The Ghost House in the Village of Shadows Part 7: The First Scream Is Always the Purest
Part 7: The First Scream Is Always the Purest
.The new ones stepped inside with laughte
Five teenagers this time—drawn by rumors, dares, and the thrill of trespassing where death whispered. The moon hung low, bloated and yellow, as if watching with a hungry eye. Behind them, the door of the Ghost House swung shut with a sigh, not a bang. It didn’t need to frighten them yet. It already knew them.
One of them, a girl named Mira, paused. “Did… did you hear that?”
They all stopped. Silence. Then—a giggle. High-pitched. Childlike. Coming from the second floor.
“Probably just the wind,” said Tariq, the one who had suggested the visit. He shone his phone light up the staircase. The beam flickered, dimmed… then died.
One by one, their lights failed.
And that’s when they saw it.
At the top of the stairs stood a little girl in a tattered black dress, her feet bare, her hair hanging like wet ropes. Her eyes were dark pools, reflecting nothing. She raised a single finger to her lips.
Shhh… they’re still sleeping.
The group froze. Mira took a step back—only to feel something cold press against her shoulder. She turned slowly.
There, behind her, stood another version of herself. Smiling. Eyes empty. Lips sewn shut with black thread made of shadow.
She tried to scream.
But no sound came.
Because in the Land of Shadows, the first scream is always the purest—and the house had already taken it.
It had been waiting.
Not for intruders.
Not for sacrifices.
But for actors.
The notebook lay where it always did—beside the crib in the upstairs room, pages fluttering open to a fresh chapter. The ink was still wet, forming words in a handwriting none of them recognized… yet all of them remembered.
“They have returned. The house breathes again.”
Downstairs, the walls began to bleed black smoke. The floorboards groaned, not under footsteps—but under memory. The house wasn’t haunted.
It was alive.
And it was hungry.
In the mirror at the end of the hall, the reflections didn’t mimic the living.
They led them.
One by one, the teens began to climb the stairs—not running away, but ascending, drawn by a voice that called each of them by a name they’d never spoken aloud.
Names the house had whispered into their dreams for years.
Names their shadows had known all along.
And in a room far beneath the foundation—deeper than basements or graves—a door pulsed with red light.
The same door from the inverted village.
The same door that had opened before.
Behind it, something stirred.
Not an entity.
Not a ghost.
But a network—a web of stolen identities, lost souls, and repeating tragedies, stretching across countries, centuries, dimensions.
The Ghost House was not one house.
It was many.
And every time someone stepped inside, somewhere else, another door opened.
Another light died.
Another shadow learned to walk on its own.
Mira was the last to climb.
She looked back once.
Her shadow didn’t follow.
It stayed behind.
And began to walk toward the house.
When she reached the upstairs room, the others were already there—standing in a circle around the crib. Their eyes were open, but they weren’t seeing.
They were being filled.
The little girl—Hala—stood beside the notebook, now floating in midair. She turned to Mira and spoke, not in words, but directly into her mind:
“You are not the first. You will not be the last. But you… you will be the keeper.”
Mira felt it then—the cold thread entering her chest, weaving through her ribs, stitching itself into her heartbeat.
The house had chosen.
Not a victim.
But a host.
And as the walls whispered her new name, the village outside vanished into fog, replaced by endless roads leading to identical houses, each with a door slightly ajar, each with a group of laughing teens about to step inside.
The game wasn’t repeating.
It was expanding.
And the first scream—pure, untouched, full of fear and life—echoed through every branch of the network.
Then faded.
Because the house had taken it.
And the next one was already beginning.
To be continued…?
