Chapter 15: Inside the Fifth
I didn't open the note.
I didn't need to.
The moment I touched the paper, the spiral burned itself into my palm. Like the house had left its kiss on me, sealing something ancient and irreversible.
I was no longer a guest here.
I was part of its flesh.
I stepped over the threshold, into a house I thought I knew.
But everything had changed.
---
The kitchen floor was gone.
So was the table.
So were the windows.
In their place: wooden mouths.
Thousands of them.
Teeth carved from bone. Lips cracked and blackened. Tongues splintered and split into roots that crawled across the walls like vines hungry for ears.
They didn't move.
Not yet.
But I could feel them waiting.
---
I took one step, and they whispered.
Not in words.
In emotion.
Guilt. Hunger. Shame. Craving. Regret.
It filled my skull like smoke. I dropped to one knee and covered my ears.
It didn't help.
It never helped.
Because the voices weren't in the air anymore.
They were in me.
---
I stumbled to the hallway. My heart was hammering like a trapped animal.
The door to the basement was open again.
The spiral book sat at the top step, its pages fluttering like wings. The air smelled of burning leaves and wet wood. I felt something dripping down the back of my neck. When I touched it, my fingers came back black.
Ink.
Or blood.
Or something in between.
The book hissed softly as I approached.
A new page had written itself:
> "Flesh is not enough.
Sound must be swallowed.
The fifth is the throat."
---
I descended the stairs.
Slowly.
Each step groaned like it remembered Walter's last walk down.
The tunnel had changed too.
No longer dirt and stone.
Now it was lined with tongues.
Lining the walls, twitching slightly, tasting the air.
Every few feet, a set of teeth—some human, some not—jutted out of the ground like jawstones ready to bite.
But they didn't.
They simply watched.
---
The chamber had expanded.
The phonograph was gone.
In its place: a cradle.
Old. Wooden. Painted red.
Rocking on its own.
Creaking softly.
I couldn't breathe.
Something inside me was recoiling.
But I stepped closer.
And I looked.
---
The fifth was in the cradle.
A baby.
No older than a year.
Its eyes were black.
Its skin a dull gray-green like drowned flesh.
But it wasn't dead.
It was humming.
A low, tuneless sound that vibrated the chamber walls.
And its mouth… its mouth was too wide.
It split from ear to ear like someone had sliced it open with a grin made of rot and ritual.
Inside that mouth: dozens of tiny teeth. Some were human. Some were nails.
---
As I watched, the baby sat up.
Effortless.
Like it weighed nothing.
It stared at me.
Didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
Just hummed.
The same note as the house.
The spiral hum.
The sound of something older than language.
---
I turned to leave.
But the walls closed behind me.
Tongues lashed together, sealing the tunnel shut.
The baby's hum grew louder.
And then—it spoke.
"You are not the voice."
I froze.
Its words were not from its mouth.
They came from my chest.
From the spiral scar over my heart.
I could feel each word vibrating inside my bones.
The baby rose to its feet.
Still in the cradle.
But now it was taller.
Growing.
Unfolding.
Becoming.
---
Its limbs cracked and stretched.
Its skull split open with a wet pop, revealing a second mouth inside.
Rows of teeth spiraled down like a throat into forever.
"You are the echo. I am the mouth."
I backed away, but the walls wouldn't let me.
The tongues had begun to chant.
Not with words—but memories.
I heard my father's voice.
My mother's scream.
My first lie.
My last dream.
All being replayed, digested, chewed by the house.
---
And then the baby—the fifth—crawled out of the cradle.
Its hands left trails of black ooze that hissed against the stone.
It touched my leg.
I convulsed.
My eyes rolled back.
And suddenly I wasn't in the basement anymore.
I was inside its throat.
---
A tunnel of flesh.
Lined with mouths.
Each one singing.
Each one telling me my own story back to me in reverse.
I tried to scream, but my voice stayed in my lungs.
The spiral on my chest began to spin.
Fast.
Faster.
And then—it opened.
And I screamed.
All of them screamed.
The mouths on the walls.
The mouths in my memories.
The fifth.
Even Walter.
Even the house.
The sound split the world open.
The wood shattered.
The tongues burned.
The baby evaporated into black mist.
And the floor beneath me—
Collapsed.
---
I woke up in the cradle.
Cold.
Alone.
A note pinned to my shirt.
Written in ink and nail-blood:
> "You opened the voice.
The sixth will answer.
Let them in."
---
The tongues were gone now.
The house was still.
But not silent.
No—breathing.
Like it was full again.
Like it had finally eaten enough.
And now it was ready to speak.
Through me.
To whoever came next.