Chapter 24: The Version That Remains
I don't know how many days it's been.
Time isn't time in here anymore — it's versions.
The house doesn't track hours or light or sleep.
It tracks rewrites.
And today, something rewrote me.
---
It started with my hand.
I looked down and saw a scar across my palm I didn't recognize.
Fresh.
Deep.
But when I touched it, I remembered how I got it.
Except…
It wasn't real.
Not here.
Not in this version of me.
I remembered breaking a mirror in my childhood home, cutting my hand as I reached for the shard.
But my childhood home never had mirrors.
Not in this house.
Not in this version.
---
That's when I understood:
The house had written another me.
And for a moment, it had leaked through.
Bled into this draft.
And I felt both versions.
Two timelines trying to fit into the same skeleton.
Two sets of lungs sharing one breath.
Two fates.
One doomed to forget.
One doomed to remain.
---
I ran to the mirror.
Not the hallway one — that's been blind for days.
I went to the spiral mirror.
The one that grows where the wall peels back, like a wound dreaming of glass.
I stared.
And for the first time in forever…
I saw both of us.
Side by side.
Me.
And me.
One of us with stitches across the mouth.
The other with spiral eyes.
I blinked.
So did he.
But when I stepped forward—
Only one reflection moved.
And it wasn't mine.
---
I reached out.
The glass was warm.
Too warm.
Alive.
It pulsed once.
Then again.
And then it whispered:
> "Only one version stays.
The other is offered."
Offered to what?
It didn't answer.
---
Later, I found one of the guests sitting at the bottom of the staircase.
He had no face now.
Just a blank oval of flesh — smooth, unmarked.
He was humming.
But the sound came from under his skin.
Like a music box buried in meat.
I asked him what was happening.
He tilted his head, the sound warping into words:
> "The house is choosing.
Not just rooms.
Realities."
---
I didn't believe him — not fully — until I opened the bedroom door and found the walls painted a different color.
Not blood-red, like they've always been.
Teal.
A color I haven't seen since I was seven.
The color of my mother's kitchen.
I stepped inside.
Everything was… wrong.
The bed was on the left.
The window faced the wrong direction.
The cradle was gone.
And in its place?
A television — playing static.
But not ordinary static.
Familiar static.
The pattern danced in spiral shapes.
And in the noise, I heard a voice.
Mine.
---
> "This is version thirteen.
This is the safest version.
But it will not hold.
Memory resists containment."
---
I backed out.
The hallway had changed.
Longer.
Lower ceiling.
One of the doors was made of ice.
And behind it, a soft knocking — rhythmic, but fragile, like someone using their own skull to tap.
I didn't answer.
Not yet.
---
I returned to the writing room.
The pages had changed again.
Whole chapters gone.
Replaced with paragraphs written in languages I once knew but now cannot read.
But one line stood out, still fresh in red:
> "You are being restructured.
Only one of you will survive authorship."
---
I sat.
The pen waited.
It always does.
And this time, I wrote a question:
"What happens to the other versions of me?"
The house responded instantly, scrawled in jagged lines:
> "They become rooms.
Some become warnings.
Some are stored.
And one… becomes the new guest."
---
That last line chilled me.
Because it meant someone would arrive with my face.
Not a twin.
Not a mirror.
A version.
Another "me," rewritten by the spiral.
And I would be forced to open the door.
And watch him take my place.
Unless...
I became the version that remains.
---
But how?
How do I survive a house that no longer believes in single truths?
Where every version of me is equally valid, equally broken, equally unfinished?
The answer is the same as always.
Write.
Claim the page.
Be the version that tells the story loudest.
---
So I did.
I wrote:
> "I am the final draft.
The one who stayed.
The one who wrote the others into dust."
The walls didn't move.
But the spiral on the ceiling narrowed.
Tighter.
Sharper.
Like a needle focusing on me.
And then the book bled.
One drop.
Dark red.
It hit the page and spelled one word:
"Provisional."
---
It means I haven't won.
Just... delayed.
One version survives.
Until the spiral rewrites again.
Until you turn the next page.
Until you begin to forget what was different before.
Do you remember?
Was the floor always red?
Was the guest always a woman?
Was your name always… yours?
The house watches now.
As you question it.
And the spiral smiles.
Because that means it's working.
It's remembering you.
---
And soon, it will make you choose:
Which version of you will survive?
The one who finishes reading?
Or the one who knocks?