THE HOUSE THAT REMEMBERS

Do not enter the house at the end of Ashbrook Road. It remembers everyone who does.

When I was thirteen, my older brother Darren disappeared.

The police searched everywhere—his school, his friends’ houses, the woods behind our neighborhood—but they never found him. My parents were shattered, hollowed-out shells of themselves. The whole town whispered about it for months. And then, like most tragedies, it faded into a quiet, unsolved mystery.

But I never forgot.

And neither did the house.

For years, the house at the end of Ashbrook Road had been abandoned. The kind of place that kids dared each other to go near but never actually entered. It was old—older than the rest of our town—built from dark, weathered wood that seemed to drink in the light. The windows were black, unbroken, but covered in something that looked like soot.

Darren had always been obsessed with that house.

The last time I saw him, he was standing at the end of our street, staring at it.

And then, one night, he was gone.

I spent years trying to move on. I really did. But when I turned eighteen, I started having dreams.

They always started the same way: I was standing in front of the house. The front door, which had always been locked in real life, was slightly open. Inside, something moved. A shadow that slithered across the floor.

And then I’d wake up.

It happened once a week at first. Then a few times a week. And then—every single night.

I knew what I had to do.

It was a cold autumn evening when I finally worked up the courage to go inside.

The house smelled like rot, dust, and something faintly metallic. The floorboards groaned beneath my feet. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling like veils of forgotten time. But the worst part?

The air felt thick, like it was pressing against my skin, recognizing me.

I moved forward cautiously, my flashlight trembling in my grip. Every wall, every piece of furniture, was covered in deep, dark scratches—like something had been trying to carve its way out.

And then I heard it.

A voice.

Not just any voice.

Darren’s voice.

"Help me…"

My heart nearly stopped. It was coming from upstairs.

I ran. I didn’t think—I just ran up the stairs, each step creaking under my weight. At the end of the hallway, a door stood slightly ajar. I reached for the handle—

And the door slammed shut.

The temperature dropped instantly. My breath came out in visible puffs. The whispering started again, but this time, it wasn’t just Darren.

There were others.

Dozens of voices. Murmuring. Begging. Screaming.

The walls pulsed, like something inside them was breathing. The wood groaned and flexed, bulging outward as if something was trying to push through.

I stumbled back, my mind screaming at me to run, but then I saw it.

The wall across from me—where the old wallpaper had peeled away—was covered in names.

Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Scratched into the wood, some overlapping, some so deep they looked like wounds.

And near the bottom, in jagged, desperate letters, was one I knew.

Darren Owens.

My brother had been here.

Before I could react, the door burst open, revealing a room that shouldn’t have existed.

The walls were covered in mirrors.

Hundreds of them, stretching from floor to ceiling. But none of them reflected me.

Instead, they showed Darren.

He was in all of them. His body was thinner, his eyes sunken, his mouth stretched into a silent scream. He banged against the glass, trying to reach me. His fingers bled from scratching at the surface.

"Liam—run!" he shouted.

And then, something pulled him back.

A black, writhing mass—something that had once been human but was now wrong—gripped his shoulders and dragged him into the endless void behind the mirrors.

The entire house shook. The walls cracked. The air filled with a deep, inhuman growl. The names on the walls began to bleed.

I ran.

I didn’t stop running until I was back outside, gasping for breath. The second my feet hit the pavement, the house went silent.

The front door had closed.

The windows were dark again.

It was like nothing had ever happened.

But as I turned to leave, I heard one final whisper.

"It remembers you now."

That was three years ago.

I moved away, tried to rebuild my life. But every now and then, when I pass by a mirror, I see something I shouldn’t.

A room with no doors.

A boy I once knew.

A shadow watching me.

And the house at the end of Ashbrook Road?

It’s still there. Still waiting.

Still remembering.