Last Guest

There is a house in West Virginia that is no longer listed on the real estate website. It is at the end of a dirt road surrounded by bent trees and silence, and it feels like a cry waiting for it. An old house, but standing, offered peace. Or I thought so.

From the first day, things felt...the air was difficult, as if the house was trying to hold your breath. Despite Kendra's merciless cleaning, the dust clings to every surface. And no matter what she did, the hallway upstairs always smelled like rotten roses.

She said it was just age and imagination. Until the knock begins.

It was a bit sloppy at first - three soft rounds at the front door every night around 3:10 am. When she checked, there was no one there. Mori was so thick with jokes that she had no idea about the city's soul. The seventh night, she had been waiting in the darkness of the door; her eyes were wider, her heart was bigger than silence.

At 3:10 a.m., the knock has arrived. Clear. intentionally.

She threw the door.

No one.

However, the scent of rotten roses hit the waves. She stumbled, cavalry and struck the door. It was the first night she saw the footprints - the muddy barefoot print slowly drove through the door towards the stairs.

She did not sleep.

In the third week, things escalated. The object has been moved. The light flickers. A whisper echoes through the corner of the empty room. But the worst was the mirror.

There was an ancient mirror in the corridor on the upper floor, but she had not noticed it until the beginning of the knocking. She instinctively avoided it. But one night, when she brushed her teeth, she threw herself and saw something behind her.

The tall figure, blurred like unclear glass, stared at what felt like hatred.

When she turned around, there was nothing. But even in the heat of July, the mirror remained cold.

Kendra finally turned to the local priest. The next morning, Father Callahan, a friendly but visibly shaking man, arrived.

The house groaned as he intervened. "This place doesn't ask for help," he muttered, stuffing it with a silver cross.

He passed through the house and blessed every room. When he reached the hallway upstairs, he froze in front of the mirror.

"She has let him go," he whispered.

"Who?" asked Kendra, and her voice cracked.

"The Last Guest."

When he told her a legend. Decades ago, travel preachers knocked on the Hammonds during the global economic crisis and sought protection. They left him one night.

He never left.

In the morning, the entire Hammond family - eight people - was found dead, and their mouths filled with rose petals. The preacher was never seen again. They say he is searching for a soul that will stay, be knocked every night, and house him forever.

"You have opened the door," the priest said, and his eyes were filled with sympathy. "You invited him again."

They tried to burn the mirror. I won't catch it. Holy water has gotten hot from the glass. Father Callahan called for prayers until blood was poured through his nose. Then he ran.

Kendra was alone again.

The knock did not stop. But now it's coming out of the house.

Doors have popped. The steps echoed. The beard became a scream. And a mirror? When she wasn't, it showed her reflection.

The last journal entry written by Kendra was discovered by the sheriff's lieutenant a few weeks later:

"He's here. Not just a mirror; he's wearing my skin. I don't sleep. I won't eat. I don't know if I'm me yet. I think... I'm a guest now. "

After her body was found hanging in front of the mirror, barefoot and with a single rose petal on her tongue, the house was abandoned. The house is quiet now.

But sometimes, on moonless nights, hikers swear they hear three knocks echo through the woods.

And if you’re ever foolish enough to find yourself near the Hammond House, don’t open the door.

No matter how polite the knock sounds.