When Mira’s little brother Theo drowned, her mother stopped speaking. Not out of grief—but because her words literally began to unravel her.
The first time she tried to say Theo’s name, her lips split like old paper. The second time, her tongue unfurled into a spool of black thread. By the third attempt, her voice box slid out of her throat like a silver pendant, still whispering his name on loop.
The doctors called it "linguistic necrosis."
Mira called it a curse.
And then, the house began to change.
The Rules of the Rot
The worst part?
Mira recognizes these rooms.
They’re reconstructed from her memories—the bath where she was supposed to be watching Theo, the porch where she told him to "go play in the rain," the exact slant of light through the hospital window when the doctor said "I’m sorry."
The house isn’t haunted.
It’s grieving.
And it’s doing it for her, because she never let herself cry.
The Boy in the Walls
She hears him before she sees him—wet footprints on the hardwood, the sound of someone shaking water from their hair.
When she finally corners him in the attic (newly appeared, smelling of lakeweed and chlorine), he’s not Theo.
He’s what’s left of Theo after Mira’s guilt finished reshaping him—a thing of matted hair and too many joints, his mouth stitched shut with fishing line.
He doesn’t blame her.
He never did.
He’s just been trying to give her back what she lost—the moments, the memories, the chance to say goodbye.
But grief, when left untended, grows teeth.
The Final Room
The last door appears at the foot of her bed.
Inside is a perfect replica of the lakeshore where Theo drowned.
The water is still.
The air smells like sunscreen and cut grass.
And there, waist-deep in the water, is her mother—whole again, but frozen mid-scream, her outstretched hands full of black thread.
Theo’s stitched mouth peels open.
"You can fix it," he says in a voice made of buckling ice. "But you have to go in."
The Choice
