The stairs creaked underfoot, their ancient wood groaning as if it sensed what lay ahead.
Royce's grip on Eryndra tightened, but she was already slipping, her body drained of energy, her breath shallow. The weight of their plight pressed down on him, colder than any winter storm.
The air in the basement was thick — alive with something unseen.
The moment they stepped into the dark, the door slammed shut behind them with an earth-shattering thud. The echoes reverberated through the air, as if the house itself was sealing them into this nightmare.
The basement was vast, far larger than the house above, and it stretched endlessly into the blackness. Jagged stone walls, slick with moisture, lined the space, their surfaces covered in a dense layer of old, black mold.
But it wasn't the darkness or the foul air that made Royce's blood run cold.
It was the whispering.
From every corner of the room, from the very stones beneath their feet, faint voices murmured. Whispers that clawed at the edges of their sanity.
---
Eryndra's voice trembled.
"Do you hear them?"
Royce didn't answer.
He was afraid that if he spoke, the voices would turn toward him. His eyes scanned the shadows, looking for any sign of movement.
And then he saw it —
a faint, flickering light in the far corner of the room.
It wasn't the usual glow of fire or lanterns. No, this was something... deeper. Something more unholy.
The light pulsed with an otherworldly rhythm, like the beat of a heart too large for this world. Royce felt it in his chest.
The pull.
His fingers twitched, and against his will, his feet began moving toward it.
Eryndra stumbled, trying to stop him. "No!"
But it was too late. Royce's body was already beyond his control, drawn toward the source of the whispers.
---
As they drew closer, the light sharpened, revealing a stone altar, half-buried beneath the rubble. It was ancient — much older than the house, older than anything Royce had ever encountered.
Upon the altar lay a book.
Its cover was black as pitch, bound in what looked like skin, the texture shifting and rippling under the dim light.
The whispers grew louder, faster, as though the book itself was calling to him, urging him to touch it.
And then —
the light snapped out.
The basement plunged into utter darkness, and the whispers turned into screams.
They came from everywhere.
They came from the walls.
From the ceiling.
From the floor beneath Royce's feet.
The walls began to move.
The stone split apart, like the opening of a mouth, and from the gap, black tendrils surged forward, wrapping themselves around his legs, pulling him closer to the altar.
Eryndra screamed, but her voice was lost in the din.
Royce tried to fight back, but the tendrils were too strong. They pulled him, dragged him across the cold stone floor, until his hand finally brushed the book.
---
The world exploded in light.
---
For a split second, Royce's body locked in place as the book screamed. The air grew thick, the smell of iron and decay suffocating him. His vision blurred.
The book…
it burned with an unholy fire.
---
And then it stopped.
The tendrils vanished.
The whispers fell silent.
And there, on the altar, the book lay open.
---
Royce's body trembled as the words on the page seared themselves into his mind. The symbols were ancient, so alien that they made his skin crawl, but one word stood out to him, as if it had been carved into his very soul:
"Rebirth."
And beneath it, a date.
The date was today.
---
Eryndra collapsed to her knees, her breathing ragged. "What did you do?"
Royce, still shaking, turned his gaze from the open book. His fingers were stained black. His body felt wrong. Changed.
And as he stared at the words before him, a realization sank in like a dagger:
The rebirth was not for him.
It was for the house.
And what it would give birth to was something far darker than either of them could imagine.
---