Chapter 16: Let Them In

The house was different now.

Not louder.

Not darker.

But… aware.

It no longer felt like a place I lived.

It felt like a thing that watched me sleep.

That inhaled my memories through the walls.

That waited—patiently, lovingly—for my breath to slow each night so it could wrap itself around my lungs and whisper through me.

And it was whispering now.

But not in words.

In intentions.

It didn't ask anymore.

It told.

And tonight, it told me:

"Prepare the door."

---

I don't remember moving, but I found myself in the front hall, standing before the doorway.

The real one.

The inner one.

The one that hadn't existed until yesterday.

It was shaped like a human silhouette.

Arched.

Tall.

Smooth.

Carved into the very wall itself, but deeper than brick or beam.

It was breathing.

The whole door rose and fell, like a sleeping chest.

The wood around it had changed—no longer splintered or scarred, but grown, like bark from a tree that fed on dreams.

In the center of the door was a keyhole.

But no key.

Instead, a slit. Just wide enough for something soft. Something warm.

A tongue.

---

That's when I understood what the message meant:

"Let them in."

The sixth wouldn't arrive by foot.

It would arrive through me.

I was the doorway now.

My body had become the house's invitation.

Its mouth.

---

I returned to the kitchen.

The spiral book lay open again, though I had sealed it and buried it in the wall two nights ago.

Now it was back.

Always back.

Pages fluttering.

Waiting.

This time, it wasn't writing instructions.

It was showing me faces.

People.

Some I recognized—locals, strangers I passed in town, even people I hadn't seen in years.

Others I didn't know at all.

But I felt them in my teeth.

In my bones.

Like my body had already met them—chewed on their names in dreams.

And beneath each face was a word:

"Called."

---

I touched the page.

And suddenly—I could hear them.

Every one.

Muttering in their sleep. Crying. Begging. Whispering into pillows. Drowning in silence.

One woman was singing lullabies backwards to her dead dog.

Another man kept reciting his own name, over and over, in a child's voice.

One screamed "I'm not in my house anymore!" while standing in his kitchen.

They were cracking.

Splitting.

Becoming ready.

The house was summoning them.

Not with letters.

Not with knocks.

With remembrance.

And I was the signal.

---

That night, the knocks began.

Not on the door.

On the walls.

From the inside.

Tap-tap-tap.

From the floorboards in the hallway.

Scratch... scratch.

From beneath the bed.

From inside the oven.

From the mirror.

Even the toilet bowl.

One knock. Two knocks. Three.

Always three.

Never four.

Four would mean they'd gotten through.

---

At 3:17 a.m.—always, always that time—I heard the whisper.

Clear.

Direct.

"Let them in."

---

I stood before the door again.

The slit pulsed slightly.

Like it was thirsty.

I pressed my forehead to the frame.

And for a moment—just one—I felt a memory not my own:

A man, kneeling in an attic.

Nails in both hands.

Tongue torn from his mouth.

Crying without sound.

Writing the word "WELCOME" in his blood on the floor.

Walter.

It was him.

He had tried to open the door before me.

But he hadn't been enough.

Not yet.

Not complete.

---

But I was.

The house had shaped me for this.

Fed me pieces of the spiral.

Let me carry its silence.

Grow its mouth.

I touched the keyhole again.

And for the first time, the house moaned.

Soft.

Pleasured.

Like a mouth tasting food after years of starvation.

It wanted the sixth.

And I was the plate.

---

I went back to my bedroom.

The window had vanished.

In its place: a mirror.

But it didn't show me.

It showed the hallway.

My hallway.

But… different.

Crowded.

People standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

Faces pressed to the walls.

Eyes wide. Lips stitched. Skin pale.

All of them waiting.

All of them looking at me.

And behind them, further down the mirrored hall, I saw a shape.

Black.

Tall.

Hunched.

Crawling slowly on backward limbs.

Its head a bundle of arms.

And at its center, where a face should be—a door.

Just like mine.

---

I backed away.

The mirror rippled.

One of the faces inside smiled.

Not happily.

Not sadly.

Just inevitably.

---

I locked myself in the bathroom.

But it didn't matter.

There was no lock.

Hadn't been for days.

I sank to the floor, knees pulled to my chest, hands over my ears.

But I still heard them.

Let us in.

Let us in.

Let us in.

Over and over.

Until the words became sounds.

Then the sounds became breath.

Then the breath became part of me.

And I whispered with them.

---

By sunrise, my mouth was bleeding.

The spiral had spread to my jaw now.

The inside of my cheeks were raw.

My teeth ached.

And on the walls, written in something that shimmered faintly red:

> "The house is almost whole.

One more must come.

One more must knock.

And then…

The mouth will speak."

---

I think I know who the seventh is.

I saw him in my dream.

He was standing in front of the mirror, staring.

His own mouth missing.

But he wasn't afraid.

He was smiling.

And whispering my name.