The walls pulsed.

We formed a circle around the pit.

The book lay open in the center.

No one spoke.

We didn't need to.

Our mouths had already been claimed.

---

The final page of the book turned on its own.

There was no writing now.

Just the spiral.

Turning.

Turning.

And beneath it, etched in ink that shimmered red:

"To open the house is to close the world."

I didn't understand it.

Not fully.

But I didn't have to.

The house did.

And it was ready.