A crashing sound, like shattered glass, echoed through the house, followed by distant, cheerful, almost childlike laughter. It floated on a draft, ringing through the old house, bent by corners and corridors. More shattering sounds followed in quick succession from different rooms—a crash, then a cascade of plates.

Lydia flinched as a chill pricked her skin. She went still, straining to catch another sound. The laughter faded quickly—had she imagined it? Unsure, she waited for another clue before moving.

“Hello?” Lydia called. She picked up a torch and headed toward the source of the crashes. No response came—only the hum of air conditioning, along with crickets and frogs from the nearby pond. Their calls mingled in a strange harmony, offering Lydia an odd comfort. Suddenly, the harmony stopped. Now it felt as if she’d been dropped into a vacuum.

Lydia looked around, uneasy, and felt watched. As she moved, a shadow—not her own—trailed closely behind. Suddenly, a cat leaped at her.

“Oh, Milo, you startled me.” Lydia exhaled. She entered the kitchen. Her brand-new ArmorArc plates were shattered across the floor. The cat purred, threading around Lydia’s legs.

Not all the plates were broken in one place—she noticed debris in the living room, too. "Did the cat carry one? But why? Careful, Milo, you will hurt yourself."

“My favorite plates. Hey! This isn’t fair!” Lydia exclaimed. She stood among the shards, feeling both fear and frustration. Should she fear the eerie laughter or simply be upset about her broken plates? The question lingered as she cleaned up, careful not to cut herself.

Deciding she’d had enough for one night, Lydia changed clothes, put on light music, slipped on her noise-cancelling headphones, and left all the lights on. The light brought what comfort it could.

Later that night, lying on the bed, too restless to sleep, Lydia’s eyes darted across every corner of the room. For an instant, she thought she saw something move — a flicker, a shift just beyond the reach of light. She forced her eyes shut, trying to fall asleep. It wasn't Milo either; Milo was sleeping by her legs.

But every time a faint sound slipped through her music—a soft creak, the gentle sway of the hanging art piece, the door moving slightly with the rhythm of the ceiling fan—her eyes sprang open. Each noise, ordinary on its own, joined the others to weave a pattern. It was as if the house was breathing around her.

She turned up the volume, willing the melody to drown out the rest. But beneath the notes, she could still hear it — a faint tapping, irregular and distant, as if someone were knocking softly from within the walls.

The following morning, she didn’t remember when she finally fell asleep, only that the early rays of the sun, warm and insistent, touched her face and pulled her back to consciousness.

She woke confused in the pale morning light. Memories from the night before—laughter, shattering glass, watching the dark—quickly returned.

Yet, sunlight spilling into the room brought a strange comfort. Fear, so gripping last night, shrank in daylight’s clarity. The old house, vibrant with menace in darkness, now looked harmless—quiet, ordinary, benign.

Lydia took a shower, made breakfast, and poured herself a cup of coffee before settling at her desk. She leaned back, staring at the blinking cursor on her screen, reflecting on the strange events that had unfolded over the past few days.

Lydia was a freelance writer specializing in horror—vampires, ghosts, monsters. Her current project followed Martha, a woman lured by a dishonest real estate agent into renting a haunted house. Over time, Martha would discover the truth: she had been the ghost all along.

In Lydia’s story, Martha came across an ad for a mansion on 11 Hollow Creek Road. The rent was surprisingly cheap for its size—too cheap, really—but curiosity won over caution.

Martha set out for a drive. The air grew colder as she approached Hollow Creek. Houses grew fewer, older, their paint cracked and lawns wild. The last mailbox she passed read 8 Hollow Creek—after that, the road curved into a dark tunnel of trees.

And then, as if conjured from the page, there it was.A weed-choked gravel driveway led to a leaning two-story house. A weathered sign stood out front, half-swallowed by ivy:

FOR RENT

Contact V. Richards for information.

Martha read it twice. The paint was chipped, the wood warped and gray, as if the sign had waited years for her to arrive. She hesitated, then dialed the number.

“Hello,” a smooth male voice answered. “V. Richards speaking. How may I help you?”

“Hi, this is Martha,” she said, glancing up at the porch. “I came across your sign in front of 11 Hollow Creek Road. Is it still available for rent?”

“Yes, of course,” he replied, his tone calm, rehearsed. “It’s eleven hundred a month. The doors are open—feel free to look around.”

Before she could ask another question, the line went dead.

“That was quick,” she murmured, half amused.

She didn’t know it yet, but she had just stepped into her own haunting.

Lydia sat back in her chair, staring at the words on the screen. The more she read them, the more her pulse quickened.

Because this—every line, every word—was exactly what had happened to her.

Same house.

Same sign.

Same man.

The only difference was that Martha didn’t know the house was haunted.

A sudden buzz from Lydia’s phone against the desk broke her thoughts, drawing her back to the present. Lisa, her oldest friend, flashed on the screen.

She hesitated before answering, glancing at the manuscript open on her laptop — the one that had begun writing itself.

“Hey, you okay?” Lisa’s voice came through, light but cautious. “You sound tired in your texts. Still buried in that horror project?”

Lydia managed a small laugh. “Yeah. Just… living it a little too much, maybe.”

“What do you mean?”

Lydia stared out at the sunlight in her garden, tempted to say “You wouldn’t believe me”, but memories pulled her back to the beginning.

The front door really was open. Lydia stepped inside, brushing past a faint smell of dust and old pine. The place was quiet, bright with late-afternoon sun filtering through the curtains.

It was older than she’d imagined, but charming — wide staircase, fireplace, high ceilings with decorative molding. The floorboards creaked pleasantly under her steps.

She took out her phone, snapping pictures — the staircase, the old chandelier, the cracked wallpaper. “Perfect for reference,” she thought. “I could even use these on my website later.”

For a moment, she felt a thrill. The coincidence was almost too good to be true, and maybe that was what made it exciting.

After touring the last room upstairs, she stood at one of the windows, looking out at the quiet road. The wind stirred the leaves outside, and the late sun bathed the porch in a warm, amber glow.

“This could actually work,” she said softly. “This house could be Martha’s house.”

She left feeling oddly inspired — her head filled with scenes and sentences, already forming themselves on the drive home.

Lydia called Mr. Richards back that evening and managed to convince him to rent the house to her for just one week.

It was surprisingly easy. Most owners hesitated to lease anything without a contract, but he agreed almost instantly.

Given the strange reputation surrounding the place, maybe he was just relieved that someone wanted it at all.

Not wanting to waste any time, Lydia packed the essentials — a few dishes, some cookware, her notebooks, enough clothes, and, of course, her cat, Milo. It wasn’t far from her apartment; she could always return if she forgot something.

Her plan was simple: spend one full week living inside the house, writing, observing, and seeing if she experienced anything unusual.

Her friends thought it was a terrible idea — reckless, even — but Lydia only laughed. “It’s research,” she told them. “Writers do worse things for authenticity.”

By late afternoon, she arrived at 11 Hollow Creek Road. The house stood quiet, washed in the warm orange of the setting sun.

Inside, the air reeked of dust and waxy old polish. She explored briefly before claiming the master bedroom—a broad space with tall windows and an antique king-sized bed. The mattress was sturdy, though the linens yellowed with age. She stripped them, laid on fresh sheets, and dusted the furniture until it felt livable.

The cobwebs in the corners she left untouched. They added, she thought with a faint smile, a bit of atmosphere — just the right amount of haunted-house charm for a writer of ghost stories.

That night, as she arranged her notebooks on the desk by the window, the house settled around her with quiet pops and sighs of old timber.

It felt peaceful — almost welcoming.

The first couple of nights, nothing happened. Being alone in such a large house was unsettling at times — every creak and sigh of the old floorboards made her pause — but beyond that, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

She spent her days writing, cooking simple meals, and exploring the property. The isolation felt almost refreshing. There were no city sounds here, no phones ringing, no neighbors walking past her window — only the occasional rustle of trees and the steady hum of her thoughts.

At night, she’d curl up in bed with her laptop, adding notes to Martha’s story. She drew inspiration from the surroundings: the fading wallpaper, the crooked chandelier, the way the light from the hallway stretched into the room like long, pale fingers.

Each morning, she woke up half expecting to feel different — more inspired, more frightened — but everything remained the same. The house was quiet, patient, ordinary.

By the third night, she was beginning to think her friends had been right. Perhaps this was just a creaky old home, nothing more.

Still, a small part of her — the writer’s instinct — couldn’t shake the feeling that something was waiting.

The night before the plates broke, Lydia sat curled up on the couch, typing quietly on her laptop. The house was still, wrapped in that muffled silence old places hold at night.

A soft ding from the kitchen signaled that her popcorn was ready. Without thinking, she set the laptop aside and went to get it.

When she returned, the laptop was gone.

She froze. The couch cushions still showed the imprint where it had been, the faint warmth where her legs had rested. “What the…” she muttered, setting the popcorn down.

She checked the coffee table, glanced toward the kitchen counter — nothing.

Then, just as she turned back toward the couch, there it was again. Her laptop sat exactly where she’d left it.

Lydia let out a short laugh. “Going blind, clearly.”

She sat down, brushed the keys, and the screen flickered back to life from sleep mode. Her document was still open — same draft, same blinking cursor.

Except… something was different.

There was a new paragraph she didn’t remember writing. Her fingers hovered over the trackpad as she scrolled up.

The sound came again — the shattering of glass, echoing through the empty house. The plates, untouched for weeks, lay in pieces on the kitchen floor.

She stared at the words, brow furrowed. “Did I… type that?” she whispered.

She hadn’t written any scene involving plates. Martha wasn’t even near a kitchen yet.

Her cursor blinked just beneath the line, waiting.

Lydia sighed and shook her head. “Sleep deprivation,” she muttered, hitting Save and closing the lid. “I need to stop writing after ten.”

Lisa was still on the line.

“Lydia… hellooo? Earth to Lydia?”

Lydia blinked, pulled back from the fog of memory. “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry, just zoned out for a second.”

“Uh-huh,” Lisa said, half-teasing. “You’ve got that writer trance again, don’t you? Please tell me you’re at least seeing daylight this week.”

Lydia managed a laugh. “I’m fine, really. Just… deep in the story.”

“Well, don’t disappear into it completely,” Lisa warned. “You start living inside those haunted houses of yours, and I’m going to have to stage an intervention.”

Lydia smiled faintly. “Too late.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Just joking.”

“Okay, but promise me you’ll step out today. Fresh air, real people, sunlight—remember those?”

“I promise.”

Lisa laughed and hung up.

Lydia set the phone down and stared at the dark screen of her laptop. Her reflection looked pale in the glass, eyes tired.

Things began to unravel quickly after that. Lydia’s manuscript started changing on its own — paragraphs appeared, vanished, then reappeared rewritten in a tone colder than hers. Entire sections now hinted at death — sometimes Martha’s, sometimes her own.

At first, Lydia thought it was a glitch in her writing software, but soon she realized it wasn’t the computer. It was the house.



Doors began to close on their own. More than once, she found herself locked inside a room for minutes at a time, the handle refusing to turn until the moment she stopped struggling.

Each time the door finally creaked open, the air outside felt different — heavier, older, as though the house was watching her learn its rhythm.

By now, Lydia wasn’t sure which version of the story she was living — Martha’s or her own.

By the sixth day, Lydia’s curiosity had curdled into obsession. Sleep came in restless fragments, her meals went half-eaten, and every spare moment was spent combing through online records and old town archives. She needed to know what had happened in this house — who had lived here before, and why her words kept echoing through its walls.

Her manuscript was changing again, whole passages appearing overnight, written in her tone but not her hand. Each time she tried to delete them, the text returned — rewritten, stronger, as if resisting her.

And now, Milo was missing.

She’d searched every room, every corner, even under the porch, calling his name until her throat went raw. But the house gave nothing back except silence.

The same silence that seemed to deepen whenever she sat down to write.

She visited the nearest homes along Hollow Creek Road, hoping someone might know the house’s history—or might have seen Milo wandering nearby. But no one did.

Most neighbors just offered polite shrugs. A few said they’d only moved in recently. Others claimed the place had “been empty for years,” their voices dropping slightly, as if the topic itself made them uneasy.

Each answer left Lydia more unsettled. The further she walked from the house, the less real it seemed—like it existed only when she was inside it.

One woman, watering her front garden, frowned thoughtfully.

“That old place?” she said. “Funny thing, I drive past it every week, but I don’t remember ever seeing anyone live there. Or a for rent sign, for that matter.”

Lydia’s stomach tightened. “There was one when I came,” she said quietly. “Contact V. Richards.”

The woman shook her head. “Don’t know any Richards around here.”

Lydia forced a polite smile and thanked her before walking back to her car. But inside, her mind was racing.

She sat behind the wheel for a long moment, staring down the quiet road toward the house in the distance. Disappointment warred with unease.

Maybe I don’t need to go back, she thought. Maybe that’s enough research for one lifetime.

She tried calling Mr. Richards again, her fingers trembling slightly as she redialed. The call went straight to voicemail — no greeting, no name, just static and a tone.

She frowned and checked her phone contacts, hoping to verify the number. That’s when her stomach dropped.

The saved name no longer read “V. Richards.”

It now said Vale Richards.

For a moment, she simply stared, the air in the car suddenly heavy. “No… no, that’s not what I saved,” she muttered. She scrolled through her call history — every previous call now listed as Vale Richards.

Her heart thudded. “There it is again!” Characters from her story coming to life.

She looked toward the house again, just visible between the trees — quiet, still, waiting.

A cold certainty began to settle in her chest. “I need to get out of here while I still can.”

She started the engine.

The radio came to life on its own, tuned to a channel filled with static. Beneath the hiss, a faint voice began to form — soft, broken, like something trying to crawl through interference.

“Lydia…”

“Lydia…Milo is with me.”

Her breath caught. The voice was unmistakably hers — but slower, hollow, as though echoing through a tunnel.

She reached for the dial and turned it sharply. The channel changed — but the same voice continued, bleeding through every frequency.

“Lydia… you shouldn’t have come back.”

Her pulse spiked. “No, no, no…” she whispered, twisting the dial faster. Every station, every number — the same warped voice reading her own words.

“The woman shook her head. ‘Don’t know any Richards around here.’”

The same line repeated, over and over, now distorted by static and deep, gurgling tones.

“Stop it!” she shouted, slamming her palm against the radio.

The voice laughed — faint, feminine, childlike — then cut off entirely. Silence.

Lydia’s chest heaved. She turned the key to shut off the car, but before the engine died, she heard one final whisper through the static:

“You can’t leave.”

Something inside her broke loose. She flung the door open and stumbled out, gravel crunching under her shoes. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably.

“I need to leave right now,” she gasped, half sob, half resolve.

She ran toward the house, fumbling for her keys — though she wasn’t sure why she was heading back inside instead of away. Maybe instinct, maybe madness.

The front door was wide open.

Inside, everything was chaos. Her suitcase overturned, clothes scattered like torn paper. The chair by the desk was knocked over. Books and notebooks lay ripped, their pages fluttering in the draft that rushed through the hall.

“Who did this?” she whispered.

Her breath caught when she saw her laptop on the floor — the screen smashed, shards of glass glittering across the wooden boards. The casing was bent inward, as if it had been crushed by force rather than dropped.

She dropped to her knees, touching the edge of the shattered keyboard with trembling fingers.

“No… no, no, no…”

The faint smell of burnt plastic hung in the air. The power cord was still plugged in — but the socket was blackened, a thin wisp of smoke curling upward.

And then she noticed something else.

Written on the wall above the desk, in dark, uneven strokes—maybe soot, maybe ash—were the words:

“I told you not to leave the story unfinished.”

Lydia’s breath caught. She stumbled backward, hand clamped over her mouth.

“Martha…” she whispered.

The name tasted like guilt.

Her voice trembled. “Please. Please stop.”

A dull thud echoed from upstairs—a slow, dragging rhythm, like bare feet moving across the old floorboards. The sound grew heavier, closer, each step deliberate.

Lydia’s chest rose and fell too fast. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “No, I’m not doing this.”

But the steps didn’t stop.

At the top of the stairs, a shadow gathered—taller than it should’ve been, its edges rippling with something alive. From within it, a voice came, soft and cracked, yet unmistakably human.

“Why did you do this to me, Lydia?”

Lydia froze. The voice was hers—and not hers.

The figure stepped into the light. Martha’s face, pale and hollow, stared back at her. Her eyes were not angry, but betrayed.

“Why did you hurt me?” Martha asked, her tone quiet, almost tender. “You made me suffer. You gave me pain—and then you stopped writing. You left me there, alone in the dark.”

But something in her — fear, guilt, maybe curiosity — moved her feet anyway. She picked up the light. The metal felt warm, almost pulsing against her palm.

The house was utterly still, save for the low moan of the wind outside. Each step groaned

beneath her weight. Halfway up, she caught a faint sound — humming. It was the same tune she’d heard through her headphones that first restless night.

“Martha?” Lydia called. Her voice was too small for the space. “What do you want from me?”

The humming stopped.

The bedroom door at the end of the hallway creaked open slowly, like a breath being drawn in. Lydia’s flashlight flickered, struggling to stay alive.

She stepped into the doorway.

The air was colder here, heavy with that scent again — damp wood, faded perfume, and something old, metallic. On the floor, the torn pages of her notebook were scattered in a ring, inked lines twisted across them like veins.

And there—at the center of the room—stood Martha.

Her dress hung in tatters, streaked with dark, dried blood. The stains ran down her arms, her fingers dripping faintly onto the old wooden floor. Her hair clung to her face, and when she lifted her head, Lydia saw her eyes—pale, hollow, and far too human.

Just behind her, near the edge of the rug, lay Milo.

His small body was still, twisted unnaturally, his fur matted with crimson.

Lydia’s knees nearly gave out. “No… no, please, not him.”

The woman tilted her head slightly, as though studying her reaction. A faint, broken smile spread across her face.

“You shouldn’t have written this ending,” Martha whispered.

Her hair fell loose over her shoulders, dark and wet-looking, though there was no water. Her dress clung to her as though from long decay. Her eyes — hollow, knowing — fixed on Lydia.

She was exactly as Lydia had written her.

Lydia lifted the flashlight, its weak glow trembling across the figure. “You’re not real,” she said, her voice breaking. “You’re a story.”

Martha tilted her head. “You wrote me,” she said softly, the words more vibration than sound. “And then you left me here.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You gave me fear,” Martha continued. “You gave me pain. Then you left the story unfinished.”

The flashlight sputtered again and went out completely. The room was drowned in darkness. Lydia’s pulse thundered in her ears. She could hear footsteps moving closer, the soft drag of a bare foot over the floorboards.

She fumbled behind her for the door, but her fingers found only wall. “Please,” she gasped. “I can fix it. I’ll finish it. Just let me go.”

“You can’t finish it,” Martha whispered, now inches from her. “Because you are the ending.”

A sudden gust blew through the room, flinging papers into the air like white birds. Lydia dropped to the floor, covering her head. The house roared — timbers groaning, windows rattling — as though it were alive again after years of silence.

Her laptop’s shattered pieces began to vibrate across the floor, clinking and clattering into place, forming the faint shape of an open book.

“No!” Lydia screamed, crawling backward. “Stop!”

Martha knelt in front of her, her outline flickering like a dying light. “You wanted a story worth believing,” she said. “Now believe it.”

Lydia’s back hit the wall. Her hand brushed something — her pen, the one she’d dropped earlier. She grabbed it and held it like a weapon. “If words made you, maybe words can end you,” she said through her teeth.

Martha’s eyes gleamed faintly in the dark. “Then write.”

Lydia’s hand shook as she pressed the pen against her forearm. She couldn’t see what she was writing, only felt the desperate motion. She whispered as she scribbled on her skin:

“The ghost fades. The story ends. The house is empty.”

The walls shuddered. The air thickened, pressing against her like invisible hands. Martha screamed — not loud, but sharp, splitting, a sound that cracked the silence in half. Then, all at once, it was gone.

The weight lifted.

The air stilled.

Lydia lay there on the floor, gasping, pen still clutched in her hand. Her arm burned where the words had been written — though when she looked, there was nothing there.

The flashlight blinked once, twice, then steadied. The room was empty. The scattered papers lay still.

Martha was gone.

Lydia stayed there for a long time, unable to move, listening. Only the faint creaks of the settling house answered. Slowly, she stood, her breath visible in the dim light. She gathered her torn notes and stacked them on the desk.

As she reached to close her notebook, she noticed one new sentence on the last page — written in her own handwriting, though she hadn’t touched a pen:

The story is finished. She is free.

Lydia’s hand trembled as she closed the cover. She picked up the remains of Milo. She left the house.

Lydia gasped and sat upright.

She was in her own bed—her apartment, her sheets, the faint morning light spilling through the curtains. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she looked around, disoriented.

On the chair beside the bed, Milo was curled up, fast asleep, breathing softly.

Lydia pressed a trembling hand to her chest. “Was it… a dream?” she whispered.

Nothing seems out of the ordinary. The faint hum of the fridge. The distant sound of traffic.

But on her nightstand sat her open notebook.

A single line written across the page in unfamiliar handwriting:

“The story isn’t finished.”