The House that No One Built

The screaming cries of agony echoed throughout the empty house. Serene stood frozen in the doorway as the door opened to the ominous darkness inside. The creaking stopped as the hinges reached their limit.

Behind her was the world of light. A sunny afternoon. The sound of children playing off in the distance. A car driving by every once in a while. The sprinklers from one of the front yards in the subdivision nearby. Behind her was a world that was alive and happy to be here.

In front of her was darkness. Hallways that waited to echo any and every sound. A staircase that begged for footprints in the dust. A starving kitchen, hungry for the first meal in years. A house long abandoned. Lonely. Depressed.

Angry.

She stepped across the threshold and walked inside. An arctic wind wisped past her. The hinges cried out in agony as the door slammed shut behind her. She jumped. Her heart, held in by her ribcage, tried to escape. She was enveloped in darkness. The outside world, the world of light and life, was gone.

She stood there for an eternity. The dust forced its way into her nose and her thoughts. The ghosts of the distant past made no attempt to hide that they were there. Watching.

When her body calmed down, she opened the curtains of one of the balcony sized windows. The fabric was heavy. Old. Dusty. She opened one side then the other. Slivers of light cut through the window and made their mark on the floor. Dirt, dust, and who knows what covered the glass panels. The world out there still blocked from view.

She made her way to another room. Another window with curtains meant for a kingdom. Another window that offered no portal to where she had come from. Fragments of illumination taunted her senses across the ballroom. Fairies of light and dust danced in the air. A magical moment. A hypnotizing sight. A new reality.

Serene took a moment to steel her nerves. She had hoped that more light would pour in through the windows. Darkness was still the ruler of this domain. A speckled beam of light led her down a wide hallway. A compact car would have room enough without scraping the mirrors on the wall.

Every step took her deeper into the darkness. Doors she couldn’t see, but somehow knew were there, lined up for her. Finally, the long journey led her to the place where feasts were prepared. A garden window, washed by nature alone, allowed some of the outside light to penetrate the darkness.

Counters lined most of the kitchen. A stove from centuries long past stood proud in the middle of one of the walls. Two apartment door cabinets stood side by side, opening in opposite directions.

Smaller cabinets hung sleeping above the counters. A tall banquet table demanded attention in the middle of the room. Its thick boards crowning its head. Scars from years of cuts and burns prominently displayed.

A child’s bathtub sat in the counter between the stove and the tall cabinets, divided into three parts. The faucets moped from the wall, rising then drooping towards the basin.

She made her way to the garden window looked outside. Out there was another world. Not like the one she came from. Not like the one inside. She could barely see a walkway lined with lattice walls and a pergola roof. Vines created a tunnel that led to… she couldn’t see. Perhaps a world where a little girl once encountered strange creatures.

Serene tried not to dwell on it lest she find herself seeing a smiling cat that wasn’t there. She turned to explore the adjacent room when something caught her eye. On the center counter was an envelope. She hadn’t noticed it before. She approached it slowly, not taking her eyes from it. The envelope sat clean on top of the years of dust. It had her name on it, written in, what she guessed, was Victorian Era Calligraphy. Inside was a torn-off note.

You only have one more night…

This is part one of an ongoing experiment. Where do you think it should go?

I’d love your input.

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Originally published at https://simily.co on February 17, 2022.