House That Held Me

“The house had no doors — but it trapped me anyway.”

I remember the moment I noticed it. I had been walking along the old, overgrown lane, the kind that seemed to breathe beneath your feet. The house appeared at the end, though I had no memory of it being there before. Its walls were pale, almost glowing in the fading light, and windows gaped like hollow eyes. Something about it felt alive.

At first, I thought I could leave. I stepped back, retraced my steps along the lane—but the house didn’t move. The path had disappeared. Panic settled like ice in my chest. I turned to face it, fully aware that I had no idea how I got here. The front yard was gone. There were no doors. None.

I circled the perimeter, hoping to find some trick, some hidden entrance. My fingers brushed the walls, cold and smooth, unbroken. And yet, when I pulled back, I felt the subtle shift of the building. The house seemed to breathe, stretching one hallway longer, twisting a corner I hadn’t seen before.

Shifting Rooms

I gave in and touched the wall, pressing my palm against its chill. Then, a doorway appeared — barely wide enough for me. I stepped in and immediately wished I hadn’t.

The rooms changed with every glance. A living room became a staircase. The staircase opened into a bedroom I’d never seen, walls covered in mirrors reflecting infinite versions of me. Each reflection blinked independently, each one screaming silently. I tried to scream too, but my voice bounced back muffled, swallowed by the house.

Time didn’t behave here. I could feel minutes stretching into hours, hours collapsing into seconds. I lost track of meals, water, sunlight. I remember at one point crawling into what I thought was a kitchen, only to find the tiles were made of my own skin, peeling under my hands. The house wasn’t just shifting; it was learning.

Creeping Dread

I wasn’t alone. At first, it was subtle: the brush of a shadow across the corner of my eye, a whisper curling along the ceiling. Then the feeling grew: eyes watching from inside the walls, breathing that matched mine, faster when I panicked. Sometimes, I would enter a room and see myself sitting in a chair, staring blankly, already trapped in the mirror-world.

I tried to leave. I ran down halls that seemed endless, turned corners that folded back on themselves, stumbled into staircases that twisted impossibly upwards. Every attempt made the house tighter, smaller, heavier. I could feel it pressing in, as if the walls themselves were alive and resentful of my presence.

The House Speaks

At some point, I stopped running. The walls seemed to sigh, the shadows settling around me like fog. Then I heard it clearly: my name. A soft, intimate whisper that promised warmth, then chilled me to the bone.

“Stay.”

It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a statement. Every room, every reflection, every creaking floorboard, every flicker of light screamed the same: You are mine.

I tried to fight, but resistance felt like swimming through molasses. My memories began to twist — I forgot why I came here, if I had a home outside. The house wanted me to belong. To surrender. And I felt… myself slipping.

Endless Corridors

Now, I wander. Always turning corners that shouldn’t exist. Always peering into rooms that are mine and not mine. Some days, I think I see a door. I run toward it. I reach for the handle. And then the hallway stretches, the door dissolves, and I am alone again.

I am learning the rules: the house has no doors. It has no windows. It has no escape. And yet, I am free to wander—forever trapped in its infinite, breathing halls.

Sometimes I wonder: did I come here, or was I always here?

The walls whisper the answer when no one is listening.

“Always.”