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I've been in the mood to write a scary story but been a bit lacking for inspiration. Maybe this will be the push I need. I'll need one of those SPOOKY FLASH RULES though.
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Oct 15, 2018 13:37
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 03:04 |
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A House That Breathes What drew me to the house the most were the occult circles drawn on the living room floor. Partially framed and partially obscured by the autumn leaves, they traced a language, beyond my understanding, that nonetheless spoke to me. It was a ramshackle thing, abandoned up on the hillside, facing out west towards the distant sea. After I threw my whole life away, I came out here and pitched a tent in the woods. The days were for long walks, and the nights were for shivering in my tent (with a bottle of scotch if I was lucky), and trying not to think about the coming winter. It was on one of those walks that I found the house, up on that hill, bathed in rough gold of early evening. I made my way in, finding the door unlocked, certain the place was empty. As I explored, drifting through the playful dust motes, I found the evidence of a life not-so-well lived. An old man, a scholar of some kind. Photos at first full of smiling friends and family, but with each picture, as each careworn line was added to the face, a person disappeared. Until at last he stood alone, grimacing into the lens, determined to record... something. Smart but tattered old clothes, trinkets, mementos, and books. Books everywhere. As I went further in to the house the books became more esoteric, more devoted to the mysteries and the impenetrable grammar of reality. In the living room, windows facing west, I found the ritual circles, the melted candles, and the scraps of cloth daubed with strange symbols. The scene spoke of determination, and desperation. I fell in love instantly. Upstairs, I found three bedrooms. Only the smallest was furnished. A dresser, covered with more photos, each face carefully burned off, as though with a cigarette. A broken mirror. An imposing old cupboard, of the sort to give any small child nightmares. And the remains of a bed, burned to a crisp in some strange blaze that took nothing else but a part of a curtain. Taking this all in, I felt a deep sadness and turned away, closing the door. I did not go back in to that room. That night I went back to my camp and sat up until dawn, staring into the fire. I packed up my few remaining possessions, and moved into the house. I took the second-biggest bedroom, putting my bedroll in the corner furthest from the window. The room was empty save for a few items of furniture draped in white cloth. I resolved to leave the room as it was, unless or until some inspiration struck me. On the first morning the west wind drifted in through my window, rustling the flimsy curtains and bringing with it the salt of the sea. For the first few days I touched or moved as a few of the contents as I could. I began to think of myself as a sort of curator, charged with preserving the memory of this strange man; this grimacing arcanist who lost or left everyone he knew until he destroyed himself contacting powers he didn't fully understand. Slowly, my confidence grew, and I began to investigate this life and the secrets it had left behind in the stacks of books scattered in piles around every room. On the twelfth night I found a fourth bedroom. I stopped, staring at the doors, counting them over and over, daring them to add up to a number that made sense. No, now there were four. Inside was a well-appointed but messy bedroom. An unmade bed, a woman's clothes strewn across the floor. There were framed photos everywhere, but for some reason I couldn't make out the faces. They'd blur, or my eyes would refuse to focus on them, instead resting elsewhere. Only one face came through, a smiling woman in early middle age, her auburn hair catching the summer light in every shot. I got the sense that I was being shown something, although it was beyond me to fathom what it was. And for the first time since I entered this house, I felt like an intruder. I closed the door and went to my own room, and dreamed of a sun-bleached town slowly emptying of life and hope, and of the people futilely sacrificing all they had to preserve it. In the morning there were only there bedrooms again. I sat by my open window, caressed by the sigh of the sea air, wondering if there was any hope left to spare. A few weeks later I made my first change to the house. Under a drape I found a stack of framed paintings, one of which caught my eye. In it, a young man stood in formal dress against a dark background, glowering out of the frame at the viewer. Fascinated by it, I hung it over the fireplace in what I had come to think of as the "Ritual Room", a room until now wholly undisturbed. The following morning it was gone, returned to the stack under the drape. Perturbed but determined to leave some mark of my own, I replaced it with a large botanical illustration of a rose. This seemed acceptable, and it stayed. A few days later, in the evening, I found a second dining room through a new door off the hall. The first dining room was basically impenetrable, filled almost to the brim with junk. This one was immaculate, and in the centre, lit by candles, was a large table covered with food. I sat and ate my first proper meal in months, doing my best not to look at the far end of the table, cloaked as it was in shadow. Just the hint of a figure sitting there, looking back at me. The worst mistake I made was the lightning tree. One night a storm blew through, and an old oak tree was blown apart by a lightning strike. I went out to investigate the following morning and found a section of branch, gnarled by age and charred by the lightning. Enthralled by it, I brought it in and put it in the fireplace. That night I was awoken by a strong wind that threw my window open and carried with it a long, mournful howl, like a distressed animal. I ran downstairs. In the fireplace, the branch burned, magnesium bright. I scurried back up to my room and buried by head deep in the sleeping bag. The following day I went deep into the woods to clear my head. I don't know whether or not I intended to escape. Perhaps just get far away for a while. But every path I took lead back to the house. Soon after, in a frantic act of defiance, I brought in as much of that old tree as I could manage. I filled the house with it, fashioning crudely blasphemous shapes from its blasted pieces. When I awoke the next morning, there was no door to my room and I could not see out of the window. There was light, but no shape or form. I sat, trapped, for who knows how long. I tried to mark the days on the wall, but with each morning, yesterday's mark would be gone. I tried counting in my head instead, and after a few false starts I got to somewhere around eleven thousand before losing count again. Some while after, the door returned, and I went downstairs to another new dining room and an even more sumptuous meal. I didn't even glance at the other end of the table. After that the light in the house softened. There was a sense of a need to reconcile, and with it, a new circle on the floor of the Ritual Room. When I discovered it, I stood and watched the scattered leaves rearrange themselves to better fit the new pattern. Since then, things have been mostly quiet, mostly harmonious. The house tolerates me, perhaps even begrudgingly welcomes me. It has taken on the air of a puzzle that needs to be solved; and I want to solve it, but for the fact that most of the pieces are missing and the picture on the box has burned away. Rooms appear and disappear, according to some whim of the house, or what it perceives to be my needs. Most of the apparitions I don't understand, but with each one I feel that another small piece of that burned picture has revealed itself. I live in a house that breathes, slowly expanding and contracting according to some unknown process. In the early morning it sighs, gently, and upon its sigh is carried the west wind, and the salt of the sea. I live inside the remains of a person, and I am content, for now. 1476 words.
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Oct 26, 2018 16:16
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Thanks for the stories and crits everyone. The stories that won places one and two would have been my picks as well. I was going to write some feedback of my own, but I agree with pretty much everything Saucy_Rodent and Pham Nuwen said so I'll leave it there.Pham Nuwen posted:A House That Breathes - SENTIENT HOUSEMEAT It was 11,000 days, yeah, which is about 30 years. I agree with you that more would have been better, especially towards the end as the narrator's relationship with the house breaks down. I ended up having to rattle this off the morning of the due date because my loved ones keep bringing home diseases and I've been sick for about a month and ended up with no time to write more. Which is a pity, but it is what it is. It's funny though - when I read it back I felt it was more Chambers than Lovecraft, not that I mind the comparison! Anyway, thanks for the feedback and the prize! You can get me at sentienthousemeat@gmail.com. I feel like in the spirit of the competition, I should say that you can choose a new avatar.
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Nov 4, 2018 14:36
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