Chapter 12

On the TV, the butcher-detective lifted a blood-stained cleaver and declared dramatically, “Inspector Mallory, I do believe the rib-eye holds the final clue!”

Jordan snorted. “Yeah, because when I think ‘credible detective work,’ I think consult the nearest steak.”

Harper gave him a half-hearted elbow, but she was smiling. Even Sam let out a soft laugh, the kind you managed only when you were too tired to fight the humour anymore.

Room 6 felt crowded in a comforting way. Elliot and Sam were propped up against the headboard, tangled under the same blanket, Sam’s legs draped across his as she idly traced patterns on his arm. On the floor beside the bed, Harper and Jordan curled together on the air mattress, bundled under the spare blankets Elliot has fetched the night before. They looked rumpled, bleary-eyed, but safe; or as safe as anyone could feel in that house.

The digital clock on Elliot's bedside table glowed 12:32 p.m. the light coming through the attic window was barely light at all, more a dim, storm-thick haze. Rain smeared hard against the glass in diagonal strokes, louder and more insistent than the night before, and the wind hurled itself along the roof tiles with an uneven, restless rhythm that set the beams creaking overhead.

No one commented on it, but everyone felt it. The storm wasn’t just coming, it was already pressing at the edges of the house, heavier, angrier, as if something in the air had teeth.

The TV carried on in front of them, overly bright against the storm-dim room. Rain battered the attic window harder by the second.

On-screen, the butcher-detective dramatically raised a bloodied cleaver toward a lineup of suspects. 

“One of you left a perfect crosscut on the victim,” he declared. “And believe me, your knife skills are rarely this precise.”

Sam groaned. “Oh my god. That was painful.”

Jordan pointed at the screen. “No, no. Let the man cook. Or, er… carve.”

Harper through a pillow at him. “Jordan, please. Don’t encourage whatever this is.”

“Hey, I didn’t write the script,” Jordan said, catching the pillow and hugging it. “I’m just appreciating the art.”

Another character, the butcher’s disapproving ex-wife, stormed into frame. “You can’t solve every crime with meat preparation, Marcus!”

“WATCH ME,” he yelled back, slamming a slab of brisket on the table for emphasis.

Elliot snorted. “I feel like this show gets worse every episode.”

Harper laughed, actually laughed, rubbing her face. “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen, and I can’t stop watching it.”

Sam nudged Elliot with her elbow under the covers. “You’re totally into it. Don’t lie.”

“I’m into the part where none of the characters whisper Latin through the walls,” Elliot whispered back, sand Sam elbowed him again, but gently, leaning her head on his shoulder.

On screen the butcher-detective dramatically held up a cleaver and declared, “Justice is best served… medium rare.”

Harper groaned. “Okay, that one was bad even for him.”

Jordan snorted. “Harper, I love you, but your taste in television is a cry for help.”

“It’s comfort TV,” Harper shot back, hugging her knees. “I can’t help it if you’re all uncultured.”

Sam laughed, tilting her head back against Elliot's shoulder. “No, Harper, this is objectively terrible.”

Elliot raised an eyebrow at the screen. “I think that cleaver is a recurring character.”

“It is,” Harper said proudly. “Its name is Cleave-opatra.”

Jordan stared at her. “We need to get you out of the house more.”

Another ridiculous line dropped, something about “following the blood trail to the truth,” and Sam wheezed out a laugh she immediately tried to smother.

“It’s so bad,” she whispered.

“It’s amazing,” Harper corrected.

Elliot couldn’t help smiling. Sam war warm against him, curled under his arm, her hair brushing his jaw whenever she moved.

Outside, rain streaked hard across the skylight, and the wind thudded against the roof beams, but inside Room 6, they let themselves fall into the absurdity on the screen. They leaned into it, letting the awful jokes soak in, because mocking a ridiculous butcher-detective was still easier than acknowledging how afraid they all were.

Mid-episode, right in the middle of an overly serious monologue about why the cut of a steak can reveal the identity of a murderer, the muffled thud of the front door opening cut straight through the sound of the TV.

All four of them froze.

The butcher-detective continued ranting in the background, something about “marbling never lying,” but none of them heard it anymore. Sam’s hand tightened on Elliot's arm. Harper sat upright on the air mattress so fast she nearly knocked Jordan’s shoulder. Jordan muted the TV without taking his eyes off the door, strain tightening his jaw.

For a heartbeat, the attic room held its breath with them.

Then, drifting up the stairwell in a voice edged with exhaustion but blessedly familiar:

“It’s just me!”

David.

Four simultaneous exhales broke the tension like a snapped cord.

Sam sagged against Elliot’s side, relief flooding her expression. Harper pressed a hand over her chest, visibly steadying herself. Jordan muttered, “Thank God,” under his breath before unmuting the TV out of habit, the butcher-detective instantly resuming his dramatic speech about forensic brisket.

But the mood had shifted.

“David’s back,” Sam whispered, sounding as though she wasn’t entirely convinced until she said it aloud.

Elliot gave her hand a squeeze. “Yeah. He’s really back.”

And for the first time that day, the oppressive weight of the house seemed to lift, just a fraction, replaced by something warm, something whole.

They moved as a single shape down the attic stairs, no one wanting to be last, no one wanting to be left even a step behind. Sam’s hand stayed laced with Elliot's. Harper and Jordan kept close together, exchanging nervous glances every time a floorboard creaked under their combined weight.

When they reached the first-floor landing, the sound of the front door clicking shut again drifted up, followed by familiar footsteps moving across the laminate of the hallway. They took the last flight down more quickly.

David stood in the entranceway, bent to unlace his shoes, rain tapping off the shoulders of his coat. His hair was soddened, pushed back in a way that made him look younger than his forty-one years, though the tiredness lining his face pulled the illusion apart just as fast. He straightened when he heard them approach.

“Alright,” he said softly, eyes moving over each of them. “Hello.”

Relief washed through the group in a visible wave. Not dramatic, just four people breathing out at the same time, shoulders easing, tension uncoiling by degrees.

Harper reached him first, stopping only an arm’s length away, as if checking that he truly was standing there. Jordan’s posture loosened. Sam squeezed Elliot's hand once, tightly, like a silent ‘thank god.’

David managed a small, tired smile at the sight of all of them crowded together on the bottom few stairs.

“Hi,” Harper murmured back.

After making a cup of tea, they all drifted to their usual places without thinking about it. Harper curled up in her armchair, one leg tucked under her, hands wrapped around mug she hadn’t yet drunk from. Jordan took the end of the long sofa, elbow hooked over the arm, watching David with quiet focus. Elliot and Sam were on the two-seater, Sam pressed up against his side, their knees touching. It felt almost like any other evening in the house, except none of them quite knew what to do with their hands.

Elliot leaned forward slightly. “How… how is he?” he asked. “Your dad?”

David exhaled slowly through his nose, staring at some fixed point on the carpet between them. “He had a heart attack,” he said simply. “Friday afternoon.”

Sam’s hand tightened around Elliot’s. Harper’s shoulders hunched almost imperceptibly.

“Shit,” Jordan whispered. “Mate, I’m sorry.”

David nodded once, like he’d already run out of ways to respond when people said that. “They were lucky he was where he was,” he went on. “He was at home with my stepmum. She got the ambulance there fast. If it had been… anywhere else…” he trailed off, jaw tensing. “Anyway. They got him in, did what they needed to. Stents. Monitors. All the fun stuff.”

His tone was dry, but it didn’t quite land as humour. Harper leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “Is he out of danger now?”

“Not out of danger,” David said. “But better. Much better than he was.” His gaze flicked up, finally meeting theirs. “He scared the shit out of us on Saturday. They had to… intervene again.” He lifted his hand then let it fall. “But since then, he’s been stable. More awake. Asking annoying questions about football again. So that’s a good sign.”

Sam gave a small, relieved smile. “That sounds like him,” she said softly. “Annoying football questions.”

“Yeah.” A tiny ghost of a smile tugged at David’s mouth. “He kept asking me if United had bottled it again. I told him if he flatlines every time we concede, he’s not allowed a TV in the room.”

That got a proper ripple of laughter, brief but real. Some of the tightness in Elliot’s chest eased.

“Have you been at the hospital the whole time?” Elliot asked. “Since Friday?”

“Mostly.” David rolled his shoulders like they ached. “First could of nights I stayed in the little relatives’ room. You know, the ones with the plastic chairs and the vending machine that eats your coins and gives you grief in return.” His eyes flicked to Jordan. “You’d hate it. No good coffee anywhere.”

Jordan pulled a face. “Sounds like my personal hell.”

“It kind of was,” David said. “But I didn’t want to leave. Not while he was still in that… uncertain place.” His gaze went distant for a moment, remembering. “My stepmum needed someone there as well. She was trying to be strong, but… you know what it’s like when everything suddenly feels too big for one person.”

Harper nodded slowly. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

“Not for the first couple of nights,” he admitted. “It was all… alarms and nurses and different people coming in and out. I kept half-waking every time a monitor beeped differently.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Sunday night I finally crashed. Properly. They’d moved him to a different ward, things were calmer. I went back to the house with my stepmum, did some cleaning, made us a terrible pasta bake, then passed out on the sofa.”

“You cooked?” Jordan said, eyebrows lifting. “What monster have they turned you into?”

“Desperate times,” David said. “No one deserves hospital café food three days in a row.”

Sam’s voice dropped gently. “What… what actually happened? If you don’t mind me saying.”

David took a breath, eyes dimming with the memory. “He’d been tired, I guess. But he’s stubborn, so he just kept pushing through. Said it was ‘just age’ and that I worry too much.” He made a small, humourless sound. “On Friday, he was out in the garden trying to fix the fence. My stepmum said he came in, sat in his chair, put his hand to his chest and said, ‘That’s not right.” Then he just… went grey. She dialled 999, did everything they told her to do on the phone. By the time the paramedics arrives, it was bad.”

He swallowed, throat working. Elliot's stomach dipped at the thought of it; of watching someone you love fold in on themselves like that.

“But he’s still here,” Harper said quietly. “And improving.”

“Yeah.” David nodded, eyes bright but steady. “He’s a tough old bastard. Always has been.”

There was a little silence. The wind whistled along the outside wall, rain thudding mercilessly against the window. Somewhere deeper in the house, a floorboard creaked; for once, none of them flinched.

“What have you been doing while you were there?” Sam asked after a moment. “Apart from, you know, worrying and eating pasta.”

That earned another faint smile. “Mostly being useful in small ways,” David said. “I took the week off work, told my manager if he wanted to argue, he could come to Cardiology Ward B and explain to my dad why spreadsheets were more important.”

“Bet he didn’t argue,” Jordan said.

“He didn’t,” David confirmed. “So, I’ve been running errands. Sorting prescriptions. Making sure the house doesn’t fall apart around my stepmum. Checking the post, paying bills, answering calls from relatives who can’t be bothered to call directly and instead send endless texts saying, ‘any updated?’” He rolled his eyes.

Harper huffed. “God, that sounds familiar. Emotional labour in group chats.”

“Exactly.” David looked down at his hands. “But… it’s been good as well. In a way. Just… being there with him.”

Elliot shifted. “What do you mean?”

David’s gaze softened, some of the stiffness bleeding out of his shoulders. “We’ve talked more in the last few days than we have in years,” he said. “Properly talked. Not just football scored and how’s work and what time will you be round for Sunday roast. I’ve been sitting by his bed, and he keeps… drifting in and out. But when he’s properly there, he wants to reminisce. Asked me if I remember him teaching me to drive.” A small smile, genuine this time. “Which I do. Mostly the shouting.”

David cleared his throat. “So, sitting there now, with all those machines around him… I just kept thinking how unfair it was. That the strongest person I know was suddenly this… fragile thing in a hospital gown.” He shook his head once. “But he’s still making bad jokes. Still complaining about the tea. Still flirting with the nurses even though he absolutely shouldn’t.” The corner of his mouth ticked up. “So, I think he’ll keep fighting. He's too stubborn not to.”

“I’m glad he’s got you,” Sam said gently. “And your stepmum. That he’s not doing it alone.”

“Yeah, well,” David said, eyes dropping. “He’s spent forty years making sure I wasn’t alone. Least I can do is return the favour now.”

The room went quiet for a heartbeat. A low rumble of distant thunder rolled under the silence, like the sky clearing its throat.

Elliot leaned back a little, feeling Sam’s weight warm at his side. “We’re glad you’re back,” he said. “You know. Here.”

David looked up at him, then around at all of them. The tired lines in his face seemed to ease a fraction. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I… missed you lot. More than I expected actually.” He paused, searching for the right words. “As much as the house is… completely fucked right now,” he added dryly, “being away from it felt wrong too. Like I’d left you all sitting in it.”

“You did,” Jordan said deadpan. Then he smiled, gently. “But you’re forgiven. On account of being a decent son and all that.”

A quiet ripple of laughter moved through the group.

“Seriously though,” Harper said. “We’re really, really glad you’re back. You don’t have to… jump straight into haunted-house duty. Just… be here.”

“And eat something,” Sam added. “Have you eaten properly today?”

David opened his mouth, hesitated. “…Define properly.”

“There it is,” Jordan sighed. “Right. Intervention time. We’ll feed the tall one before he keels over.”

“We will?” Elliot asked.

“Yes, Elliot,” Jordan said. “We will. The man’s been living on vending machine crisps and filial devotion. It’s not enough protein.”

Harper snorted. Sam smiles, pressing her cheek against Elliot’s shoulder briefly.

David shook his head, but some of the weight on his expression lifted. “You lot are impossible,” he said. “But thanks. Really.”

Another roll of thunder grumbled somewhere above them, closer this time. The windows shivered in their framed. For a moment, the house felt like it was listening in.

Elliot squeezed Sam’s hand, then looked back at David. “We’ll tell you everything that’s happened here later,” he said. “But not yet.”

“Good,” David replied. “Let me pretend it’s just bad weather and now… whatever this place is doing now. At least until after I’ve eaten.”

“Deal,” Harper said firmly. “First food. Hauntings later.”

They all nodded, a fragile, shared agreement hanging between them.

For the first time in days, with David back in his armchair and the four of them gathered around him, the house felt a fraction less overwhelming. The storm still built outside, rattling at the windows, and Elliot knew deep down that whatever came next wouldn’t be gentle.

But for this moment, for this small circle of warmth and tired smiles and the promise of food, it was enough.

The conversation in the lounge softened into a gently lull. David had finished his long update, and the room felt heavier but steadier for it, like everyone had finally exhaled after holding tension in their chests for days. The storm outside has strengthened since the afternoon; wind shoved at the windows with blunt, impatient palms, and the rain hammered in relentless sheets against the glass. The dim grey light leaking through the curtains flickered every time lightning flashed somewhere far-off.

For a while they simple sat, absorbing everything, letting David breathe, letting themselves breathe.

But them Sam’s stomach growled loud enough for everyone to hear.

She blinked, embarrassed. “Oh my god. Sorry.”

Jordan huffed out a laugh and pushed his hands against his knees as he stood. “No, honestly? That’s fair. I can’t remember the last proper meal we had that wasn’t panic-fuelled or eaten standing up. And David,” he pointed across the room, “you definitely need something decent after everything you’ve been dealing with. Hospital food and takeaways don’t count.”

David gave a tired, appreciative smile. “I won’t argue with that.”

Jordan clapped once, forcing cheer into his voice. “Right. Kitchen. I’m feeding us before we all pass out.”

No one protested. None of them wanted to split up, so when he walked out of the lounge, all four of them rose without speaking and followed him.

Sam slid her fingers through Elliot's as they crossed the hallway. It wasn’t conscious, just instinctive closeness after everything in the last twenty-four hours. Elliot squeezed back gently, grateful for the contact.

The house groaned under a sudden gust of wind. Harper flinched but kept moving.

The hallway light flickered, just once, a brief stutter of electricity that made Elliot’s heart skip. Sams fingers tightened around his.

“Probably just the storm,” David murmured behind them, though he didn’t sound convinced.

They entered the kitchen, and the shift from the dim lounge to the bright overhead fluorescents felt almost jarring. The room glowed white and steady. But not steady enough. The lights flickered again, a longer, more noticeable dip, before stabilising.

Jordan let out a strained sigh. “Okay. That’s not ominous at all.”

Harper offered a weak smile. “Storm’s just getting close. Nothing weird.”

But Elliot noticed the way she hovered closer to Jordan’s arm than usual.

Another rumble of thunder rolled overhead, closer this time, caused the cupboard doors to shake.

Sam pressed into Elliot's side, shoulder to shoulder, almost like she wanted to fold into his warmth.

He kissed the top of her head without thinking, and she relaxed just a fraction.

Jordan moved toward the fridge, already flipping into his automatic role: house chef, the one who could create some semblance of normality through a pan, a knife, and a handful of ingredients. He tugged open the fridge door, peered inside, and muttered, “Let’s see what I can salvage before the universe decides we don’t deserve power.”

“That’s comforting,” Harper said dryly, crossing her arms as she leaned against the counter.

David chuckled. “It’s more comforting than silence.”

Outside, the wind roared again, louder and closer, and the kitchen lights dimmed to a sickly yellow for a breath before returning white.

No one acknowledged it aloud.

They simply stayed close, moving into the kitchen completely, letting the familiar hum of the fridge and the warm glow of the lights wrap around them like a fragile shield. It was something to do. Something normal. Something human.

And after the last few days, that was enough reason to follow Jordan into the kitchen together.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Jordan announced, “we have chicken thighs. And not the miserable, flavourless kind.”

Elliot stepped up beside him, peering over his shoulder. Jordan reached for the pack without hesitation, bypassing the bacon and sausages on the next shelf down. Elliot caught the subtle choice, Jordan wasn’t making a point of it, just instinctively grabbing something Sam could actually eat. It warmed Elliot in a way he didn’t comment on; he just stepped aside so Jordan could plonk the chicken onto the counter like he’d just unveiled a prize.

“Right,” Jordan said, rubbing his hands together. “Your boy is cooking. Someone put on some heroic theme music.”

Harper groaned. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m adorable,” he corrected, pulling open the cupboard beside the oven. “Also starving. So, unless you all want a breakdown, culinary excellence must begin.”

The kitchen lights case a warm glow over the counters, comforting, even as the wind outside slammed against the walls hard enough to make the windowpanes tremble. Rain hammered the glass and slid in sheets, making the garden outside look like a blurred charcoal smear.

Jordan slapped the chicken package open and pointed the knife at each housemate in turn. “Delegation time. Elliot, chopping duty. Anything long, green, or vaguely vegetable shape is yours.”

Elliot rolled his eyes but grabbed the chopping board. “Yes, Chef.”

“That’s the spirit.” Jordan turned to Sam. “You. Rice or noodles? Dealer’s choice.”

“Noodles,” Sam said, already moving to grab the packets from the cupboard. “Rice takes longer.”

“Excellent. Bless you for understanding efficiency.” Jordan nudged the wok onto the hob. “Harper, plates and spices. And the good soy sauce, not the salty excuse for disappointment.”

Harper snorted and headed for the upper cupboards.

“And David,” Jordan said, jabbing a thumb vaguely toward the counter, “garlic and ginger. Peel, slice, don’t cut your fingers off; I’m not driving anyone to A&E today.”

David cracked the first real smile since returning. “Noted.”

The kitchen came alive.

Elliot chopped: carrots, bell peppers, spring onions, fast, methodical. Sam filled a pot with water, breaking the noodles into nests before lowering them in. Harper set out plates and rummaged through spice jars, muttering commentary under her breath. David’s knife made a steady rhythm as he sliced ginger into thin coins.

Jordan hovered in the centre like the conductor of an anxious orchestra.

He seasoned the chicken with an unnecessary flourish of pepper. “Look at this. Marvellous. Award-winning thighs.”

“Jordan,” Sam said, sliding the noodles into a simmering boil, “please never say ‘award-winning thighs’ again.”

“No promises.”

The storm cracked against the house again, a guttural moan of wind pushing the walls. Elliot glanced at the window. Rain streaked downward in fat, heavy roped. It was already worse than earlier.

Jordan pretended he didn’t notice, flicking the hob onto high heat. Oil hissed loudly when he added it to the wok.

“Alright,” he announced. “Showtime.”

The chicken hit the pan with a violent sizzle that filled the room with the scent of browning skin and how oil. Sam wrinkled her nose happily. “That actually smells amazing.”

“Of course it does,” Jordan said. “Pure craftmanship. Accept nothing less.”

Elliot chopped another spring onion. “You’re insufferable.”

“And yet here we all are,” Jordan replied, flipping the chicken with expert flicks of the wrist, “voluntarily witnessing my greatness.”

Harper set a bottle of soy sauce beside him. “Your head barely fits through doorways.”

Jordan beamed. “That’s called confidence.”

The warmth from the stove seeped into the room, battling the ice breath of the storm. Garlic and ginger hit the pan next, blooming instantly; a sharp, clean smell that mingled with the chicken. David inhaled deeply, shoulders loosening for the first time since he’d walked through the door.

Sam brushed Elliot's arm lightly as she moved past him to drain the noodles. “He’s actually a really good cook,” she whispered.

Elliot grinned. “I’m never admitting that to him.”

“You should,” Jordan called over, without turning around. “Positive reinforcement is key to maintaining my brilliance.”

Harper groaned theatrically, and even David chuckled.

For a moment, just a moment, the kitchen felt normal.

Storm raging or not, shadow figures or not, Latin whispers or not… this was human. Warm. Real.

Jordan tossed the vegetables into the wok. Steam exploded upward, fogging his glasses.

“Look at that,” he said, voice muffled by sudden vapour. “A majestic cloud of yum.”

“Stop,” Harper said, but she was smiling fully now.

Then the lights flickered. Just once, a brief pulse.

Everyone went rigid.

Jordan stared up at the ceiling. “That’s fine. Totally fine. Normal power grid behaviour.”

A second flicker, longer.

Sam swallowed hard. Elliot felt her subtly lean closer, not quite touching him but close enough that he could feel the tremor in her breath.

The storm outside roared.

Wind slammed a loose branch somewhere against the siding. Rain hit the windows in violent sheets.

Jordan lowered the heat on the wok, as if that would stop the lights from dying. “Okay, team…” he said softly. “No sudden moves. Don’t scare the electricity.”

Harper let out a tense laugh. “Jordan-”

The universe didn’t let her finish.

A blinding flash of lightning turned the entire kitchen white.

There was no delay. The thunder detonated immediately, a massive, explosive crack that shook the cutlery in the drawers and made the fridge tremble.

The lights went out instantly. Not dimmed, obliterated.

Darkness swallowed them whole.

Sam gasped and clutched Elliot's forearm. Harper hissed out a curse. David braced both hands on the counter to steady himself. Jordan, silhouetted faintly by the glowing stovetop before the hob died too, said “Oh, fantastic. Brilliant. Just what I wanted.”

The wind screamed around the house, the storm pressing in on every side, and the kitchen felt suddenly, terrifyingly small in the blackout.

For a handful of seconds after the light dies, everyone simply stood still, breathing in the sudden dark.

The storm outside kept snarling, find clawing at the corners of the house, rain hammering the windows so hard it rattled crockery on the shelves, but inside the kitchen, the was nothing but the sound of four or five shaken inhales.

Then Harper exhaled sharply and squared her shoulders.

“I know where the candles are,” she said. Her voice wobbled at the start but steadied by the end. “Cupboard under the stairs.”

“I’ll help,” Sam said instantly.

Her hand brushed Elliot's arm, not grabbing, not clinging, just grounding, and the two women left the kitchen together, their phone torches cutting thin cones of pale light through the hallway.

Jordan let out a long, slow sigh and wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Blackout cooking,” he muttered to himself, almost as if narrating a cooking show no one had agreed to watch. “My speciality. Completely intentional. Definitely part of the recipe.”

Elliot huffed a laugh through his nose. “What’s next? You gonna throw the wok into the storm to ‘sear with lightning’?”

Jordan pointed a wooden spoon at him in the dak. “Don’t tempt me. I’m already halfway feral.”

David sat at the table, quietly recovering from the shock of the blackout, elbows braced on his knees. He wasn’t trembling this time, but he looked as though every clap of thunder pressed on him like physical weight. Still, he was here. With them. That mattered.

Moments later, Sam and Harper returned, arms full: tealights, mismatched pillar candles, two half-burned jars someone had once used for a power cut years ago. Harper dumped everything onto the kitchen counter.

“Right,” she said, flicking her phone torch back on. “Let’s make this place less horror-movie-adjacent.”

Together, they lit them, one flame, then three, then seven, tiny golden points that slowly pushed back the darkness. Their shadows stretched in long, soft shapes across the kitchen tiles. The glow warmed the room almost immediately, the intensity of the blackout softening into something less terrifying and more surreal.

Sam placed a candle near the stove, so Jordan had enough light to finish cooking. “There,” she said softly. “At least now you can see what you’re trying to burn.”

“Rude,” Jordan said, but his grin flickered to life in the candlelight. “I’m a very competent chef, thank you.”

Elliot stepped closer, watching him swirl vegetables through the pan. “Competent chefs don’t narrate every step.”

“This is premium content,” Jordan replied, flicking spring onions dramatically into the sizzling wok. “You should be paying a subscription fee.”

Elliot nudged him with an elbow. “I’m not even sure I want the free trial.”

Despite everything, the storm, the blackout, the gnawing dread, they all smiled. Even David cracked a small, tired one.

Sam drifted back to Elliot's side. Their hands touched first, the slid together naturally. For the first time since the lights had gone out, she breathed properly.

The smell of cooking, garlic, soy, sesame, warm broth, filled the candlelit kitchen. Jordan finished the stir-fry by feel, tossing the chicken and vegetables in the wok until the flame gilded them with amber gloss. It was strangely beautiful in the flicker of candlelight.

“Okay,” he announced, scooping generous portions into bowls. “Dinner is served. Apocalypse-style.”

Harper snorted. “You’re not helping your case.”

“Oh please,” Jordan said, gesturing to the feast with a flourish. “Tell me this doesn’t look incredible.”

It did. Comforting, steaming, normal.

And for a moment, just a moment, that was enough.

They gathered the bowls carefully, weaving out of the kitchen in a cluster of overlapping lights: Harper holding her phone high, Elliot steadying Sam with his free hand, Jordan balancing two bowls at once. The storm roared outside the windows, but their little corridor of candlelight moved forward anyway.

In the lounge, Sam and Harper set the candles down on every available surface: windowsills, bookshelves, the coffee table. The room glowed warm and soft, like a tiny sanctuary carved out from the storm’s fury.

Elliot placed the last bowl on the table and then sat on the two-seater sofa. Sam folded herself beside him with practiced ease, they thighs touching, her hand sliding back into his like it belonged there.

Harper and Jordan close the armchairs, still close, close enough to touch, and David settled on the long sofa opposite, hand wrapped around his bowl like it was something sacred.

They didn’t spread out. They didn’t move to their ‘usual seats.’ They stayed close, instinctively forming a tight ring of warmth and light.

The storm hammered at the windows. But in here, surrounded by flickering candlelight and the smell of hot food, there was a fragile peace.

Sam leaned her shoulder into Elliot's. He rested his cheek against the top of her head. 

No whisper came. No knock. No scrape. Just the storm outside, and the soft sounds of the housemates eating, breathing being human together in the dark.

For a long while, the only sounds were the clink of cutlery against plates and the storm battering the house from every direction. Candlelight trembled across the lounge, throwing soft shadows over their faces, making the room feel half-forgotten and distant from the nightmare the house had been for days.

David was the first the break the quiet. He’d barely spoken since they sat down, just eating slowly, as though each bite was something he had to remind himself to take. Now he exhaled, leaned back in the armchair, and wiped his hands on a napkin before resting them on his knees.

“Me dad…” he started, then paused, his throat tightening. “He insisted I get out of the hospital for a while.”

Harper reached across the small table between them and touched his wrist gently. David didn’t pull away.

Sam shifted slightly closer to Elliot on the two-seater, their legs pressed together beneath the blanket. Elliot laced their fingers without thinking as David went on.

“We talked,” he said, voice soft. “A lot. More than we’ve talked in years, actually. He kept saying he didn’t want me sitting around waiting for him to fall asleep again. told me to go home and get a proper meal.” David huffed out a breath that could have been a laugh if it wasn’t so tight. “He said he knows I’m too stubborn to eat unless someone forces me.”

Jordan nodded slowly. “He sounds like a smart man.”

“He is,” David said, a small smile flickering and vanishing. “Always has been.”

A moment passed. Then, almost shyly, he added, “We ended up… reminiscing.” He scratched his eyebrow, eyes going distant. “He reminded me of the time he taught me to fix a bike chain. I must’ve been… God… twelve? Maybe eleven? My had had throw the chain halfway to school, I was furious. I wanted a new one. I said something dramatic like, ‘I’m never riding that stupid thing again.’”

Harper snorted softly into her tea. David shot her a crooked smile.

“Yeah, I know. Overreacting at that age? Who’d have thought? Anyway, dad didn’t fix it for me. He knelt down next to the bike on the driveway, greasy hand and all, and said ‘if you’re going to own something, you need to know how to take care of it.’ And then he showed me how to loop the chain back on, how to test the tension, how to listen for the click of it settling properly.” His voice softened. “He made me do it myself the second time. And the third.”

Sam smiled gently. “That’s really sweet.”

“Sweet?” Jordan said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s hardcore parenting.”

David shrugged, but the fondness in his expression didn’t waver. “It stuck. Every time something breaks now, I hear his voice in my head telling me not to be useless.”

Elliot squeezed Sam’s hand beneath the blanket and leaned forward slightly. “What else did you two talk about?”

David’s face warmed with memory. “Fishing trips,” he said. “We used to get up at stupid hours, long before sunrise. Sit on this freezing lake with thermoses full of hot chocolate. We never caught anything. Not once. But he’d laugh like that was the whole point. He’d say, ‘A good day isn’t about the fish, lad. It’s about the company.’”

Harper’s eyes softened. “That’s lovely.”

“Yah,” David murmured. “He reminded me of the time he cheered so loudly at a school talent show that the headteacher had to ask him to ‘please moderate his enthusiasm.’” He rubbed a hand over his face, embarrassed and touched at once. “I was mortified. But now…” his voice wavered again. “Now I’d give anything to hear him should like that again.”

Jordan raised his bowl in a small salute. “He sounds like the kind of dad everyone wished they had.”

Elliot nodded. “He does.”

For a moment the storm outside was all they heard; wind hammering at the bricks, rain lashing the windows, the house creaking as it trying to hold its own against the weather. The candles flickered, throwing soft gold over David’s face, illuminating the sheen in his eyes.

“Thanks for listening,” he said quietly. “It… helps. More than you know.”

Sam squeezed Elliot's hand once more, then reached out with her free one to touch David’s. A simple, wordless gesture of support.

They didn’t need to say anything else.

Harper drew a slow breath, looked into her bowl, and said softly, “Storms… always made my brother unbearable.”

Sam blinked, lifting her head from Elliot's shoulder. “Unbearable how?”

Harper gave a crooked smile, part fondness, part exasperation. “He used to… weaponize storms,” she said, gesturing a vague swirling motion with her fork. “If the lights flickered? He’d throw himself against a doorframe and scream like he was being dragged into the abyss.”

Jordan snorted. “I like him already.”

“No, he was awful,” Harper laughed, eyes warming as she spoke. “One time,” she pointed her fork at Jordan, warningly. “One time he waiting until the whole house was dead silent. Then he ran along the landing while crouched, slapping every light switch off as he passed, and launched himself down the final two stairs like some demon-possessed slinky.”

Sam choked on a noddle; Elliot patted her back while trying not to laugh. “Is your brother okay?” Elliot asked, grinning. “Like… medically?”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Harper said with a decisive nod. “He used to hide under my bed during storms and grab my ankles. Said he was helping me ‘train my survival instincts.’ He was eleven. I hated him.”

“He sounds brilliant,” Jordan said.

“Do not encourage him,” Jordan said.

Elliot laughed into Sam’s hair. “Please tell me you got revenge.”

Harper’s eyes glittered mischievously. “Once. He was terrified of porcelain dolls. So, I borrowed one from a friend, the ugly Victorian kind with the dead-eye stare? I put it in his wardrobe, tied fishing string to its arm, and led the string behind the door. When he opened it,” she mimed a small tug. “I made the doll wave at him.”

Sam squeaked. “No!”

Harper nodded solemnly. “He screamed so loud the neighbour called the police.”

Jordan burst into loud, delighted laughter. The first real laugh from him in days. “Oh my God, Harper. I take everything back. You are terrifying.”

She dipped her head with a mock curtsey from the sofa. “Thank you.”

The candles crackled softly. Outside, a sheet of rain slammed against the window before sliding away. Elliot tightened his arm around Sam’s waist, felling her relax deeper against him, warm and solid.

When the laughter faded, Jordan shifted in his seat, rolling one shoulder thoughtfully.

“Alright,” he said, “my turn, since we’re doing storms and childhood stupidity.”

Harper elbowed him gently. “You? Stupid child? Shocking revelation.”

“Listen,” Jordan said, lifting a finger like he was about to deliver a thesis. “My grandmother was a menace. A real menace. And she dragged me lovingly into her chaos.”

Sam perked up with interest. “Already intrigued.”

Jordan cleared his throat, shifting forward on the sofa so the candlelight caught the edges of his smile.

“So,” he began, “every December, no matter the weather” snow, hail, sideways rain, my gran and I would bake. And before anyone says anything,” he pointed a warning finger around the circle, “I know I’m the best cook in this house. But baking? Entirely different discipline. It hates me.”

Harper raised an eyebrow. “You? Baking-phobic?”

“Baking hates me,” Jordan corrected completely serious. “And before you argue, Harper, remember who had to chisel your lasagne out of the try last month.”

Harper threw a tea towel at him, and the group snorted with laughter. Even Sam covered her mouth trying not to choke on her food again.

Jordan continued, warming to the story. “Anyway, my gran would insist every year that I was her ‘stay apprentice.’ And she said it with such sincerity that I kept believing her. Despite the evidence.”

“What evidence?” Elliot asked amused.

Jordan held up an index finger. “Exhibit A: Once year I dropped an entire bowl of melted chocolate onto the floor. It spread like a crime scene.”

Sam laughed softly. “Oh no…”

“Exhibit B: Another year I managed to get cocoa powder on the ceiling. To this day I still don’t know how. My gran didn’t either. She just stood there staring upward like the chocolate gods had blessed the kitchen.”

Haper snorted. “That I can believe.”

Jordan pressed a hand to his chest in feigned indignation but continued. “And then comes the year of… the blizzard incident.”

“Oh, this sounds promising,” Elliot said.

“Oh, it was legendary,” Jordan replied. “Picture it: a thunderstorm shaking the windows, lightning turning the kitchen into a disco. Gran’s trying to show me how to dust icing sugar over gingerbread. A light dusting. Gently. Elegant.”

Sam already started giggling.

Jordan nodded gravely. “Yes. You see it coming. I, however, did not. I inhale, thinking I’m about to blow very delicately, except I actually inhaled like a dragon in training. And I detonated half a kilo of icing sugar across the entire kitchen.”

Sam burst into full laughter, clutching Elliot’s sleeve.

Elliot shook his head. “There’s no way.”

Jordan held up a hand. My uncle filmed it. Posted it. Went viral among approximately twenty-seven relatives. Gran looked like a yeti; I looked like a haunted Victorian orphan.”

“And she didn’t disown you?” Harper teased gently.

Jordan’s smile softened in the candles’ glow, softer than any of them expected. “She just laughed,” he said, voice lowering. “Said baking wasn’t baking unless something exploded. Then she made me hot chocolate and told me not to try too hard to be perfect, because food tastes better when you enjoy making it.”

The room warmed around him, not just from candlelight, but from the tenderness woven through the memory.

Sam leaned back fully against Elliot’s chest, smiling. Elliot rested his chin lightly atop her head. Harper tucked her feet beneath herself, her face softening into something peaceful. Even David, quiet since he told his stories, had a faint, heartfelt smile.

Sam had barely finished laughing at Jordan’s yeti-grandmother story when she nudged Elliot with her knee under the blanket. “Speaking of kitchen disasters,” she said, mock innocent, “should be tell them about the first time you helped me cook?”

Elliot groaned softly. “Absolutely not.”

Harper perked up. “Oh, this sounds promising.”

“It was simple rice,” Sam continued, deadpan. “Rice. And he still found a way to nearly set it on fire.”

“I didn’t nearly set it on fire,” Elliot protested. “The pan was just-”

“Smoking,” Sam supplied helpfully. “Like it had seen things.”

Jordan laughed into his food. “Mate, how do you mess up rice?”

“I put the heat too high,” Elliot said, defensive but smiling now that everyone was laughing. “And I… forgot water for a few seconds.”

“A few second,” Sam repeated with air quotes.

Harper leaned forward. “This is the kind of chaos that gets you banned from ‘Bake Off.’”

Elliot opened his mouth to fire back a retort, but paused, something soft and distant flickering across his expression.

“Actually,” he said slowly, “that reminds me of something me and my sister did when we were little.”

Sam’s face softened immediately. She gently rested her hand on his thigh.

Jordan blinked. “Your sister?”

Elliot nodded, swallowing once before continuing. “Yeah. She… passed away for a few months before I moved here.”

The room stilled. Not with fear this time, but with surprise and gentle sorrow. Even the storm outside seemed to quiet for a moment.

David lowered his bowl slightly. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Elliot said quietly. “I don’t talk about it much.”

He took a slow breath, then pushed himself back into the story, his voice warmer now, touched with nostalgia.

“So, this was when I was seven and she was nine. We decided we were going to make breakfast in bed for our parents. A full spread. Eggs, toast, tea. The works. Except we didn’t know how to do… any of it.”

Jordan snorted. “This is already going places.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Elliot said. “We cracked the eggs straight into the pan without whisking them. Just… plopped them in. they were half raw on one side and burnt on the other.”

Harper winced theatrically. “Gourmet.”

“And the toast?” Elliot continued. “We didn’t know how long to put it in for, so we pressed the button like… four times.”

Sam groaned, grinning. “It ws black. Like charcoal you’d use for drawing.”

“Yup,” Elliot said. “And we proudly served them this plate of raw-and-burnt everything. My dad tried to eat it. Actually tried. And my mum pretended she loved it. She kept smiling and nodding while secretly scraping bits into a napkin.”

Jordan laughed, shaking his head. “Parents deserve awards.”

“Anyway,” Elliot said, shifting upright with sudden animation, “I actually have a photo of the whole spread. Well, what’s left of it. And a picture of us in the kitchen, looking like mad scientists.”

Harper brightened. “Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah,” Elliot said, already half rising from the sofa. “Hang on. I need to grab the photo album. Its upstairs.”

He set his bowl aside carefully, stood up, and brushed his hands on his jeans.

“I’ll be right back,” he said lightly, too casually. The kind of tone someone uses when pretending not to be nervous.

Sam’s fingers tightened around the sleeve of his hoodie before he’d even fully stood. “Do you… have to go now?” she asked quietly. Her voice wasn’t shaky, but something tugged hard at him. a softness edges with fear.

He leaned down and kissed her cheek, lingering just long enough to reassure her, or himself. “Yeah. I’ll be quick,” he promised. “Two minutes. I know exactly where the album is.”

Sam didn’t look convinced. Her eyes followed him the way someone might watch someone leaning too far over a cliff edge.

Jordan shifted in his seat, suddenly restless. “I mean…” he began, rubbing his palms on his jeans, “I could go with you. Just… in case.” But even as he said it, a violent gust of wind slammed into the side of the house. The walls shuddered. A picture frame rattled against the plaster. The candles flickered low, shrinking to trembling flames.

Jordan stopped mid-sentence, swallowing hard.

Harper tucked her blanket closer around her shoulders. “Maybe no one should go anywhere,” she muttered, eyes flicking toward the ceiling as if expecting footsteps.

But Elliot forced a small smile, thin, brave, not entirely convincing. “It’s fine. Its just the storm. And I’ll be on the landing for thirty seconds, tops.”

Sam’s hand slid from his sleeve to his wrist, holding him there for a beat longer. Her eyes were wide, searching. “Please be careful,” she whispered.

“Always,” he said, and squeezed her fingers gently before letting go.

He grabbed his phone from the coffee table; thumb already poised over the torch icon. The lounge felt suddenly too warm, too close, all three of them watching him like he was stepping onto thin ice.

Elliot forced another smile, mostly for Sam, then stepped out of the candlelit room and into the shadowed hallway, the storm growling above him like a warning.

The stairwell was pitch-dark except for the faint spill of candlelight leaking in a thin, trembling stripe under the lounge door. When it clicked shut behind him, the house swallowed the last of the warmth, leaving Elliot in a narrow column of cold.

He lifted his phone and switched on the torch. The light was too small, just a weak silver beam that barely carved a path through the darkness ahead. Every shadow felt too deep. Every corner felt like it was holding its breath.

The storm made the whole house shudder in intervals, like something huge was pressing down on the roof. Gusts slammed against the toles hard enough to make the beams creak. The gutters rattled on their brackets. Thunder rumbled from somewhere close. Close enough that the wallpaper seemed to tremble with it.

Elliot forced himself up the first step. The wooden tread groaned under his foot, louder than it ever did during the day. He swallowed, lifted his torch higher, and kept going.

Halfway up, another blast of wind slammed into the house, rattling the banister. A brief flicker of panic darted through his chest, irrational, sharp, but he kept moving.

Behind him, the lounge door opened a sliver.

“Elliot?” Sam’s voice drifted out, soft, worried, almost swallowed by the storm. “Just shout if you need us.”

He stopped briefly and glanced back, catching only her silhouette framed by candlelight. Harper hovered behind her. Jordan lingered just behind them both, arms folded, jaw tight.

“I will,” he said, though his voice felt too small, too thin to belong in a house that seemed to be listening.

He heard Sam exhale shakily before the door eased shut again, cutting him off from the dim security of their voices.

The upper landing waited at the top like a black throat of a cave. Elliot tightened his grip on the phone, his knuckles pale in the torch beam, and climbed the remaining steps, each footstep cracking the silence as if announcing him to whatever lingered above.

Elliot reached the first-floor landing and immediately felt the temperature drop. It wasn’t subtle, not the ordinary coolness of an unheated hallway. This cold had weight, substance, presence. The kind that sank into the skin and settled around bones. The beam of his phone torch swept across the landing, catching dust motes drifting like slow-moving snowflakes.

He exhaled, and his breath fogged faintly in the air.

“Jesus…” he whispered to himself, rubbing his free hand over his arm as if that could warm him. it didn’t help.

Outside, the storm hammered against the house with wild desperation as though trying to warn him of something.

The house creaked in several places at once, like it was adjusting to the pressure, or bracing for something.

Elliot swallowed hard and forced himself to take another step. His torch cut through the dimness just enough to show the line of bedroom doors. The Silent Lounge, Sam’s room, and then, the black door of Room 2.

Even closed it looked wrong. Too dark. Too heavy. The paint swallowed light instead of reflecting it, making the door appear like a void cut into the wall.

He didn’t let the light linger on it.

He took a cautious step forward.

And the house breathed.

A deep, structural groan rippled through the landing, the floorboards flexing beneath him like something shifting its weight. Elliot froze. His torch jittered in his hand. Then.

BANG.

Room 2’s door slammed open so fast and so violent that the handle punched into the wall behind it with a cracking thud that echoed through the entire house. A cloud of old dust puffed outward, catching the beam of his torch like smoke.

Elliot stumbled back a step, heart hammering against his ribs.

“Elliot!” Harper’s voice shot up from downstairs, sharp with panic.

“Mate, talk to us!” Jordan yelled.

Elliot forced himself to breathe. “I… I’m okay!” he managed. His voice shook anyway. “It’s Room 2. The door… it just blew open.”

“Elliot, don’t go near it!” Jordan called, desperation edging his tone.

Sam’s voice followed, tight with fear, “Please come back. Elliot? Please just… just come downstairs.”

He couldn’t answer right away. He was staring at the open doorway in front of him, not quite able to drag his gaze away. The inside of Room 2 was black. Not dark. Not shadowed.

Black.

A depthless void swallowing the weak glow of his torch.

His pulse throbbed in his throat as he whispered to himself, “Okay… okay, you knew this was coming. You knew this couldn’t stay a mystery forever…”

His legs felt shaky, but some morbid mixture of dread and curiosity pushed him forward. He took one step toward the open door.

Behind him, Harper tried again, voice cracking, “Elliot, please don’t go in. please. Just come back.”

Jordan added, more forceful, “Elliot! Seriously man. We’ll go up together later, when the storm’s calm. don’t be stupid!”

He let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. “If I back away now,” he whispered under his breath, “this is going to haunt us all night. And all week. And… and I need to know.”

He didn’t know if he believed that. He wasn’t even sure he meant it. But saying it out loud, even in a whisper, steadied something inside him.

He took another step.

The landing groaned beneath him, or maybe the sound came from the room ahead. He wasn’t sure.

“Elliot,” Sam called again, voice trembling. “Please… don’t leave me down here worried.”

The fear in her voice nearly pulled him backward.

Nearly.

He swallowed and forced his voice to carry. “I’ll be quick. I promise. I won’t… I won’t do anything stupid. I just want to grab the album and come back. That’s all.”

He hated lying to them.

Jordan swore loudly under his breath.

Harper’s voice broke, “Just… just be careful.”

He tightened his grip on his phone, steadied his breathing, and with a final whispered, “Don’t think, just move,” Elliot stepped forward toward the open doorway of Room 2.

The darkness inside seemed to lean toward him, breathing him in.

Elliot stopped inside the doorway, the beam of his phone torch trembling faintly across the threshold. The room beyond was black in a way the hallway wasn’t, as if the darkness inside it had thickness, weight. It swallowed the light instead of reflecting it. His breath came short, the cold seeping across his skin like he’d stepped into a walk-in freezer.

“Okay… okay. Just a room,” he whispered, voice barely audible over the battering wind outside. “Just… a space. Nothing more.”

But the words fell flat. Even to him, they rang hollow.

He tightened his grip on the phone and stepped inside.

The air shifted instantly, denser, heavier, pressing against him like he’d just waded underwater. The floorboards groaned beneath his weight, dust exploding upward in pale plumes with every footfall. A choking, stale smell filled the air, a mixture of rot, mildew, and something faintly metallic.

Every surface, the floor, the bedposts, the walls, even the hanging curtains, was buried under a thick grey layer of dust. Not the kind you get from a month of disuse. This was decades of untouched stillness. Dust so thick it looked like a blanket of snow. Dust that muted the shapes of objects and blurred the corners of the room.

Except the desk.

Elliot's torch landed on it, and his heart seized.

The writing desk sat in the centre of the room like an altar, perfectly clean, untouched by the filth around it. Not a speck of dust clung to its surface. The lamp on top looked freshly polished. A journal lay open, its pages stark white in comparison to everything around. A fountain pen rested beside it, uncapped, the nib glistening with fresh, wet ink.

Ink that shouldn’t be wet in a place like this.

Elliot felt the hairs on his arms raise one by one.

He lifted the torch higher, forcing himself forward. His footsteps kicked up clouds of dust that floated like smoke in the beam. The room stretched wider than expected, larger than Sam’s, bigger than Harper and Jordan’s too. Still not as large as Room 6, but large enough that sound should have echoed.

It didn’t.

The air absorbed sound unnaturally, swallowing each step whole.

“This… this is wrong,” he breathed, almost laughing in disbelief. “Nobody’s been in here for years. Decades. And yet…”

He trailed off, stepping around the far side of the desk. That was when he saw the gouges.

Deep, angry scratch marks were carved into the floorboards, long channels splintered into the wood, starting at the position the desk stood now and fanning outward in multiple directions. As if the desk had been dragged violently across the room over and over again. some scratches were shallow, others cut so deep he could slide a finger into them.

Elliot's stomach twisted.

He knelt down, sweeping the torch along the lines. Dust filled each groove, thick and undisturbed, proving these weren’t recent… and yet the desk was perfectly clean. Either someone had scrubbed the desk meticulously then abandoned the room again… or something else had.

He swallowed.

“Why the hell would anyone drag this thing around?” he whispered. “Why… move it at all?”

His voice felt too loud in the smothered air.

He stood again and turned slowly, lifting the torch toward the bed. A four-poster frame loomed at the opposite wall like a skeleton of something sleeping upright. The curtains, once velvet or silk perhaps, hug shredded and decayed, long strips that swayed gently though there was no breeze.

The mattress lay sunken and torn, the bedding long turned to brittle scraps. Dust covered everything except one patch near the edge of the mattress, a faint depression where the dust had been disturbed. As if someone had sat there recently. As if someone still sat there, unseen.

“No,” he whispered sharply. “No, nobody’s here. Nobody.”

He forced himself to take a picture of the bed, switching his phone to camera mode.

The torch flicked off automatically as the camera opened, plunging the room into pitch black.

Elliot's breath caught in his throat.

The darkness felt absolute, swallowing the space so quickly his vision didn’t have time to adjust. His heart hammered. His thumb fumbled over the screen, snapping a picture blindly just to bring the torch back.

The sudden flash lit the room in a split-second burst of white.

And in that split-second, he swore he saw something shift in the corner near the bed. A shadow bending, pulling itself deeper into the dark.

The flash died.

The torch came back.

The corner was empty.

Elliot stood frozen, the blood draining from his face.

“Just dust,” he told himself. His fingers shook so badly he nearly dropped the phone. “Just shadows and dust.”

He forced himself to keep going. He needed to keep moving or he’d bolt, and something in him knew running wasn’t the right choice.

He aimed the torch downward again, sweeping the beam across the floor beside the bed. That’s when he saw it, faint, barely visible beneath a century’s dust.

A circle.

Hand drawn, carved or chalked directly into the floorboards. The outline was broken in places, obscured by wax drips that dotted the edges like beads. Strange symbols, half-faded, half-carved, ran around the perimeter. Some looked almost like letters. Others looked like twisted versions of runes. One spot had melted max in a thick puddle, as if a candle had burned down to nothing,

Elliot stared, pulse pounding so hard he felt it in his teeth.

“Jesus Christ, Thomas,” he whispered. “What the hell… what did you do in here?”

Lightning flashed through the window at the far end of the room, briefly illuminating everything in stark white, the bed, the circle, the crushed dust under his feet.

Then darkness again.

He turned back toward the desk. Up close, it was even more jarring, the contrast between the pristine wood and the choking dust was unreal.

He reached out a hand toward the journal, hesitating inches before touching it. The pages fluttered faintly, though there was no breeze.

A shiver ran up his spine,

He didn’t want to read it. Something inside him screamed not to.

But something else, curiosity, dread, the need to understand, pulled him forward.

Before he could decide, his eyes caught a stack of notebooks standing beside the desk leg. They were identical to the open journal, Sam binding, same leather covers, same shape.

There must have been dozens of them.

His breath thinned.

“What… what is all this?” he whispered. “How much did you write? How long were you in here?”

He reached out and rested his fingers on the stack. The leather was cold, but not dusty. Not even a little. These books had been touched, moved, recently.

Lightning flashed again.

This time, Elliot didn’t hesitate.

He reached toward the stack of notebooks as if pulled by instinct. His fingers skimmed the top one first, then he grabbed the second from the pile. It slid out with disturbing ease, almost as if it had been waiting for someone to claim it.

The moment his hand closed around the book, the temperature in the room plunged.

The air turned razor-cold, sinking straight into his bones. Elliot's sucked in a sharp breath, fog puffing out into the beam of his torch.

“What the hell…” he whispered, voice thin, shaking.

Behind him, something shifted, no shape, no movement he could see, just a pressure, like the room tightening around him. the open journal on the desk snapped shut with a violent clap, pages whipping under their own force. Elliot flinched, clutching the notebook harder.

“Okay,” he whispered to himself, barely breathing. “Okay, I’m going. I’m going… I got what you wanted me to get, right? So, I’m leaving.”

No answer, of course. Just that suffocating silence.

He backed away from the desk, step by careful step, the floorboards groaning under his weight. Lightning cracked again outside, flooding the room with white light for a split second, and in that half-second he thought he saw a shadow standing behind the bed.

He didn’t look again.

He made it to the threshold. One more step and he’d be out of the room entirely.

“One step,” he breathed. “Just one.”

He crossed it.

All at once, the pressure lifted. The air warmed. His lungs loosened.

He didn’t pause. He didn’t turn. He hurried to the landing, gripping the notebook so tightly his knuckles burned.

The instant both feet left the room…

SLAM.

The door to Room 2 whipped shut behind him with such force that the frame shuddered. The noise cracked through the hallway like a gunshot.

Elliot jolted forward, nearly tripping over his own feet.

“Nope. Nope. Absolutely not.” His voice buckled as he stumbled toward the stairs.

“ELLIOT?” Sam’s voice rose from downstairs, terrified. “Elliot, what happened?!”

Harper shouted his name next. Jordan’s footsteps pounded against the ground floor hallway tiles.

But Elliot barely heard them. His heartbeat roared in his ears as he hurled down the staircase, the stolen notebook clamped against his chest like a shield.

He didn’t stop until he reached the bottom. Didn’t breathe until Sam grabbed him. didn’t look back up the stairs at Room 2’s closed door.

They half-guided, half-carried Elliot back.

He didn’t protest, didn’t speak, barely even blinked. His breathing came in fast, shallow bursts, the kind that made Sam tighten her grip around his waist as if afraid he might simply fold in on himself. His free hand shook violently around his phone, the torch still on, beam quivering erratically across the hallway walls until Harper gently reached over and switched it off.

The moment they crossed the threshold into the ground-floor lounge, the candlelight caught his face.

He was white. Not pale. White.

Sam sat him down on the two-seater sofa immediately, climbing in beside him, one hand on his chest, the other on the back of his neck, trying to ground him with touch and whispered reassurances. Her voice was soft and frantic all at once: “It’s okay, it’s okay, breathe, you’re okay. El, look at me. Breathe.”

But his eyes were fixed straight ahead, unfocussed, his chest rising and falling like he was still trapped in that room.

Jordan crouched in front of him, voice tight with fear. “Elliot. Mate. Hey, Elliot. What happened? What did you see?”

Elliot didn’t respond.

His lips parted like he might speak, but nothing came out. Just a faint rasp of breath.

Harper hovered at his other side, hands twisting together. “Let him breathe,” Sam snapped, sHarper than she intended, pulling Elliot closer against her. “Please. Just… give him a second.”

Jordan swallowed hard and backed up a step, but he didn’t go far. None of them did.

The storm outside raged violently, wind chewing at the siding, rain slapping against the windows like thrown gravel. The candles flickered hard, shadows jumping across the walls as if the house itself was unsettled by whatever Elliot had brought back with him.

Elliot's fingers twitched against his thigh.

Then, slowly, his hand moved, lifting the object he’d been clutching so tightly they hadn’t even noticed it at first.

A book.

Bound in cracked leather. Edges frayed. Darkened with age. The cover bowed slightly, as if warped by time rather than moisture. It looked too old to belong in this century. Too intact to truly have been forgotten.

Harper sucked in a breath. “What… where did you get that?”

Elliot swallowed once, throat bobbing painfully.

“I…” He tried again. “I went in.”

Jordan’s eyes widened. “You WHAT…?”

“Jordan,” Sam warned through her teeth, tightening her hold on Elliot as his breath hitched again.

He blinked rapidly, breath stuttering before he pushed the next words out in a shaky exhale: “Room 2. I went inside.”

Harper sat down on the coffee table directly in front of him, leaning in cautiously. “Elliot… Sweetheart… what do you mean you went inside? You said you were just getting the album…”

“I wasn’t thinking about the album,” he whispered, voice cracked and thin. “I just… I saw the door. It opened. And I…”

His words dissolved into a shudder. Sam pressed her forehead lightly to his temple, grounding him again.

Haper reached out slowly. “Can I… may I see it?”

He hesitated, just for a moment, the extended the book toward her with trembling hands. She took it carefully, reverently, as though it might disintegrate under too much pressure.

Jordan leaned over her shoulder. “Jesus. That thing looks like it belongs in a museum.”

“Or a tomb,” Harper murmured.

Sam shot her a look. “Harper. Not helping.”

Elliot closed his eyes, breath curling unevenly through his nose. “There… there were more. A stack of them. Dozens. All the same.”

He ran a shaking hand through his hair, chest rising sharply. “And the desk. The dust, everything was covered in dust except the desk. Like someone had been sitting there. Recently.”

Sam felt him shiver hard against her and pulled him closer, her hand rubbing circled along his spine.

Harper looked at him, voice gentling. “You don’t have to say anything else yet. Just breathe. We’re here.”

But he shook his head. “No. You need to know.”

He met her eyes, then Jordan’s, then Sam’s.

“I grabbed one,” he said. “This one.”

Harper nodded slowly, opening the cover with cautious fingers.

Elliot flinches at the sound of the pages shifting.

“The room… it’s thick with dust,” he began. “Like no one’s stepped inside for fifty years. Everything… the floor, the bed, the walls, all of it covered. Except the desk.”

They exchanged a look, but no one interrupted.

He swallowed. “There are drag marks all over the floor. Deep ones. Like the desk has been pushed into different places again and again.” He gestured vaguely with his free hand. “Not gentle. Not normal movement. Like someone was shoving it around with… force.”

Harper’s grip tightened on the book without her realising.

“The desk surface,” Elliot continued, “is clean. Completely clean. No dust at all. Like someone’s been using it recently. The rest of the room looks abandoned, but the desk looks lived in. used.” He didn’t care he had repeated himself.

“That’s…” Jordan began, then stopped, the words dying in his throat.

Elliot set his phone on the low table between them and unlocked it with shaking hands. “I took pictures. It might help if you see them.”

Sam’s fingers squeezed his wrist gently before releasing them, letting him hold the phone properly.

He opened the gallery and swiped to the first image.

The room collectively leaned in.

The photo was grainy in the low light, illuminated only by the flash and a burst of lightning from outside the window. But even with the blur of motion, the details were unmistakable: a thick grey coat of dust carpeting the floorboards, the warped frame of the old four-poster bed, the sagging curtains torn nearly to ribbons.

Elliot swiped to the next image.

“This is the desk,” he said quietly.

The photo showed the old wooden desk pushed into the centre of the room, its legs sitting within channels carved into the floor by repeated dragging. The surface was spotless, the edges sharp, the ink pot and pen clearly visible.

“No dust?” Harper whispered, more to herself than anyone.

“None,” Elliot confirmed.

Another swipe. The circle-like markings on the floor came into view; faint lines etched into the boards, curved shaped broken by age and incomplete in several places. Wax drips hardened around the edges. In the flash of the photo, they gleamed like they were still soft.

Harper inhales sharply. Sam shifted closer, her shoulder pressed firmly against Elliot's.

“It looks…” Jordan stated, then stopped himself. “Well. It looks like something.”

Sam’s brow tightened. “But nothing we recognise.”

“No,” Elliot agreed. “Nothing I’ve ever seen.”

He kept swiping, each image capturing different angles of the room: the shredded hangings, the collapsed mattress, the dust-laden beams overhead smothered in cobwebs.

When he reached the last few, the photos became more chaotic, tilted, unfocused, as though he’d been rushing. The final shot was nearly black except for a sharp streak of white across the left edge, like something had moved in front of the lens at the exact moment the picture was taken.

“What’s that?” Harper breathed.

“I don’t know,” Elliot admitted. “Could’ve been the lightning. Or my hand. Or… something else. I didn’t stay to check.”

A collective silence settled over them. Not because they doubted him, but because they believed him completely.

Elliot lowered his phone and leaned back, exhausted, breath coming unevenly. Sam tucked herself into his side again, one hand resting over his, grounding him without a word. Harper set the book on the table between them, not closer, not farther, as if placing it any other distance might upset something they didn’t understand.

Nobody tried to explain away what he’d found. Nobody offered guesses this time. Nobody dared.

They just sat there, shaken and wordless, while the storm raged against the house as though trying to claw its way inside.

Harper flicked carefully through the first few pages, holding the notebook as though it were something fragile and volatile at the same time. The candlelight wavered over the paper, making the scratches of ink ripple like they were still moving.

Most of it looked… wrong.

Lines didn’t stay straight. Sentences didn’t end. Ink bled through in places like someone had pressed the pen too hard. Entire paragraphs were crossed out so violently the paper had nearly torn, and smudges clouded sections into total obscurity. Some pages looked as though they’d been writing on while the book was shaking.

Haper turned another page.

Then another.

Still nothing coherent.

Jordan leaned in over her shoulder, blinking at the mess of handwriting. “Is it even English?”

“Some of it,” Harper murmured, squinting. “Sort of.”

Elliot stayed pressed against Sam, breathing steadier now but still pale as he watched them navigate the broken text. “That’s what the others looked like. The open book on the desk looked like it’d been written by someone who’s not fully in the room.”

Sam swallowed. “Or not fully themself.”

Harper didn’t respond, she just kept turning the pages, slow, deliberate, patient. The storm rattled the windows again, and the candles guttered, throwing shadows across the uneven script.

Then her hand stilled.

“Oh,” she whispered.

“What?” Jordan leaned closer.

She angles the book so the others could see. “This one’s… complete. Or almost.”

The handwriting here was calmer. Still frantic around the edges, still rushed, still uneven, but recognisably coherent, like whoever wrote it had moments of clarity long enough to leave a full thought behind.

A heading at the top of the page. A name. An age.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “This one we can read.”

The room tightened around her, four faces leaning in, waiting, bracing.

And Harper began to read the passage aloud.

I have seen another one. Another cast-off moment left drifting like smoke from a candle snuffed before its time.

The memory belongs to a man called Oliver Hadden, though I do not know him in the flesh, not have I glimpsed his face outside of this vision pressed upon me. Yet I still feel it, his nerves, his breath, his trembling excitement, as if his heartbeat briefly occupied my own chest.

He was seventeen when the moment occurred, standing in a near-empty market car park at the fall of dusk. The sky was cold, bruised violet, and the ground held the day’s rain in dark reflective patches. He wheeled out a motorised bicycle, one of those loud, rattling contraptions of the new age, with a reverence one might afford a horse not yet broken.

His friend filmed him, the sort of companion whose laughter rises without restraint, loud enough to fill such a hollow, echoing place. Oliver begged him not to capture it, but the friend only laughed harder, the device in hand shaking wildly.

Oliver mounted the machine. He attempted to breathe steady. He did not succeed.

With a twist of his hand, he willed the beast alive, but it died instantly, sputtering, coughing itself into silence.

His friend’s laughter nearly doubled him over.

Oliver tried again. the same result. Failure. Humiliation made louder by the merriment behind the camera. I felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment, his fingers stiffening on the cold metal.

He tried once more.

This time the engine truly woke. A growl. A vibration. A force beneath him that frightened him so sharply that I, though only the witness, felt it jolt though my ribs.

He almost lost control immediately. Wobbled. Jerked. Fought the machine like a rider tossed upon a startled horse.

Yet he held on.

By some miracle of youth and stubbornness, he straightened his path and completed a full, unsteady loop across the wide, damp expanse. His voice cracked with triumphant laughter as he circled back, his friend cheering behind the lens, breathless and proud.

It was not a grand achievement. It was not remarkable in the eyes of the world.

But it mattered to him.

And so, it came to me.

Those scraps, these castaways of mortal recollection, they slip loose from their owners so easily. And I, bound to my task, to the endless debt I owe, must catch each one before it is lost entirely.

I take no pleasure in it. But neither can I look away.

I record what he forgot. Because that is what I promised.

What I must continue to do.

The group stared at the page for a long moment after Harper stopped reading.

Jordan was the first to speak, eyebrows drawn together. “It… sounds like a real memory.” He hesitated, then shook his head. “But it can’t be. Thomas was Victorian. Motorbikes didn’t even exist.”

“Exactly,” David said quickly, as though grabbing onto the logic like a rope. “So maybe it’s just… a story he wrote? Or something he heard once?” His voice wavered. “Or maybe a dream? People write dreams down.”

Harper didn’t answer right away. Her eyes moved across the page again, tracing the phrasing, the sensory detail. “Dreams don’t read like this,” she murmured eventually. “Dreams are messy. They fall apart. This fells…” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Sam drew her blanket a little tighter over her lap. “It’s too specific to be fiction,” she murmured, then immediately tensed. “But that doesn’t mean it’s real. He could’ve made it up. Or heard a story. Or…” She stopped, struggling to conjure a rational explanation. “Or maybe it belonged to someone he knew.”

“Someone he knew… when?” Jordan countered gently. “He died over a century ago.”

“That doesn’t mean this is what it looks like,” Sam shot back, more defensive than she intended. Her hand reached for Elliot’s without her thinking about it.

Elliot squeezed her fingers once, then leaned forward slightly. “Maybe he copied someone’s diary?” he suggested, though he sounded unconvinced. “Like he found a journal from a later tenant? Or maybe someone left this upstairs and he just… wrote in it?” the ideas felt thin even as he said them.

David frowned at the name on the page. “Oliver Hadden,” he repeated softly. “That name’s familiar. I’ve heard it before.” He rubbed at his temple, trying to place the memory. “Tracy mentioned him. the woman who lived in Room 3 before Sam.”

“Yeah.” David swallowed. “She said a guy called Oliver lived here when she first moved in. Quiet. Kept to himself. Didn’t talk to anyone.” He exhaled a shaky breath. “Then one day he just left. No forwarding address. No explanation.”

Jordan blinked slowly. “You’re sure?”

David nodded once. “Yeah. But she didn’t tell me anything about motorbikes or… anything like this.” He gestured vaguely at the page.

“Could still be fiction,” Elliot murmured. “Just because the name matches doesn’t mean the memory’s real.”

Another gust of wind slammed the window. The candles flickered violently.

Sam’s gaze flicked between the pages and the doorway, as though expecting someone to be standing there. “Whatever it is,” she whispered, “I don’t like that it’s in here.”

Elliot nodded. “It’s unsettling. But it doesn’t prove anything yet.”

Harper grabbed the notebook carefully, palms almost reverent. “Right,” she said, though her voice didn’t quite hide her unease. “Let’s keep going. See if the next one makes more sense.”

Jordan pulled his knees in closer to his chest. “Yeah,” he muttered under his breath, “because that definitely wasn’t creepy enough already.”

The group shared a tense, uncertain look, a collective attempt to stay grounded.

Harper cleared her throat softly and turned the page. The scratch of paper felt unnecessarily loud in the candlelit hush. Then she froze.

“…Sam?” she said gently. “This one had your name on it.”

Sam tensed beside Elliot; a full body flinch she clearly hadn’t meant to let slip. Her fingers tightened in the blanket draped over her legs.

“Mine?” Her voice came out thin. “Are you sure it’s not… another Samira?”

Harper glanced up with apologetic eyes. “It spells your surname too.”

Sam swallowed, throat bobbing. Elliot was already rubbing slow circles along her arm without even thinking about it.

Harper turned the notebook toward her.

I saw it again. another moment stolen from a life not my own, carried to me like a loose thread drifting across time.

There was a little girl this time. Small, slight, dark-haired, with wide brown eyes dulled by fever.

She sat at a tiny wooden desk, legs too short to reach the floor, shoes swinging aimlessly above the tiles. The room around her was bright with children’s artwork, but the colours seemed to tilt and swim. Her head felt heavy, her stomach twisting. She held one hand to her forehead, trying to stop the room from leaning sideways.

Her name came to me like a whisper I already knew.

Samira Patel. Age seven.

A kindly woman approached, Miss Rowland, the teacher, though the child called her miss in her thoughts, as though the woman had never possessed any other name. Miss Rowland knelt beside her, the wool of her cardigan brushing Samira’s arm, speaking softly, voice warm with concern.

“You’re burning up, sweetheart,” she said, touching Samira’s cheek with the back of her hand. “Let’s get you downstairs, hmm?”

The girl nodded, slow, dizzy, and allowed herself to be guided from the seat. The classroom blurred behind her as she leaned into Miss Rowland’s steadying hand. Children whispered, but their faces swam like watercolour paint left too long in the rain.

They walked together down the corridor that smelled faintly of glue sticks and wet coats. Every step echoed louder than it should have. Samira’s breath came shallow; the hall seemed too long, as though it would never end.

Then they reached the reception office.

I saw the little girl lowered into a blue plastic chair that was a touch too cold, the ridges pressing uncomfortably against her back. Someone handed her a juice box, apple, condensation beading on the sides, and she clutched it with both hands though she only took one small sip.

“Your mum is on her way,” Miss Rowland promised.

The clock on the wall ticked in aching, syrupy seconds. Samira blinked slowly, vision tunnelling, the bracelet on her wrist, a colourful plastic thing with uneven beads, resting heavy and hot against her skin.

At last, the door opened.

Her mother hurried in, coat half-buttoned, hair windblown, worry etched plainly across her face. She hurried forward, her heels clicking sharply, and knelt in front of her daughter, cupping Samira’s flushed cheeks in trembling hands.

“Oh, darling,” she breathes, relief softening her features. “You look exhausted.”

The little girl leaned into her mother, letting herself be lifted from the chair. Her mother’s perfume, something floral, familiar, wrapped around her as arms held her close.

And for a moment, the child felt safe.

The memory flickered at its edges, the way candlelight trembles when a draft creeps under the door. The hallway blurred, the woman’s voice stretched thin, and Samira’s head drooped against her mother shoulder. 

Then it all dissolved, slipping away like breath on cold glass.

Another memory preserved and written.

I knew why I was seeing it. I must keep what others forget.

Harper’s voice was the first to break the awful quiet.

“Sam… it’s got your name.” Her tone was soft, careful, like she was trying not to spook a frightened animal.

Sam stared down at the open page, her eyes moving over the last line again and again as it repetition might spark recognition. It didn’t. her fingers tightened slightly around the notebook’s edge, knuckles pale in the candlelight.

“I…” She swallowed, glancing at the others as though hoping one of them could give her the memory she lacked. “I recognise Miss Rowland. And… and the reception chairs were blue. I even remember the layout of the office.” Her voice cracked, frustration threading through the confusion. “But I don’t remember this day. At all.”

The words hung there, heavy.

Elliot shifted closer, one hand hovering near her knee before gently resting on it. “Sam… are you sure? Maybe it just feels distant, or maybe…”

“I don’t remember it,” she repeated, firmer this time, her eyes still lost on the page. “I remember other things from Year 2. I remember losing my first tooth. I remember the Christmas play. I remember the class hamster dying and everyone crying except Callum because he was weirdly excited about it.” Her breath shuddered. “But I don’t remember being sick. Or going home early. Or my mum rushing in from work.”

Harper’s brows pulled together, sympathy and fear mixing in equal measure. “It feels like… something personal. Too personal to make up.”

Jordan rubbed the back of his neck; his earlier bravado stripped away under the candlelight. “Could just be a coincidence,” he tried weakly. “Names repeat. Details overlap. Kids get sick all the time, maybe Thomas just… just wrote something down he heard or imagined.”

But even he winced at his own explanation.

David leaned forward, elbows on his knees, studying Sam with quiet seriousness. “Does any of it feel familiar? Even a little? The way its written… the feelings?”

Sam shook her head slowly, jaw tightening as she blinked rapidly. “No. It’s like reading about someone else. Except it is me,” she pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, overwhelmed. “Why don’t I remember it? Why would something so… ordinary disappear?”

Harper reached out, brushing Sam’s shoulder with the back of her knuckle.

“Hey,” she murmured, “that doesn’t make it strange. Think about it… most ordinary memories disappear.”

Sam blinked, still pale. “But why this one?”

“Because that’s how brains work,” Harper said gently, settling into a tone halfway between comfort and one of her old psychology lectures. “If we kept every tiny detail, we’d drown in them. You’d remember every cup of tea you ever made. Every walk to school. Every single sentence from every book or article you ever read. Every time you brushed your teeth. Every bus ride. Every breakfast. Every… everything.”

Sam frowned faintly, as if trying to picture a world where her mind contained all of that.

Harper continued, voce soft but certain. “Our brains prioritize what’s new. What’s emotional. What’s important. The rest fades to make room. Out with the old, in with the new. Literally. If we remembered everything, we’d never stop thinking about the boring parts.”

Sam’s breath hitched in her throat. She wasn’t crying, not exactly, but something inside her seemed to release, like a string loosening. “But why this one?” she whispered.

Jordan exhaled slowly. “Maybe because it wasn’t a big moment to remember. You felt sick, they sent you home. You rested, got better. Your brain just… let it go.”

Elliot, still holding her hand, added quietly, “Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Just means you didn’t need to keep it.”

Sam looked down at the page again. her name. her age. The memory that felt like someone else’s life wearing her face.

Harper offered a small smile, soft, patient. “Ordinary things don’t stay forever, Sam. They’re meant to fade.”

The candles flickered gently around them, and Sam let out a slow breath, absorbing it. Not reassured, not fully, but steadier.

And the book sat open on her lap, humming with an unspoken truth.

If this memory was hers… what else in the book belonged to someone still living?