"That wasn't just the house creaking," Ikenna said, backing away from the staircase, his breath shallow. "Someone's up there. Or… something."
"We need to leave. Now," Maya whispered, already at the doorway, her fingers trembling as they gripped the rusted handle. "This isn't right. This place—something's wrong with it."
Pastor Samuel didn't move. He stood rigid in the center of the hallway, the Bible clenched against his chest like a shield. "Don't run," he said firmly. "It feeds on fear. You run, and you give it power."
Ikenna rounded on him. "Feeds on fear? You think this is some moral test? That thing whispered in Maya's ear. The door slammed itself shut. And we just heard a voice—an actual voice—coming from upstairs."
"I'm not denying that," Samuel said, his voice low but steady. "But if we panic, it gets worse. This town—it's not just haunted. It's alive."
Maya's voice quivered. "It said, 'You shouldn't have come back.' But I've never been here before. Why would it say that?"
Silence lingered for a moment.
"I don't think it's talking about our bodies being here," Samuel finally said. "I think… I think we've all touched this place before. In our dreams. In ways we didn't understand. This town has been calling to us long before the letters."
"Touched," Maya repeated with a bitter laugh. "You say that like it didn't burn its mark into my skin."
Ikenna moved toward the open door, frustration boiling over. "This is insane," he muttered. "I'm not staying in a rotting house with ghost children upstairs."
He stepped outside—and stopped.
The fog had thickened, curling through the cracked roads and around the broken houses like fingers. The layout had changed. Buildings they had passed earlier were gone, replaced with others that looked older, more broken. A rusted swing set now stood in the middle of the road, creaking faintly in the stillness.
Maya came out behind him and froze. "This isn't where we were."
"The mailbox is gone," Ikenna said. "I saw it before. Yellow. It was right there." He pointed to a spot now occupied by a crooked streetlamp, swaying with no wind.
"The town is changing," Maya whispered.
"No," Samuel said grimly. "It's revealing itself."
They stood in silence as the cold pressed against them. Then Ikenna turned sharply. "I keep hearing my name," he muttered. "Like... like someone's breathing it behind me."
"You're not imagining it," Maya said.
A whisper floated through the fog—barely audible but unmistakable.
"Ikennaaaa…"
He froze. "Did you hear—?"
"Don't turn around," Maya warned.
"Why?" he asked, eyes wide.
"Because it's not really there," she said quickly. "It wants you to look. That's how it gets in."
Samuel stepped forward, eyes searching the shifting mist. "We need to find the church," he said. "That's where it began."
Maya stared at him. "What do you mean, 'began'?"
He looked at the ground. "Before the fire... before the town was erased, something was summoned in that church. The townsfolk thought they could trap it, use it. But it made a bargain."
"What kind of bargain?" Ikenna asked.
Samuel didn't answer right away. "One that was never fulfilled."
The fog thickened again, swallowing the swing set.
A door creaked open in the distance.
And from the mist came the soft sound of a child giggling—then suddenly choking, like laughter strangled into silence.
They didn't speak after that. They just started walking.
Toward the church.
Toward the truth.