This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/ExceptingAlice on 2025-04-27 04:37:00+00:00.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Caleb didn’t move at first.

The spirit’s voice threaded through the smoke, soft and slithering: "You don't have to die. Take her hand. Choose life."

He almost did.

Frank’s broken form, barely visible in the smoke, reached out. His hand wasn’t strong — it wasn’t even whole — but it closed around Caleb’s wrist. A dead boy's grip, trying to hold back the cycle.

Caleb's whole body shook. He closed his eyes. He wanted to live. God, he wanted to live.

But Ellie whimpered.

And somewhere under the ash and static, Caleb remembered: remembered what it meant to love someone more than yourself.

He tore his hand free — not from Frank. From the fear. From himself.

And before the spirit could scream, before the horse could be snatched away—

Caleb hurled himself forward.

He seized the horse with both hands, and without hesitation, pressed it into the nearest candle.

Flame swallowed wax.

Caleb burned with it — not in body, but in the thin, brittle thread of soul he had left to give.

We didn’t have time to think.

The horse exploded in Caleb’s hands, the wax and paint igniting in a hungry snap, throwing sparks into the trembling attic air.

The ritual cracked open like a fault line.

The masks dropped, slamming into the floor one after another, hollow and broken.

Sam moved first — always faster than fear. She grabbed Ellie and bolted.

I stumbled after them, the smoke clawing at my throat, my lungs filling with the stench of burning wood and something fouler, something older.

The house screamed. Not in sound — in motion.

The floor writhed underfoot, stretching and tearing, the hallway out bulging and buckling like the world itself was trying to push us back.

Doors along the corridor slammed open, then shut, then open again — a stuttering, furious heartbeat.

We ran.

I grabbed Sam’s hand and pulled her forward, feeling the house tug at my shoulders, trying to rip us loose.

One last door. One last breath.

I threw my weight into it, slamming it open just as it tried to slam closed, dragging Sam and Ellie through behind me.

Outside.

Cold air. Real stars. Earth that didn't undulate.

The gas cans sat by the car where we’d left them — as if the house hadn’t noticed them, hadn’t cared.

Hands numb, I tore one open, sloshing gasoline across the porch, the steps, the broken threshold.

Sam stood behind me, clutching Ellie against her chest, her face a blank mask of survival.

I struck a match.

The fire leapt up greedily, roaring along the wood, swallowing the doorway and the walls, gnawing into the bones of the house.

The house didn’t scream aloud. It fought.

The flames bucked and twisted, trying to writhe free, to hurl themselves off the walls, to undo what had been done.

But Caleb was already gone. The ritual was already broken. The blood debt uncollected.

The house burned.

No faces in the windows. No whispering in the eaves. Just the smell of ash and grief and old, bitter promises burning out at last.

We stood in the dirt and watched it die.

It's been three years.

Different state. Different house. Different ghosts.

We never spoke to Carl again. I don’t know if he’s alive. I don’t much care.

Ellie is four now. She’s fierce. Bright. Smarter than either of us knows how to handle.

Sometimes, when she’s excited, she talks with Caleb’s grin — half-laughing, half-challenging, like the world isn’t moving fast enough for her.

Sam says it’s just family resemblance. I want to believe that.

Most days, I do.

Last night, though...

I woke up around 3 a.m. No reason. Just a pressure in my chest.

On my way to the kitchen, I passed Ellie’s door — and froze.

She was awake.

Sitting cross-legged on her bed, whispering into the dark.

I leaned closer.

"...he’s sleeping. Just like before."

The words floated out — calm, too calm.

I knocked lightly. "Ellie? What are you doing up?"

She turned toward me, face shadowed, smiling.

"Nothing, Daddy," she said sweetly.

Then, in a voice too steady, too old:

"You shouldn’t be eavesdropping."

It wasn’t just what she said. It was how she said it. Like someone else was watching me through her eyes.

My heart jammed into my throat.

And then she laughed — bright, messy, normal — and flopped backward into her blankets, giggling.

Only the laugh — the crack in the middle of it, the way it bent, the way it splintered just wrong —

For one breathless moment, it sounded exactly like Caleb.

I stood there for a long time. Long after she fell asleep. Long after the house settled into silence.

Just counting my own breaths. Just making sure they were still mine.