The House That Hunts Back

By Saloni Duggal

The house had been waiting for them.

It stood at the edge of town, wrapped in mist and ivy, its windows boarded

yet somehow watchful. For years, locals whispered about it — the old

Hawthorne Mansion — built in 1892, abandoned after the family vanished

without a trace. They said you could still hear laughter at night, footsteps in

empty halls, and sometimes, your own name being called from somewhere

deep inside.

Most people stayed away.

But not Aurora.

For her, fear was a challenge. She ran a small urban exploration channel

online — “Lost Lights.” With her friends — Neil, Tanya, and Vikky — she’d

filmed everything from ghost towns to subway ruins. The mansion was

supposed to be their biggest episode yet.

“Just remember,” Neil said as they stood before the rusted gates,

flashlights trembling in the fog. “We go in, shoot for two hours, and leave.

No staying overnight.”

“Relax,” Aurora said with a grin, adjusting her camera. “It’s a house, not a

beast.”

But as soon as the gates creaked open, something in the air shifted — a

faint smell of dust, rot, and something else… sweet, almost inviting.

The front doors were enormous and carved with strange patterns — swirls

that almost looked like eyes. Inside, the air was thick and stale. The foyer

was grand but broken — marble tiles cracked, chandeliers long dead,

mirrors veiled with cobwebs.

They spread out, cameras rolling.

Tanya, the skeptic, laughed. “Alive house? Please. People just love

drama.”

Vikky smirked. “Yeah, next thing you know, it’ll start talking.”

“Maybe it already is,” Aurora said quietly, tracing a crack that ran across

the wall like a pulse.

As they moved deeper, they found corridors that bent where they shouldn’t,

portraits whose eyes seemed to follow, and a faint whisper of wind that

always came from behind.

But the first real sign came when they tried to go back to the foyer.

The door was gone.

“What the hell?” Neil whispered, shining his flashlight where the exit had

been. The wall was smooth now, as if it had never known a door.

Tanya banged on it. “No, no, no—this isn’t funny.”

Aurora forced herself to stay calm. “Old architecture. Maybe there’s another

exit—”

“—or maybe the house is alive,” Vikky muttered.

Something rattled upstairs, like footsteps.

Aurora looked up, light trembling in her hand. “Let’s keep filming. If we

panic, we’re dead. If we document, we might understand it.”

The others hesitated, but they followed.

They climbed the staircase, their footsteps echoing unnaturally loud. The

hallway above stretched endlessly, lined with doors. Each one was slightly

open, revealing darkness beyond.

“Pick one,” Tanya said nervously.

Aurora pushed the nearest door open.

Inside was a small room filled with children’s toys — dolls, blocks, a rocking

horse that swayed faintly though no wind stirred.

On the wall, in faded chalk, someone had written:

“To leave, you must give what you keep.”

A chill crawled up Aurora’s spine. “Give what you keep,” she murmured.

“What the hell does that mean?” Neil asked.

The answer came sooner than they wanted.

A mirror shimmered to life on the far wall — dusty at first, then suddenly

clear. It showed all four of them… but something was wrong.

In the reflection, Aurora wasn’t holding her camera — she was a child,

maybe ten years old, crying in a hospital hallway.

Neil was staring at a burning house.

Tanya was holding a phone with hundreds of missed calls.

Vikky was standing over a grave.

Then, the reflection smiled — not them, but their reflections.

The mirror whispered, “Give what you keep.”

Aurora felt a tug inside her chest — memories, sensations — and before

she could stop herself, she whispered, “I… I miss her.”

A single tear slid down her cheek, and the mirror flickered. The child in the

reflection — her younger self — nodded.

Then the door behind them creaked open.

They ran through it, gasping, hearts pounding.

When they looked back, the mirror was gone.

Down the hall, they found themselves in what looked like a dining room —

long table, thirteen chairs, rotting food. The smell of decay was unbearable.

“Okay,” Neil said, shaking. “This isn’t fun anymore. Let’s find a window.”

But every window looked out into the same thing — darkness, shifting

faintly like breathing fog.

“Maybe this is how it feeds,” Tanya said. “It makes us remember.”

“Feeds on what?” Vikky asked.

Aurora looked around — at the moldy food, at the portraits on the wall, their

painted eyes full of sorrow. “Memory,” she said. “Pain.”

As if answering her, the chandelier flickered to life. The table groaned. And

suddenly, the food wasn’t rotten — it was fresh. Warm. Fragrant.

Each plate bore something personal — Aurora’s mother’s apple pie, Neil’s

favorite biryani, Tanya’s childhood candy, Vikky’s favorite cranberries.

“Don’t eat,” Aurora warned.

But Neil, trembling, reached out anyway. “Just one bite.”

The moment his fork touched the food, the lights went out.

Screams. Glass shattering. The table split in two. When light returned, Neil

was gone.

His camera lay on the floor, still recording.

In the frame, the chandelier swayed gently — and for a brief second, there

was Neil, standing at the far end of the table… smiling faintly, eyes hollow.

Then the image cut to static.

“Aurora,” Tanya gasped, “we have to get out!”

Vikky was shaking. “He’s gone. He’s gone, we can’t—”

The house creaked. The floorboards beneath them shifted. A new hallway

appeared where the fireplace had been.

Aurora forced herself to move. “It’s leading us somewhere.”

“Or hunting us,” Tanya said.

The hallway was narrow, suffocating. Their flashlights flickered. On the

walls, words began to form — scrawled in something dark and wet.

“I REMEMBER YOU.”

“THANK YOU FOR COMING HOME.”

The words pulsed faintly, as if written by something that was still breathing.

They reached a final door — crimson, carved with those same eye-like

patterns.

Inside was a grand ballroom, untouched by decay. Moonlight streamed

through glass that shouldn’t exist.

And standing in the center — was Neil.

“Aurora,” he said, smiling softly. “You made it.”

She froze. “Neil?”

He looked alive — almost radiant — but his eyes were too still. “You don’t

have to run anymore. None of us do. Just… remember.”

“What do you mean?”

He stepped closer. “The house isn’t killing us. It’s keeping us. Feeding on

what we hide.”

Tanya screamed, “You’re not him!”

Neil tilted his head. “Maybe I am what he left behind.”

Then, the chandelier began to drip — not wax, but something red. The

music started — an old waltz, playing from nowhere.

Aurora felt a pull — not physical, but inside her mind — flashes of her past:

her mother’s hospital bed, the silence after her death, the way she had

drowned herself in filming abandoned places so she wouldn’t have to face

her own.

The house wasn’t random. It had chosen them — broken people full of

ghosts.

Tanya suddenly bolted for the exit. “I’m not staying here!”

She ran toward a side door. The others followed — but when they burst

through, they weren’t outside. They were back in the toy room.

The mirror waited.

Tanya’s reflection was already crying. “Don’t leave me,” it whispered.

Tanya screamed, smashed the mirror with her flashlight — and the shards

turned to dust.

Then, she was gone.

Just gone.

The toy horse rocked gently in her place.

Vikky fell to his knees. “We’re not getting out, are we?”

Aurora crouched beside him. “Maybe not. But maybe we can stop it.”

“How?”

“By giving it what it wants.”

She turned to the mirror. “You want memories? Take them. Take

everything.”

She closed her eyes.

The house shuddered. The air rippled with heat. She saw flashes — her

mother’s smile, the rain on her first camera lens, Neil laughing, Tanya

rolling her eyes. And then, darkness.

When she opened her eyes again, she was standing outside.

Morning light. Birds. Wind.

Vikky beside her — alive, trembling.

No house behind them. Just empty field.

Months later, Aurora uploaded the footage to her channel — unedited. The

video went viral. People debated it online: “Real or fake?” “Brilliant

storytelling.” “Creepy but amazing.”

But one comment stood out, posted from an unknown account with no

photo:

“Thank you for remembering us. The house sleeps now.”

Aurora’s hands shook as she closed her laptop.

She turned to her shelf where the broken camera sat. Its lens cracked, but

the screen faintly flickered — showing a single frame of the mansion’s

foyer.

And standing in the doorway was her mother, smiling faintly.

Then, the image faded to black.

By Saloni Duggal