Chapter One

The road got quieter the further we drove.

At first it was just traffic fading behind us, then it became trees swallowing sound whole. No horns. No voices. Just tires rolling over uneven asphalt like the world was slowly forgetting we existed.

I sat in the back seat of Mike’s car, forehead pressed against the cold glass, watching Lagos dissolve into something greener, heavier, more patient. Tori was in the front blasting music too loud for a road that empty, laughing at something Blanco said that I wasn’t really listening to.

I wasn’t present. Not fully.

I hadn’t been present for months.

My phone buzzed once in my lap. No name. Just a blank screen lighting up like it was trying to remind me I still belonged somewhere.

I ignored it.

We turned off the main road around late afternoon. That was when the house started to feel closer than it should have been. Not because we could see it yet, but because the air changed. Even Tori turned the music down without saying anything.

“That’s it,” Mike said, pointing through the windshield.

The house appeared like it had been waiting.

Big. Old. Too still.

It wasn’t creepy in the way people usually describe creepy things. No broken windows. No dramatic decay. It looked almost… cared for. That was what made it worse.

Like someone still came back here.

Like someone never left.

We parked outside on a gravel drive that crunched too loudly under the tires. For a moment nobody got out. It felt like we were waiting for permission.

Then Tori opened her door.

“Okay,” she said, forcing energy into her voice like she could push the feeling away. “This is going to be amazing.”

Blanco laughed behind her. “You say that about everything.”

“Because I’m usually right.”

That got a few small laughs. Even me, a quiet one. A short one that didn’t reach my chest.

We stepped out.

The air here was different. Not cold. Not warm. Just… still. Like it had stopped trying to move forward.

Eve stood beside me adjusting her bag. “Why does it feel like nobody lives here anymore?”

Mike shrugged. “My aunt still comes sometimes. Just not often.”

“Not often is crazy,” Chloe muttered.

Terry was the last one out of the car.

Of course he was.

I felt it before I saw him fully. That subtle tightening in the space around me. Like my body remembered him before my mind agreed to.

He didn’t look at me first. He never did when it mattered.

Instead, he walked past and said, “Let’s just get inside before it gets dark.”

Simple. Casual.

Like nothing had ever been broken between us.

That was worse than anger. Worse than anything else.

We carried our bags up the porch steps one by one. The wood creaked under our weight like it was waking up. The front door was already unlocked.

That should have been the first warning.

Mike pushed it open.

The house sighed.

Not literally. Not something you could prove. But every one of us felt it at the same time. Like the space inside had been holding its breath for a long time and we had just interrupted it.

The smell hit next.

Clean wood. Old fabric. Something faintly floral underneath it all, like perfume that had been left in a closed room too long.

Tori walked in first like she owned fear.

“Okay,” she said again, softer this time. “This place is actually kind of beautiful.”

And it was.

High ceilings. Wide living room. Furniture covered in white sheets like sleeping figures. Light pouring through tall windows in slow golden angles.

But beauty doesn’t cancel silence.

It only makes it louder.

I stepped inside last.

The moment my foot crossed the threshold, something in my chest shifted. Not pain. Not fear.

Recognition.

Like I had been here before in a dream I couldn’t remember waking up from.

I stopped.

Tori turned back. “You good?”

I nodded too quickly. “Yeah.”

But my eyes were already scanning the room again, slower this time.

And that was when I noticed it.

The faint smell.

Not the perfume.

Something underneath it.

Something familiar enough to make my throat tighten before I understood why.

Like my brother’s clothes after rain.

Like home.

And for a second, just one second, I could have sworn I heard someone breathe inside the house with us.