"The Last Room"

"The Last Room"

No one remembered building the house on Black Hollow Road. It appeared overnight—where a dense thicket once stood, now rose a crooked Victorian manor, gray and crumbling as though it had aged a hundred years in silence. The townsfolk avoided it. The children whispered stories of it eating people whole. But Ellie, curious and numb from grief, couldn’t resist its pull.

Her sister, June, had disappeared exactly one year ago. One day they were laughing over tea, the next June was gone—no trace, no sign of struggle. Just vanished. The police gave up. Her mother wilted. Ellie stayed angry.

Then, one night, a letter arrived. No stamp. No return address. Just her name, written in trembling ink:

"If you want her back, come to the last room."

The letter was damp with a strange, metallic smell. The kind that clung to rusted knives.

Ellie didn’t tell anyone. She packed a flashlight, her father’s old revolver, and a silver locket June had gifted her. By dusk, she stood before the house. It loomed tall, its windows dark eyes watching her approach.

The front door opened on its own.

She stepped inside.

The air was thick and cold. Each breath she took felt borrowed. The hallway stretched longer than it should have. Paint peeled like skin from the walls. Her boots echoed on rotting wood as she passed door after door—each marked with a number carved in bone.

Room One. Room Two. Room Three.

Whispers floated down the corridor. They weren’t in English. They weren’t in any language Ellie knew, but she felt their meaning in her spine. “Closer. Closer. Closer.”

The flashlight flickered as she passed Room Nine. Something scratched at the door from the inside. She didn’t stop.

Room Thirteen. Room Seventeen. Room Twenty.

The numbers were wrong. Out of order. Skipping back and forth. She was sure she’d passed Room Seventeen twice.

The house was feeding on her confusion.

A light flickered under one door—Room Thirty-One. It was ajar. Ellie stepped closer. Inside, the room was filled with mirrors—hundreds of them, floor to ceiling. But none showed her reflection.

Instead, they showed June.

Each mirror revealed her sister in a different moment—crying, screaming, running, crawling toward the glass. One reached out. "Ellie," it mouthed. The glass fogged with her breath. "Help me."

Then the mirrors shattered all at once, glass spraying across the floor like a hundred screams.

The flashlight died.

Darkness swallowed her whole.

Ellie stumbled back into the hall, blood running from a cut on her cheek. She didn’t stop. She ran. Doors slammed shut behind her. The whispers turned to shrieks. Something was following her now—heavy, wet footsteps slapping against the floorboards.

She reached the end of the hallway.

One last door.

Room Zero.

The door was made of bone. Not carved to look like bone—actual bone. It pulsed like flesh. The handle was warm. Beating, like a heart.

She opened it.

Inside was nothing. Just a black void that stretched on forever. A cold wind blew from the emptiness. At the edge of the room stood a figure. Thin. Ragged. Face hidden by matted hair.

"June?" Ellie whispered.

The figure looked up.

It was her—but wrong. Her skin was gray. Her eyes were black pits. Her mouth twisted in a grin too wide for a human face.

"I missed you, sis."

It lunged.

Ellie screamed. She fired the revolver. Once. Twice. The thing flinched, but didn’t fall. It laughed—a sound like bones snapping underwater.

"I’m not her," it hissed. "I wore her like skin, but she’s gone now. You’re next."

Ellie clutched the locket in her hand and hurled it. It hit the creature’s chest and burst into flame. The thing shrieked. Smoke poured from its eyes. It melted, howling into the void.

Then—the silence returned.

She turned to run, but the door behind her was gone. Only darkness.

And then she heard it.

A voice—soft. Weak.

"Ellie?"

A hand reached up from the floor. Pale. Familiar.

June.

Trapped beneath the boards, eyes wide with fear.

Ellie knelt, clawing at the wood. She pulled, splintering her nails, until her sister's face emerged. Real. Alive.

Together, they screamed.

Because something else was crawling up behind her.