Niyati Sharma
The Perfect Escape
The road to Rose Hollow curved like a question mark through the misty ridges of the Lake District. Fog clung to the narrow lanes like a hush that had forgotten how to lift. Alice kept her eyes on the pine-shaded drive as Tom navigated their little rented hatchback past an iron gate that creaked open without assistance. The gravel crunched beneath their tyres as the house came into view.
“That’s… beautiful,” Alice said, finally breaking the silence.
The cottage was postcard-perfect—stone walls laced with ivy, a red-tiled roof sloping under decades of moss, and two chimneys puffing white smoke like it had been expecting them. There were flowerbeds, a wooden swing, and an old iron sign over the door that read Rose Hollow, 1894.
“It’s like a painting,” Tom replied, putting the car into park. “No signal though.”
Alice checked her phone and confirmed it—dead. Not a single bar. “We’ll survive,” she said, trying a smile.
They stepped into the crisp afternoon air. The Airbnb listing had promised solitude. For Tom and Alice, solitude was the cure. Their London life had become a tangle of raw silences and unfinished sentences since the miscarriage in April. This trip was supposed to be the salve. A reset.
Inside, the house was warm and smelled of pine and baked bread. A welcome note sat on the kitchen counter.
“Dear Guests,
Welcome to Rose Hollow. The Wi-Fi is down, but we encourage you to disconnect and enjoy the peace. Please make yourselves at home. Feel free to explore every room—except the guest room, which remains locked due to storage and safety concerns.
Warmest,
Marjorie (Host)”
Alice read it aloud and blinked. “Odd.”
Tom raised an eyebrow. “Why even mention a locked room? Just say it’s a two-bedroom cottage.”
They left their bags near the fireplace and took a self-guided tour. The house had a rustic charm—uneven wooden floors, floral curtains, old oil paintings, and creaky cupboards. Everything felt authentic, preserved. Almost curated.
At the end of the hallway, they found it—the guest room.
A deep oak door, darker than the others. No handle, just a keyhole. It didn’t even have dust like the rest of the floor. As if someone had cleaned it recently.
Tom knocked it lightly. “Locked tight.”
“Let’s leave it,” Alice said.
They unpacked, made tea, and spent the afternoon reading in front of the fireplace. The silence was profound. A forest loomed outside the windows, motionless except for the occasional rustle. The air inside was still, too still.
That night, after a quiet dinner, they turned in early. Sleep came in waves—drifting, tugging. But sometime after 2 a.m., Alice sat upright.
There it was again.
Creeaakk.
The unmistakable groan of a door moving somewhere in the hallway.
She nudged Tom. “Did you hear that?”
“Mm?” He stirred, disoriented. “What?”
“A door. Like… opening.”
Tom got up groggily, grabbing his phone flashlight. He crept out into the hallway. No movement. No open doors. Just the heavy stillness of a sleeping house.
But as he passed the guest room, he swore he felt a cold draft brush his ankles.
He pressed his palm against the door. It was warm.
When he returned to the bedroom, Alice was sitting up, hugging her knees.
“Nothing,” he whispered.
“You’re sure?”
Tom nodded. But something about the way he didn’t meet her eyes told Alice otherwise.
They didn’t sleep well after that.
In the morning, the sun returned with deceptive warmth. Birds chirped like they hadn’t just passed a strange night.
While Tom made coffee, Alice wandered into the living room. A small shelf beside the fireplace caught her eye—books, mostly old thrillers and faded travelogues. But one book was lying flat on the shelf, not spine-out like the others.
It was a diary.
Plain black leather, edges worn. No lock.
She opened it slowly. The first page had a single sentence.
“To whoever finds this: I hope you’re luckier than me.”
Alice flipped ahead. The entries were dated. Some just notes, some long rants. But the tone chilled her.
“Day 3: I tried the windows. They don’t open. Not from the inside. Someone’s watching me. I can feel it through the walls.”
“Day 8: He says he’ll let me out if I stop writing. But I won’t. This is the only record I’ll leave.”
“Day 11: I’m in the guest room. I was told it would be temporary. I think I’m still here.”
Alice closed the book. Her hands were trembling. She glanced toward the hallway.
The guest room stood there, silent. Unblinking.
She didn’t tell Tom yet. She wasn’t sure how to explain that something written in the diary—dated 2023—felt as if it had been written last night.
And somewhere inside this house, something… or someone… might still be waiting.
Whispers in the Night
The wind began rising just after sundown.
Tom had spent the late afternoon chopping vegetables while Alice stared out the window at the woods. The trees stood unnaturally still despite the brewing wind. Rose Hollow had a strange kind of quiet—like the world held its breath.
“Dinner’s ready,” Tom called.
They ate in silence. Alice hadn’t mentioned the diary yet. It still sat in the living room, tucked under the cushion where she’d hidden it—like the words might seep through fabric if left exposed.
“You okay?” Tom asked, his fork mid-air.
“Just tired,” she replied.
He nodded but didn’t press. That was their unspoken agreement lately—not to dig too deep. Too many wounds just beneath the skin.
That night, the fireplace flickered long after they stopped speaking. Tom dozed on the couch. Alice sat curled with a blanket, pretending to read. Her eyes, however, kept drifting to the hallway. To that door.
The guest room. Always locked. Always watching.
They eventually retired to the bedroom, leaving a single lamp on in the corridor. Alice tried to sleep. She really did. But as the clock edged past 1:30 a.m., the house changed again.
A soft creak.
Then another.
Alice held her breath.
Tom stirred beside her, oblivious.
She turned her head toward the door, which they’d left slightly ajar. Just beyond it, the hallway light flickered—once, twice—then steadied. But the sound continued.
It wasn’t just a creak. It was a slow dragging noise, like someone walking barefoot across old wood, heel first. Then—tap. Like fingers drumming on a wall. Then silence.
Alice rose.
She slipped out of bed quietly, her bare feet silent on the cold wooden floor. The hallway stretched ahead like a dark tunnel. The lamp was still on, casting a pale cone of yellow light.
The guest room stood as before. Unchanged.
Except now the air near it was cold. Freezing.
She reached out and touched the doorknob instinctively—then gasped.
It wasn’t metal.
It was… soft. Like skin. Warm and damp.
She yanked her hand back and stumbled. The light flickered again.
“Alice?” Tom’s voice behind her.
She turned. “Don’t come out.”
“What’s going on?” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes, stepping into the hallway.
“I thought I heard…”
The doorknob was metal again. Cold. Hard.
Tom frowned. “It’s locked, like before.”
She nodded.
He watched her closely. “You’re pale.”
“Bad dream, maybe,” she said.
They returned to bed, but Alice couldn’t sleep. Her heart wouldn’t slow. At dawn, while Tom snored lightly, she returned to the living room and retrieved the diary.
More pages had appeared.
She was certain they hadn’t been there before.
One entry read:
“Day 13: The guest room door stays locked unless it likes you.”
“Day 14: He came last night. Didn’t speak. Just stood in the corner. I pretended to sleep. But I could smell him—wet wool and something… burning.”
Alice’s hand trembled.
She flipped to the last written page.
The ink was still wet.
“If you’re reading this, he’s already seen you. You should leave. But you won’t. No one ever does.”
Alice slammed the diary shut.
She walked straight to the kitchen, picked up her phone.
Still no signal.
She opened the drawer next to the stove. No landline. Nothing.
Tom entered the room, rubbing his temples. “Coffee?”
“We need to leave.”
He blinked. “What?”
“I’m serious. This place isn’t right.”
He paused. “Alice… I know things have been hard. But maybe that’s exactly why we’re feeling this. We’re looking for something to blame. Our grief’s eating at us.”
“I found a diary. With entries dated last month. Describing this house. That door. The guest room. Someone else lived here and vanished. I’m not making it up, Tom.”
“Show me.”
She placed the book on the counter and flipped it open.
Empty pages.
Every one of them.
Tom stared at her. “Is this a joke?”
“I—No! I swear, it was all here just—” She turned the pages frantically. Blank. All of them.
Tom reached out gently. “Come on. Let’s get some air. We’ll figure it out.”
She looked down at her palm.
Ink stains.
Smudged, dark blue. Still fresh.
The pages might have vanished, but something had been there.
And something else… still was.
The Diary
The morning sun poured into Rose Hollow like honey, warm and golden, lighting up the old beams and floral wallpaper. It should have felt comforting. Instead, it felt like the house was pretending.
Tom busied himself with scrambled eggs and coffee, trying to ground the morning in routine. Alice sat at the table, the diary in front of her—still blank. She had tried explaining everything again, but Tom just listened with that soft, worried look in his eyes. The same look he wore when they left the hospital. The same look when they didn’t speak for days.
He thought she was breaking again.
“I believe you saw something,” he said gently. “Stress makes the mind… fill in gaps.”
“I’m not hallucinating, Tom.” She sounded steadier than she felt. “The diary changed. The pages were full. Now they’re not. And something’s wrong with that room.”
Tom nodded but didn’t say anything more. Later, when Alice stepped into the living room again, the diary was gone.
“What did you do with it?” she asked, too sharply.
Tom turned from the sink. “What?”
“The diary.”
“I didn’t touch it.”
They searched the house. Under cushions, inside drawers, under the bed. Nothing.
The diary had vanished.
By late afternoon, the tension between them buzzed louder than the insects outside. Tom suggested a walk, hoping the forest trail would help.
It didn’t.
The woods were too quiet. Even their footsteps seemed muffled on the mossy trail. A crow called once, but when they turned to look, the branches were empty. Alice kept glancing back at the house, now barely visible through the pines.
“Did you notice,” she said suddenly, “that there’s no photo of the host anywhere?”
Tom looked confused. “You mean in the Airbnb listing?”
“Yes. Just pictures of the cottage. Most listings have something. A smiling owner. Reviews. Even fake ones. But nothing for Rose Hollow.”
Tom stopped walking. “You’re right.”
They returned by sunset. The house looked the same, but the air had changed again—heavier, damp. Tom went to the bathroom to shower. Alice walked down the hallway, drawn toward the guest room.
The door was ajar.
Her breath caught. She’d checked it that morning—locked.
“Tom!” she called.
No response.
She pushed the door open.
Inside was… nothing. Just a plain, neat room. A made-up bed with a crocheted quilt, a wooden dresser, a dusty mirror. But something was off. The air inside was warmer, stuffy, like it had been sealed for years. A faint smell hung there—mildew and something burnt.
She stepped in.
The floor creaked under her weight. She turned toward the window.
No latch.
It was bolted shut. Rusted completely.
As she turned back, her reflection in the mirror caught her eye.
Except—it wasn’t quite her.
Her reflection was smiling.
She wasn’t.
Alice stumbled back. The floor groaned.
She ran out, slamming the door shut.
“Tom!”
He appeared, towel around his shoulders, dripping. “What? What happened?”
“It was open. The guest room. I went in. The mirror—”
Tom was already down the hallway, yanking the door.
Locked again.
He tried the handle. Solid. “Alice, it’s locked. Are you sure?”
She didn’t answer. She just pointed to her reflection in the hallway mirror.
This one matched her perfectly.
“You need rest,” Tom said, carefully.
“No. I need you to believe me.”
He sighed. “I want to. But this sounds…”
She walked past him, frustrated.
In the kitchen, her phone buzzed.
Finally—signal.
A single bar. Just enough.
She opened WhatsApp and typed a message to her sister:
“Hi. At the cottage. Something’s wrong. Can you video call me?”
She hit send.
It showed “Delivered” but no reply.
Thirty seconds later, the phone rang. Video call from unknown number.
Alice frowned and picked it up.
The screen was black at first.
Then static.
Then—her own face appeared.
But not live.
It was a recording. She was reading the diary. The same moment from yesterday. Her hair was tied differently, her posture exact.
Behind her, on the screen, the hallway darkened… and a figure emerged slowly behind the recorded version of herself.
“Hello?” she said.
The call ended.
She dropped the phone.
Tom rushed in. “What now?”
She pointed to the phone, but the screen had gone dark.
No signal again.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“I think someone’s watching us. Not just from cameras. From inside.”
Tom’s expression changed—something between fear and disbelief.
He picked up the phone.
But all he said was: “I’m calling the host.”
He walked away before she could stop him.
Alice sat down, shaking. The screen door to the porch creaked open slightly, though there was no wind.
And on the hallway floor, just outside the guest room, a black leather diary now rested quietly—open to a new page.
“Day 15: She opened the door. They always do.”
Something in the Walls
The wind had stilled completely, and yet the house creaked like it was breathing.
Tom stood near the front window, phone pressed to his ear. “No answer,” he said after a moment, lowering it. “Straight to voicemail.”
Alice stared at the diary now lying open on the floor like it had been waiting. The latest entry glared up at her like a warning.
“Day 15: She opened the door. They always do.”
She picked it up, thumbing back through the pages.
They were back. Every single one of them.
“I swear this was empty before,” she whispered.
Tom looked over her shoulder and finally saw the writing. Page after page. Dated. Written in a loopy, anxious hand. There were entries describing the furniture, the light that flickered every night at exactly 2:13 a.m., and the sound of “scratching behind the dresser.”
“Tom,” she said slowly. “It mentions a vent behind the dresser in the guest room.”
He looked at her. “You want to go back in there?”
“We need to know.”
This time, he didn’t argue.
They retrieved a small toolkit from under the kitchen sink and went to the guest room. The door was still locked.
But when Tom turned the knob—it opened easily.
Inside, the air was even warmer, denser, like it hadn’t moved in decades.
Alice pointed toward the wooden dresser in the far corner. They dragged it aside with effort, revealing a narrow square vent hidden in the wall, partly covered by flaking paint.
Tom leaned in and tapped it.
Hollow.
“I think there’s something behind this,” he said.
He used a screwdriver to chip away the wood. Eventually, a thin metal panel gave way with a pop, revealing a dark crawlspace behind the wall.
Alice shone her phone’s flashlight inside.
Dozens of wires. A rusted camera pointed directly at the bed. A microphone. Dust-covered shelves with small notebooks stacked inside. One shelf held VHS tapes labeled with names—Emily (2019), Tobias (2021), Iris (2022).
Her blood ran cold.
“Tom… they’ve been watching people here. For years.”
He pulled one of the tapes out. It had “The Couple – Oct 2023” scribbled on it.
That was this month.
That was them.
Tom looked pale. “This place isn’t abandoned. Someone’s still maintaining it. Still watching.”
They returned to the living room, locking the guest room behind them.
Tom examined the tape. “We need something to play this.”
Alice pointed toward the cabinet under the old television. “Maybe something’s there.”
Sure enough, they found a dusty VCR, already plugged in. They slid in the tape.
At first—static.
Then: grainy footage of the cottage’s bedroom. A time-stamped video. From two nights ago.
Them.
Sleeping.
From a high corner angle.
Alice gasped. “They’ve been filming us since we got here.”
The video continued. At one point, the footage showed Tom getting up and walking to the hallway—the same night he had checked the noise. But what made Alice scream wasn’t Tom’s movement.
It was what came after.
A tall figure stood in the shadows near the guest room. Cloaked in something heavy, its face unseen. Watching.
Tom never saw it.
He was just feet away.
The video went static again.
Tom ejected the tape with shaking hands.
“We need to go. Now,” he said.
Alice nodded.
They grabbed their bags in under five minutes and rushed to the front door. Tom twisted the knob.
Locked.
From the outside.
“What the—?”
He tried the back door.
Same thing. Bolted from beyond.
He grabbed a chair and smashed the window beside the kitchen sink.
Nothing broke.
The glass wouldn’t even crack.
“It’s like it’s been reinforced,” he muttered.
Alice, pale, said, “What kind of house traps people inside?”
The lights flickered once.
Then again.
Then—off.
Total darkness.
Tom turned on his phone flashlight. “Upstairs. There’s a window in the attic.”
They moved as quickly as they could, climbing the narrow wooden staircase. The air was different here—musty, dry. The attic door creaked open, revealing cobwebs, dust, and something far more disturbing.
Dozens of photographs.
Pinned to the beams.
Couples. Singles. All in Rose Hollow. Some asleep. Some smiling. Some mid-scream.
Alice picked up a photo lying loose on a box.
It was them.
From yesterday.
Taken from the outside of the bedroom window.
“We’re not just guests,” she whispered. “We’re… material.”
Tom found an old desk in the corner, piled with VHS tapes, notebooks, and a nameplate:
Property of M.H. Kettle
Observation is Immortality
A handwritten journal lay beside it. The first page read:
“To see is to know. To record is to preserve. And when I preserve you… you live forever inside my walls.”
The wind suddenly picked up outside.
Or maybe it wasn’t the wind.
Something was moving through the crawlspaces.
Scratching. Breathing.
Then… footsteps on the attic stairs.
Slow.
Heavy.
Someone was coming up.
Eyes That Don’t Blink
The footsteps on the attic stairs stopped halfway.
Tom and Alice froze, crouched in the farthest corner, the journal still open in her trembling hands. The air had grown thick with dust, like it hadn’t been stirred in years, yet someone—something—was clearly on the other side of that creaking floorboard.
Tom motioned for silence, holding his breath. Alice clutched her phone but didn’t dare turn on the flashlight. They waited.
Nothing.
After a full minute of silence, Tom crept toward the attic door, inching it shut. It let out a soft but sharp squeal. He flinched, then latched it from the inside with an old hook.
“We’re trapped anyway,” he whispered. “Might as well buy time.”
Alice nodded, eyes flicking back to the wall of photographs. The same faces stared back—blank, terrified, blurred at the edges like time had tried to erase them. But one photo stood out. A woman, standing in front of the fireplace downstairs, holding the same diary Alice had just read. The caption scribbled beneath it in red ink read: “DAY 20 – FINAL ENTRY.”
“She was real,” Alice whispered. “The diary’s author.”
Tom opened the journal again, flipping pages faster now. Past schematics of the house, drawings of hidden vents and maintenance passages, he found a spread labeled ‘EYE SYSTEM.’
Dozens of red-inked dots mapped across a drawing of the cottage’s blueprint. Tiny arrows pointed toward what appeared to be pinhole cameras, embedded within the very structure of the house.
“They’re everywhere,” Tom said. “Inside walls, behind mirrors, even in light bulbs. The house was built to watch.”
“But by who? This… Kettle?” Alice asked, pointing to the nameplate.
Tom scanned the back of the journal. A crumbling envelope was tucked inside, sealed with brittle wax. He broke it open carefully and pulled out a newspaper clipping.
“OBITUARY: Marjorie H. Kettle, local historian and recluse, dies at 83. Known for her obsession with memory preservation and architectural surveillance, she leaves behind Rose Hollow, a private estate under probate…”
Alice’s skin prickled. “She’s the host. Or was.”
“No one’s managing this place now. It’s just… operating on its own. Like it’s fulfilling her wishes.”
They both turned toward the attic window. It was small, barely wide enough to crawl through, but it was glass—and it looked… old.
Tom struck it with a rusted hammer from the workbench.
A crack.
Then another.
They both exhaled in relief. “We can break it,” he said.
He hit it again—and the window shattered outward with a loud crash, shards falling to the garden below. Cool air swept into the attic, sharp and pine-scented.
They were just about to start clearing the frame when a sound stopped them cold.
Laughter.
Faint.
Female.
Rising from the floorboards below.
Not cackling. Not hysterical.
But soft, amused. As if someone had been watching and found it all… adorable.
Alice turned to Tom. “We’re not alone.”
They dropped their bags down into the garden first, then climbed through the jagged window one after the other, landing on damp grass. Their shoes squished into the earth.
The woods loomed ahead.
They ran.
Branches scratched their arms, ferns slapped against their legs. But they didn’t stop until Rose Hollow was no longer visible.
When they reached a dirt road nearly half a mile away, Tom pulled out his phone.
Signal.
Two bars.
He opened Google Maps.
Blank screen.
No blue dot. No marked roads. Just gray.
“What?” he muttered. “It’s like we’re not even on the map.”
They walked until they found a small wooden shed with a rusted truck parked beside it.
Tom knocked. No answer. The shed was unlocked.
Inside, it smelled like oil and mildew, but it was shelter. They slumped against the wall, trying to catch their breath.
“I think…” Alice began. “That house is alive. Not like a ghost, but a memory. Kettle designed it to trap moments, people. To observe and preserve. She believed memory was immortality. We were being recorded—our every move.”
Tom looked at her. “Then where are the others?”
They both fell silent.
Outside, a sound emerged.
Thunk.
Thunk.
A mechanical click. Followed by static.
Tom opened the shed door slowly.
In the darkness, on the truck’s passenger seat, sat a portable TV screen—ancient, cracked, and buzzing with gray fuzz. It flickered once.
Then a still image appeared.
Alice and Tom.
Lying asleep in the attic.
The camera angle was impossible—they’d smashed the attic window—and yet here they were, clear as day.
Except…
In the corner of the frame stood a figure.
Tall. Thin. Dressed in black.
Its face was covered with gauze or cloth, like someone had wrapped their head in silence.
The figure raised a hand toward the camera.
As if waving to the person watching.
Alice stepped back.
The screen went black.
And then—text appeared on it in blocky white font:
“EYE SYSTEM ACTIVE.
RECORDING – SUBJECTS: TOM & ALICE
STATUS: INCOMPLETE
RE-ENTRY REQUIRED.”
The shed door slammed shut behind them.
And the light clicked off.
The Woman in the Tape
The shed plunged into darkness, save for the eerie glow of the flickering portable screen. Tom rattled the door, but it wouldn’t budge. There was no lock. Just… resistance. As if the very air was holding it shut.
Alice stepped away from the screen, her back pressed against the damp wooden wall. “It said ‘Re-entry required.’ Like we’re data to be… recovered.”
Tom was breathing fast. “It’s not just watching us. It’s curating us. Like subjects in a museum.”
The screen fizzled, static rolling across it again. Then it clicked once more—and played a new video.
Footage from inside Rose Hollow.
The same living room. Same floral curtains. But the timestamp read: March 2019.
A woman sat on the floor, hugging her knees. Pale, barefoot, wearing an oversized sweater. Her eyes darted around like a cornered animal. She was speaking, but there was no sound—just silent anguish on the screen.
Alice leaned closer.
“That’s the woman from the photo wall,” she whispered.
The video jumped. Now the woman was in the guest room. Rocking back and forth in the corner. A shadow crossed behind her—but it didn’t move like a person. It crawled upward across the wall, stretching like oil in water.
Another jump.
The woman stood in front of the guest room mirror.
And then, she began screaming. Her mouth wide, her arms flailing—silent, soundless—but her terror was unmistakable.
Suddenly, the image warped.
Her face blurred. Her features twisted unnaturally, as if the tape couldn’t contain her anymore. And then—
She vanished mid-frame.
Gone.
The camera kept rolling. The guest room remained.
But she was simply… not there.
Alice covered her mouth. “It erased her.”
“No,” Tom said. “It absorbed her. The house doesn’t just watch. It records, then… rewrites.”
The screen cut to black.
Then, slowly, lines of white text appeared:
“SUBJECT: EMILY HARRIS
STATUS: ARCHIVED
GUEST ROOM ENTRY CONFIRMED
VOLUNTARY SURRENDER: YES”
The lights in the shed flickered and went out.
Then came the softest sound—like something slithering between the boards above their heads.
Alice grabbed Tom’s arm. “We have to move.”
They shoved at the shed door again. This time, it groaned open. The night outside was pitch-black. No stars. No wind. The world felt hollow.
They ran toward the woods again, retracing their path, thorns scratching their skin.
Somewhere in the distance, a radio crackled to life.
Then a voice—female, whispering.
It was faint. Broken. But Alice caught the words:
“Don’t… trust the mirrors…”
She stopped cold. “Did you hear that?”
Tom nodded. “From the truck?”
“No… from everywhere.”
Then, lights.
Faint yellow lanterns glowing ahead.
They pushed through the trees.
And there it was.
Rose Hollow.
Again.
But this time, the house was lit.
Warm. Inviting. Smoke curled from the chimney like it had been expecting them back all along.
Alice stumbled to a halt. “No. No, this isn’t possible. We ran away from it.”
Tom was pale. “We must’ve circled back.”
“No. It moved.”
The house sat there, timeless.
A familiar welcome note waited on the kitchen counter.
Same handwriting.
Same words.
Except now, a new line had been added at the bottom:
“We’re so glad you came back, Tom and Alice. The guest room is now ready for you.”
They both stared.
Then a soft sound from the hallway. A door creaking open.
Not slamming.
Not locked.
Just… opening.
Inviting.
Tom backed away. “We leave. Now. Whatever direction—doesn’t matter. We don’t stay.”
But even as he said it, the air seemed heavier again. The windows fogged from the inside.
Alice turned slowly.
On the hallway wall, above the mirror, a new photo had been framed.
It showed them.
Tom and Alice.
Standing in the attic.
But they hadn’t taken that photo.
In the background stood the gauze-faced figure again, only now it was closer—almost between them.
And beneath it, written in red ink:
“Subjects located.
Eyes reopened.
Recording continues.”
The Real Host
They didn’t go inside.
Not yet.
Tom yanked Alice by the wrist and pulled her backward toward the tree line. But the further they stepped away from Rose Hollow, the more the darkness thickened. It was no longer just night—it was absence. The trees were still there, but unreal. Frozen. The stars above had vanished.
“I don’t think we’re in the real world anymore,” Alice whispered.
Tom glanced behind them.
The house pulsed slightly—its lights beating like a heart.
“We should’ve never come back.”
Alice looked down at her phone. Still no signal. No time either. The screen read: 00:00.
They returned to the porch, more out of helplessness than choice. The door to Rose Hollow was ajar. The air that flowed out was warm and carried the scent of old books, lavender, and… burnt plastic.
Inside, the lights had dimmed. Everything looked the same—yet not. The furniture had shifted. The flower vase near the window was gone. The mirror above the mantle now reflected not the room, but static—like an old TV screen trapped in a loop.
On the living room table lay a rotary phone.
It began to ring.
Alice stared at it. “That wasn’t here before.”
It kept ringing.
Tom picked up the receiver.
A click.
Then a voice—soft, measured, female.
“Mr. Fenton. You’ve returned.”
Tom froze. “What did you say?”
“You and Subject 324. Alice.”
Alice’s stomach turned.
“Please proceed to the guest room. Your integration has been prepared.”
Tom gritted his teeth. “Who is this?”
“I am the housekeeper of memory. I maintain the system. Rose Hollow is the archive. You are now part of its preservation cycle.”
He slammed the phone down.
“That’s it. We’re ending this. Now.”
They made their way down the hall. The guest room door was wide open.
Inside, the bed had been remade.
Fresh sheets. A folded pair of pajamas.
Two glasses of water on the bedside table.
The mirror was gone.
In its place stood an old black-and-white television set—its screen flickering with static.
On the dresser lay a single envelope.
Tom picked it up.
His name was written on the front in elegant handwriting.
He opened it.
Inside was a photo.
Of Alice.
Sleeping.
In this room.
Tonight’s date marked on the back: 24 October 2025. 2:13 a.m.
She hadn’t gone to bed yet.
And yet, here she was—already archived.
Alice picked up the second glass of water. It was warm.
She stared into the guest room as if something behind it were staring back.
“I need to know who did this. Who built this,” she murmured.
She left the room, stormed down the hall, and pulled open every drawer in the house—kitchen, study, storage.
Nothing.
Until she found a locked cabinet under the stairs.
Tom brought the crowbar from the fireplace.
Inside: records. Thick yellowing files stamped with red tags. INTEGRATED, UNSTABLE, ERASED.
Dozens of names.
At the bottom of the stack lay a thick folder marked: M.H. KETTLE – ARCHITECT + FOUNDER.
Alice opened it.
Blueprints. Letters. Journal entries. Handwritten design notes.
“Rose Hollow is to become the memory beyond memory. For those who are forgotten. The house will remember what others let fade.”
“Do not let them leave. The moment of capture must be eternal. Observation is love. Observation is eternity.”
Alice whispered, “She wasn’t hosting. She was… collecting.”
Tom read over her shoulder. “She designed this house to trap time. She didn’t believe in death—she believed in eternal recall. This place is her vault.”
A creak echoed above them.
They looked up.
Attic.
Another sound—this time behind them. The rotary phone again.
But now, it was glowing faintly. Not just ringing—pulsing.
Alice picked it up.
The same woman’s voice—no longer calm. Quieter. Urgent.
“You’ve interfered with the archive. You must return to the guest room. The observation cycle cannot be broken.”
Alice asked, “Who are you?”
“I am Marjorie Kettle.”
Her blood ran cold. “You’re dead.”
“So are the others. But they’re still here. Aren’t they?”
The line went dead.
Behind them, the television in the guest room sparked to life.
The screen showed the hallway—live footage of Tom and Alice, standing exactly where they were.
But in the corner of the frame, the gauze-faced figure had reappeared.
Walking slowly.
Toward them.
Alice dropped the receiver.
Tom whispered, “We can’t be watched if we can’t be seen.”
And without another word, he smashed the guest room TV with the crowbar.
Sparks flew. The lights overhead exploded with a crack. The house seemed to scream—not in sound, but in structure. The walls trembled. The mirrors in the hallway shattered all at once.
And then… silence.
Heavy.
Unnatural.
Like the house was… stunned.
Tom turned to Alice. “We’ve broken the cycle.”
But just then, the lights returned.
Soft. Gentle.
Almost… welcoming.
And the guest room door?
Still open.
Waiting.
We Were Chosen
The guest room door stood open, unmoving, but somehow it felt more aware than ever. It didn’t creak. It didn’t beckon. It simply existed—as if it had always known they would end up here.
Tom and Alice stood in the hallway, framed in the last working light, glass crunching beneath their shoes from the shattered mirrors.
Alice whispered, “It wants us to go in. It’s not over.”
“No,” Tom replied. “It never ends unless we finish it ourselves.”
The air was dry now, almost too still—like the entire house had taken one long inhale and was waiting to exhale. They could hear the soft click of something—maybe gears behind the walls, maybe… blinking.
Alice stepped into the guest room. It had changed again.
There was now a single chair placed at the center of the room, facing a wooden panel.
Tom looked closer.
The panel was a false wall.
He pressed it.
It slid open with a soft sigh.
Behind it: a narrow corridor. Not a real hallway, but a hidden maintenance tunnel just wide enough to crawl through. Wires lined the walls. Tiny red lights blinked in sequence. The air was thick with dust and something chemical, like burned memory.
They crawled inside.
The tunnel seemed to stretch beyond the architecture of the house. Time and dimension frayed here—the lights pulsed faster, and suddenly the whispering started again.
Not outside. Inside.
Inside their heads.
“We remember. We see. We record. Your love. Your loss. Your longing.”
Tom’s grip tightened on Alice’s hand. He whispered back, “We’re not yours.”
After what felt like an eternity, they reached the end of the passage. A rusted hatch blocked their way. Tom forced it open.
They emerged into a circular chamber.
It wasn’t part of the house’s original blueprint.
The walls were curved metal, covered in small circular screens. Hundreds of them. Each screen displayed a face—some crying, some asleep, some screaming into silence.
Alice stepped forward.
Her face stared back at her from one of the screens.
So did Tom’s.
He walked to a large switchboard. The top was labeled: “EYE SYSTEM MASTER FEED.” Below it were toggles:
FEED: LIVE / ARCHIVE / ERASE
A final button, covered with a cracked plastic guard, read:
PURGE SYSTEM
Alice looked at him. “If we destroy this, maybe we shut the whole thing down. The entire memory vault.”
Tom hesitated. “And what if it’s more than just recordings? What if these people are… inside? What if we erase them?”
She stared at the screens again. So many.
But one in the bottom corner caught her eye.
The woman from the 2019 tape—Emily Harris.
Her image looked directly at the camera.
Then blinked.
Alice gasped. “She’s… alive. Somehow.”
Emily’s lips moved on the screen.
No sound.
But Alice could read the words.
“Help me.”
Tom flipped the cover on the purge button. “Your call.”
Alice hesitated.
Her hand hovered over the controls.
Then she saw something else.
A screen that showed a new room. A nursery. A crib. A wall of ultrasound photos.
Her own.
From her flat in London.
She choked. “That’s… that’s ours. From before…”
The screen switched.
Now it showed the hospital corridor from six months ago. The moment they lost the baby.
Another switch: their living room, weeks after, in silence, Tom crying when he thought she wasn’t watching.
Another: Alice, staring blankly at the ceiling in the middle of the night.
“We’ve been watched for years,” she breathed.
Tom’s hand trembled. “It didn’t start at Rose Hollow. It started before.”
“This wasn’t random,” she said slowly. “We were chosen.”
Behind them, the hatch slammed shut.
And in that moment, all the screens turned to one image:
The Guest Room.
Empty.
Waiting.
Then white text appeared:
SUBJECTS TOM & ALICE
PROCESSING COMPLETE
INTEGRATION IN PROGRESS
Alarms sounded. Red lights spun. The Eye System was initiating something.
A countdown began on one screen:
ARCHIVE LOCKDOWN: 59… 58… 57…
Tom shouted, “Alice—decide! Shut it down or we’re part of it forever!”
She looked at the button.
Then at Emily’s eyes.
“Do it,” she whispered.
Tom hit PURGE SYSTEM.
All the screens turned white.
The lights exploded. The entire chamber shook violently.
Electricity arced from the wires. Voices screamed—hundreds layered together, as if the house itself was howling in protest.
Alice screamed, shielding her face. Tom pulled her close as the world dissolved into a storm of smoke, noise, and memory.
Then—
Silence.
Total.
The Watcher
The silence was suffocating.
When Alice opened her eyes, the screens were dead. The red lights gone. The pulsing stopped.
Tom lay beside her, coughing through the dust and heat that still hung in the air like the breath of something recently strangled. The Eye System control panel sparked once, then fell dark forever.
It was over.
Or so they thought.
Alice stood slowly, knees trembling. The air in the chamber felt different now—flat, like a balloon popped in space. No whispers. No static. Just the buzz of silence left behind.
She touched one of the blackened screens.
Still warm.
But blank.
Tom joined her, blood dripping lightly from a cut on his temple. “We killed it.”
“No,” Alice said, “we disconnected it. There’s a difference.”
The hatch behind them had fallen open, jagged and warped. They crawled back through the passageway, choking on dust and ash. The house groaned, not with menace—but with exhaustion.
As they re-entered the guest room, they both froze.
It wasn’t night anymore.
It was dawn.
The sky outside glowed faint pink. The air felt crisp, untouched. Even the smell inside the house had changed—no longer burnt circuits or mildew. It smelled like lemon oil and fresh pine.
But something still felt… wrong.
The guest room mirror had returned.
Uncracked.
Alice looked into it.
Her own reflection blinked back.
Tom joined her. His was there too.
But behind their reflections—just faintly, like a shadow at the edge of waking—stood a figure.
Not gauze-faced.
Not cloaked.
Just a woman.
Elderly. White-haired. Dressed in a stiff blouse and long skirt, her eyes sharp with endless memory.
Marjorie H. Kettle.
She smiled.
Then vanished.
The mirror cleared.
“Let’s go,” Tom said.
They grabbed their things, left through the front door—which now opened easily—and walked down the path. The woods looked more alive than ever, rustling in a gentle breeze. Birds chirped. The sky widened.
But as they reached the end of the driveway, they saw it.
A small brass plaque embedded in a stone at the edge of the property.
ROSE HOLLOW: AN ARCHIVE OF LOVE, LOSS, AND WITNESS
BY M.H. KETTLE
“Observation is Eternity”
Tom crouched beside it. “This was never about us. We were just… stories it liked.”
Alice turned to look at the house one last time.
Its windows now reflected only the sky. No cameras. No gauze-faced watchers. No invitation.
But in the attic window, just for a second, a curtain shifted.
A silhouette stood there.
Watching.
Then stepped away.
Alice whispered, “We were never alone. We still aren’t.”
They left without speaking again.
It took them two hours of walking to find the main road, a cab, and then a signal. Their phones now worked. Time was ticking forward again.
By late afternoon, they were back in London.
Weeks passed.
Tom returned to work. Alice began therapy. They didn’t talk about Rose Hollow. Not to each other. Not to anyone. It became something they buried together.
But Alice still kept the diary.
The one that had vanished and reappeared and rewritten itself.
She kept it locked in a drawer, unopened.
Until one night, when she found it lying on her bedside table again—though she hadn’t touched it in weeks.
It was open to a new page.
Dated that very day.
“They think they’re free.
But the watcher sees through time.
Memory is not linear.
It loops.
It waits.”
Beneath the writing, a small photo was taped to the page.
A black-and-white still of Alice and Tom sleeping in their London flat.
Shot from the ceiling.
She turned, heart pounding, and looked at the ceiling above her bed.
Just ceiling.
But she couldn’t sleep that night.
Because somewhere, across time and walls and circuits…
The Watcher was still watching.
Rose Hollow Will Stay
One month later.
Autumn arrived in shades of ochre and gold, sweeping across the city like a quiet apology. Tom and Alice walked slower these days. They smiled more, even laughed—sometimes. But behind their eyes lingered the echo of something unseen.
They never spoke of Rose Hollow again.
Until the envelope arrived.
Unmarked. No return address. Just their names, handwritten in neat cursive.
Inside: a Polaroid.
A photo of them.
Sitting in their current apartment.
Taken from the hallway.
Alice felt her throat close.
On the back, someone had scrawled:
“Subjects: Tom & Alice
Status: Under Review
Return Pending.”
She looked at Tom, who stared blankly at the card. “How?”
But they both knew.
The purge hadn’t destroyed the system.
It had only fragmented it.
Some part of Rose Hollow had survived.
And perhaps… relocated.
They changed apartments the next day.
Moved cities a week later.
Still, every night, they unplugged their devices.
Covered mirrors.
Left the hallway light on.
Because when you’ve lived under someone else’s gaze—when your memories have been captured—you can never be sure what’s yours anymore.
Six months later
Northumberland, England
A new Airbnb listing appeared on a niche travel site.
Rose Hollow Cottage
“Charming countryside retreat for couples. Disconnect from the noise. Perfect for a quiet weekend away. Guest room under renovation.”
The host profile: M.H.K.
No photo.
No reviews.
But the house looked pristine. Cozy. Familiar.
A young couple booked it for the weekend.
Just two nights.
On the day of their arrival, fog curled around the hills like old smoke. The couple parked outside the gate. The house stood waiting.
Warm.
Quiet.
Watching.
Inside, the guest room door was locked.
But not for long.
And on the fireplace mantel, a black leather diary lay unopened.
The first page already written.
“Welcome to Rose Hollow.
Your stay has already begun.”
THE END
