“what a schmuck back Up”

[June 18th, 2026]

The downpour is torrential. A dark shade of grey blankets the sky as the clouds crack open again and again, and deafening roars of thunder roll over the city like the drums of an army marching toward battle. By all accounts, this day is nothing short of gloomy. It's an afternoon that sends people scurrying into coffee shops for warmth and artificial light.

Something leaves the air rather melancholy, a particular heaviness that settles into bones and makes even the simplest tasks feel like wading through syrup. It weighs down everyone.

Everyone except y/n, that is. 

She beams with a smile so bright it almost makes up for the lack of sunlight. On a simple silver ring, resting in her palm like the most precious jewel in the world, sits a set of keys that open the door to her independence.

The girl’s mother stands by her side wearing a warm, kindred smile, heart swollen with pride and terror in equal measure. Her baby girl just bought her first house. 

The older woman cried when her daughter signed the last dotted line. They weren’t the delicate tears made for television either. Oh no, more so the ugly, shoulder-shaking sobs that leave someone breathless.

"My baby's all grown up," she'd kept saying.

All in all, it was a heartwarming moment, but, for young y/n, there isn't a moment to waste. She thanks her real estate agent, shaking the man's hand so vigorously that his teeth probably rattle, and makes a beeline for the door. She all but sprints through the parking lot. Her worn sneakers kick up water with each step, not caring that she's already soaked to the bone.

The door of the moving van is nearly torn off the hinges as she throws herself inside and calls for her mother to hurry. Her voice carries that particular frequency of excitement that makes dogs whine and parents wince. The older woman shakes her head as water drips from the umbrella she'd been adamant about bringing, and waves off her daughter's elation with the practice of someone who has survived twenty-two years of this exact behavior. 

In the passenger seat, the older woman sits wondering how the hell her child passed a driver's test. The grip she has on the overhead handle is firm, turning her knuckles an almost pristine white. Her wedding ring, the one she never took off, not even after eight years of widowhood, digs into her palm.

Her eyes are screwed shut while she mutters prayers under her breath like she's trying to negotiate with the heavens, her lips moving in silent conversation with Saint Mary, her late husband, or literally anyone else who might be listening. 

The fact that there aren't any red and blue lights trailing close behind is the only sign that someone hears her. Though she's not entirely convinced that y/n's guardian angel isn't simply exhausted from overtime. When the car jostles at a sharp left turn that probably isn't legal, her mother loses her cool entirely.

 "Y/n, that damn place ain't going anywhere!" She yelps, voice sharp with panic, her eyes snapping open just in time to see them narrowly miss a fire hydrant.

 "Lord Jesus, take the wheel! Not you, baby, I didn't mean—"

Y/n laughs and ignores it, mainly because there's something buzzing under her skin that feels like champagne bubbles. This is it. In a few more moments, she'll be home. After nine long months of overtime cramped in a cubicle, picking up extra shifts when her supervisor practically begged her to, and a severely unhealthy relationship with caffeine that has her heart doing funny things at random hours, she feels like she can finally breathe.

But like her mother, she too is fear-stricken. 

Not because of the haphazard driving, though she probably should be. No, it's the realization that settles somewhere between her ribs as they crest the final hill, the understanding that there will be no one looking after her anymore. No footsteps padding toward her bedroom late at night when she's crying over a breakup, a bad day, or nothing at all.

No voice floating through walls asking if she'd eaten that day, or if she's taking her vitamins. No one there to celebrate her victories with the ferocity of someone who knows exactly how hard she fought for them, or to rescue her when she falls with the unconditional certainty of someone who has loved her since before she had a name.

Even though she'll miss it, and God will she miss it, y/n has to get out. 

Not to say she hated living with her mom; their apartment had been warm and loud and full of the kind of love that makes home feel like a state of being rather than just a place. But at the age of twenty-two, it was time for y/n to spread her wings.

Plus, the money's already been spent, every penny of her savings and then some, so any regret she may have had is swallowed as soon as it rises.

After several illegal maneuvers that lead to her mother threatening legal action, the property comes into view. A few more feet up the winding road, past an abandoned gas station and a house with the collection of garden gnomes that seems to multiply weekly, a small home rests at the top of a hill. 

Y/n parks near the curb with a squeal of brakes that makes her mother flinch, and flies out of the driver's side to get a good look at her new place in all its glory. 

A dingy white fence cages everything in, the paint peeling in strips that remind her of sunburned skin. The lawn is overgrown after not having been maintained for quite some time.  Tall grass bends under the weight of the rain and wild things that she probably doesn't want to identify rustle about. 

The faded blue exterior and deteriorated brick foundation point to the age of the structure, to decades of weather and neglect and stories she doesn't know yet. Leaves and shrubbery nearly camouflage the whole thing as nature slowly reclaims what someone else abandoned. Cracked concrete leads to the front door, which is a dusty brown that might once have been red, she can’t quite tell. 

To anyone else, this would be a pretty underwhelming sight. A fixer-upper, certainly. Maybe even a mistake. But for y/n, it's enough to bring tears to her eyes. Somehow, (and don't ask her to explain) she sees the vision. The house fully restored in her mind's eye like a photograph developing in a darkroom. 

The lawn will be lush, cut low with wildflowers that line the fence in colorful bursts. She'll repaint the siding a soft green, sage or mint depending on what the hardware store has on sale. She might even go as far to replace the damaged brick.

 A birdhouse will hang over the porch, swaying gently in the breeze, painted light blue with a little door that actually opens. Y/n might get a cat, just because she can, an orange tabby who’ ll sit in the windowsill and judge her life choices. 

Before she can continue to plot about where she'll bury a tree, an flat voice cuts through her reverie.

"Young lady. This…is what you spent your inheritance on?" Her mother exclaims, far from impressed, arms flailing around in disbelief. "Really? This is what you nearly killed me for?"

Y/n rolls her eyes and waves her hand, rain still dripping from her fingertips. "Mama, you're dramatic."

The older woman's eyebrows nearly come off her head as she moves to stand near her daughter, shoes squelching in the mud.

"Dramatic? Were we in the same car? Did we not just participate in the same vehicular manslaughter attempt?"

Y/n can't help but giggle as she turns to face the matriarch, taking in the sight of her mother. Soaked, indignant, and utterly unimpressed.

"I couldn't help it! Look at it! Isn't it beautiful?" She laughs out.

The older woman stands for a moment, eyes raking over the estate with the critical assessment of someone who has spent twenty years maintaining a home on a nurse's salary. Her mouth opens, closes, opens again. She offers a drawn out response, the kind that y/n has learned like the back of her hand. 

"It's...something."

"It's mine." Y/n quips back, swelling with pride. The words taste like possibility. 

Not wanting to waste anymore time, the young woman opens the gate, which screams on its hinges, and practically skips to the door, mud sucking at her shoes with every step. 

The older of the two moves with the grace of a snail, or perhaps a very reluctant tortoise. Y/n pauses at the entrance, key hovering just in front of the lock, suddenly aware of her own heartbeat. She's seen the photos, of course, the ones the real estate agent had taken with wide-angle lenses and generous lighting.

But, being here is an entirely different ordeal. Who knows when they were even taken. Who knows if the leak in the roof had already started then, or if the crack in the foundation was already spreading like a hairline fracture. It definitely didn't help that there wasn't much history on the house either. Just one previous owner in the records, someone named M. Jackson, who had owned the place only five years before the bank reclaimed it.

The records on whoever that was had been sealed forever ago. Something about a legal complication that the agent had waved off as ‘standard for foreclosures,’ so she can't exactly ask why they were so quick to get rid of it, or why they'd left so suddenly that half their furniture was apparently still inside. 

Whatever, it doesn't matter. She shakes the hesitancy off quickly when she remembers this is her moment, the one she's been working toward for the last four years.

She turns the key and slowly pushes the door open and steps inside. A smile grows on her face at the sight of the entryway, immediate and involuntary. Cobwebs and dust bunnies are the only occupants, and the first thing she sees is the banister of a staircase that leads into what appears to be an abyss.

The walls are lined with a fading pattern that could have only come from the eighties, some geometric nightmare in mauve and teal that makes her think of her grandmother's bathroom. Dark hardwood floors are in less than stellar condition, scuffed and stained but beautiful in their imperfection, real wood that you can't buy anymore, not at any price.

Something scurries across the room in a haste, a mouse or squirrel, disappearing into a crack in the baseboard. Still, all she sees is the beauty of ownership.

"Oh! No. Ma'am. We are going back for a refund, right now!" Her mother says, peering into the house as if it were a certified biohazard, her hand over her mouth like she's trying to filter the air.

"There are creatures in here, y/n. Living creatures! That you will have to share a space with! Did you consider that?"

Y/n snaps her head in the older woman's direction and points her finger with a mean scowl, the one that used to make her little cousins cry.

"Mama, one more word about my house."

The matriarch scoffs and raises her hands in surrender before turning around and starting back in the direction of the truck.

"Fine, but don't call me if you wake up dead. This place gives me the heebie-jeebies, and I grew up in a house that I'm pretty sure was haunted by my uncle's disappointment."

Y/n huffs with a roll of her eyes, already moving toward the kitchen to assess what she's working with.

"Mama, the faster you help me move in, the quicker I can get you home to your creature-less apartment." 

With that, they begin the long taxing process of attempting to bring the house back to life. Y/n figures it would be best to deep clean the place first, before they start hauling furniture into filth. So, she attacks the kitchen on a mission to make it sparkle, or at least look like someone tried.

She scrubs, wipes, sprays, and dusts until the fumes from the various brightly colored bottles start to test her willpower. Until she's lightheaded and giggling at things that aren't funny and her mother has opened every window despite the rain.

After which, begins a heated argument about which way to bring in the sofa.

"No, turn it to the left!" y/n screeches from the doorway, her voice echoing through the empty house.

"Girl! It can't go anymore left without being right!" Her mother retorts, her end of the sectional digging into her hip.

"Physics, Mama! Heard of 'em?"

The cat-fight continues until they eventually brute force the thing into the living room. Dirty looks are thrown from both sides as heavy breaths fill the space between them, the kind of looks that say ‘I love you but I might kill you.’ 

The lights flicker overhead, ‘old wiring,’ y/n thinks. She'll need to check that. The pair continue their standoff, neither wanting to be the first to break. But, the lights flicker again and the older woman cracks first with a large smile.

"That's your daddy. He's saying you should've bought a smaller couch." she hums.

Y/n scoffs and shakes her head, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

"I don't see how he's saying anything, considering he's taking a long dirt nap."

Her mother's face drops, thoroughly offended. The smile slides off like water on glass. It's been eight years and she still insists that the patriarch of the family is hovering around like a lost puppy, checking in on them, messing with lights, and moving objects. All signs that y/n has learned to dismiss as coincidence or imagination.

She understands that grief is weird, that it changes people in ways they couldn't have ever imagined, warping the world until it fits around the hole that loss has left. And yeah, occasionally she'll speak into the void as if her father really were listening. At his grave, mostly, or when she's drunk and alone, but she doesn't believe it, not really. It's more to self-soothe than anything. To y/n, they’re  just words thrown at silence because silence itself is worse.

As for her mother, well, there have been moments she seriously considered having her evaluated, moments when the line between coping and delusion seemed to blur.

"Just because you don't care to keep up with him doesn't mean I won't” The matriarch starts with a pout.

Y/n knows where this is headed, and starts to regret making the tasteless joke in the first place. She opens her mouth to try and put out the fire she’s lit, but it’s too late.

“He's still here, you don't need to see someone to know that." The older woman grumbles out, running her hand along the arm of the chair like she's petting something.

Y/n folds her lips inward, unprepared for the pang in her chest. She lowers herself onto the sofa slowly before speaking again.

"I miss him too, mama." She says with a shaky breath, the words barely audible over the rain that's started drumming against the roof again. "But...do you seriously believe he stuck around?” Her mother nods once, firmly, jaw set the same way y/n inherited.

"Of course I do. You'd feel the same way if you stopped ignorin' all the signs. He was here when we pulled up, I felt him. He's curious about the place, same as us."

The conversation is uncomfortable, the kind that leaves y/n shifting her weight in the seat, wanting to be anywhere else right about now. The younger of the two just can't understand what the hell her mother is about. 

To be fair, she has never understood, and probably never will. When someone dies, that's it. There's no second wind for them, no astral coffee shop where they hang out waiting to flicker lights at their loved ones. And they certainly don't come back just to watch you grocery shop or judge your furniture choices.

They decompose in the ground, become worm food, and eventually return to the earth in the only way that actually matters. Still, y/n hates to rain on her mother's parade. 

After all, some days, it's the only thing that keeps her mom going, the belief that her husband is still somehow hers.

"Alright mama, alright." Y/n coos with a small grin, hoping to break up the steadily building tension, the charge in the air that has nothing to do with the storm. 

"Well, if that's the case, he should've helped instead of fussin'! Could've used some ghost muscles about ten minutes ago."

Her mother chuckles and shakes her head, the tension draining from her shoulders like water. "Baby, all he ever did was fuss. It was a sport for him, and you know it. Fussed about your grades, your boyfriends, your driving—"

"My driving is fine," y/n interrupts, but she's smiling, they both are. Steadily falling into the familiar rhythm of memory and deflection. 

"He'd have loved this place, though. All the things that need fixing. He'd have been in heaven." The girl hums.

"Don't I know it," her mother agrees, voice soft as prayer.

This time, y/n doesn't argue, just reaches out to squeeze her hand. They sit together in the half-empty living room, and listen to the rain falling outside. 

Y/n thinks that maybe this is what independence means. Not being alone, but choosing who you stand with, where, and for how long. Again, she squeezes her mother’s hand, feeling the band of the ring press against her palm.

"Let's get going," she whispers, "Before it gets dark."

"Before the ghosts get restless," the older woman teases.

They both pretend she's joking. Like they don't feel the temperature drop just slightly, see the lights flicker once more, hinting at the presence of something watching...waiting. 

Y/n grabs the keys and heads back out into the rain with her mother's laughter following close behind.

Y/n makes her way over to the staircase, dragging her feet across the wood dramatically. Twenty four steps mock her as she peers up. A theatric sigh fills the space as she begins her ascent. Her hand slides along the banister, collecting dust and something sticky she chooses not to examine too closely. The rain softens to a persistent drizzle by the time Y/n finally climbs those twenty-four steps, each one groaning just as dramatically as she had.

When she returns, she ponders whether she should enjoy the fruits of her labor and plop down on the couch, or if she should take a shower before sleep decides she’s done for the day. While thinking, she stretches. Her arms reach toward the ceiling, as she comes up on the tips of her toes. A whiff of something less than pleasant hits her nose.

Yikes.

Shower it is.

The second floor stretches before her down a long hallway of closed doors. The light from a single grimy window at the far end casts everything in a shadow. She counted four doors on each side, plus one at the very end that seemed to absorb what little light dared approach it. Nine rooms, then. Maybe a bathroom tucked somewhere in the middle.

The real estate agent had mentioned something about the original floor plan, how the previous owner had made "extensive modifications" that weren't entirely up to code. Y/n hadn't paid much attention, she'd been too busy calculating whether she could afford the down payment without selling a kidney. 

She felt the weight of those modifications pressing against her chest. The house felt much larger than it should, the ceiling higher and the corners darker. She shook her head, laughing at her own imagination.

This was freedom. This was peace. This was what she'd been saving for. The very thing she had been dreaming about in the fluorescent-lit hours of overtime.

Of course it felt strange.

She'd spent her entire life in a two-bedroom apartment where you could hear someone breathing from the frint door. 

Her TV is perched on top of it, the only sign of modern life in the house. The windows face the backyard, and through the grime, she can make out the shapes of overgrown bushes pressing against the glass as leaves moving in the wind like hands waving for attention.

She chooses the door closest to the stairs, reasoning that if the house decided to collapse in the night, she'd have the shortest route to safety. The knob turns with a squeal that makes her wince as she walks into her new room.

The bed stands in the center, and in the corner, a dresser with one drawer missing and the others sticking out at angles like broken teeth.

The floorboards creak behind her, and she spins around, heart hammering, only to find nothing.

But the light found its way in. Even through the dirt, rain ,and several years of neglect. It's the kind of light that photographers are paid fortunes to replicate.

Y/n crosses to the window and rests her palm against the glass, feeling the cold seep into her skin. She could make this hers. 

Nothing but the open door and the hallway.

She laughs again, louder this time, forcing the sound into the empty space. 

"Just the house settling," she tells herself.  The words echo slightly...wrong somehow.

The previous owner had left a folding chair in the center, positioned to face the door. Y/n backed out without touching it, telling herself she'd deal with it tomorrow, or next week, or...never.

She explores the rest if the second floor quickly, finding a bathroom with mickey-mouse fixtures that made her groan out loud. Then, a second bedroom barely larger than a closet that she had already decided would become an office.

And finally, a third room that seemed to serve no purpose at all. No windows, a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and walls painted a deep burgundy that felt less like a color choice and more like a warning.

The last room on the right at the end of the hallway resists her touch, the knob stiff with disuse or perhaps something else. Something that almost felt intentional. 

When it finally gives, the door swings open and Y/n finds herself staring into what could only be described as an attic, uh...conversion.

Though, 'conversion' suggested a level of finishing that this space had clearly never achieved. The ceiling sloped dramatically on both sides, meeting in a ridge that forced her to duck if she moved further inward. 

Whoever owned this place was clearly…different. The floor is bare plywood, and in one corner, someone piled up boxes upon boxes, a tower of cardboard and forgotten things that leans slightly, as if considering collapse.

"Margaret, 1987. If you see him, pretend you don’t."

But, it's the walls that throw her off. Every inch, from the dilapidated ceiling to the makeshift floor, has been covered in writing. Not graffiti, not exactly, though it has that same desperate energy.

The words are written in different handwriting and ink, some faded to near-invisibility, others dark and fresh enough to have been added yesterday. A disturbing collection of names, dates, and fragments of sentences that hardly make any sense.

"Skylar, 1993. He watches. Be careful."

"Jamiee, 2006. He moves quickly. Don't let him see you go down after dark."

"Janine, 2015. Don't let him catch you in here."

One scribbling in particular, sends a chill down y/n's spine. No name or date like the others, just a warning etched into the wall haphazardly, like whoever wrote it was running out of time.

"If you're reading this, it's probably too late. This house isn't yours, it never will be. Chances are, he's watching you now. When you finish reading, pretend everything's okay. It'll be your best chance at survival."

"God has abandoned this place, and left a monster here to rot. His name is Michael. No matter what he says, or who he mentions, do not trust him. Get him to trust you. Play along. Study the maps whenever you can, he can't see them. Whatever you do, don’t piss him off. When you’re sure you have a chance, run. If you make it out, turn this place to ash."

Y/n steps closer, unable to peel her eyes away from the drywall. Beneath layers of warnings, and what she told herself was nonsense, there are drawings. Diagrams, almost.

Rooms where rooms shouldn't be, and spaces that extend far beyond the boundaries of what's possible. She continues to read, unsure of where this could be going.

Her eyes glance further down, and what she finds leaves her more than confused. Those ‘maps’? They don’t make any sense. A basement maybe, a spare room that seemed to connect to something else, and something deeper, drawn in red ink that she can’t make out to save her life.

For some reason or another, she decides to heed the creepy warning, and gets up slowly.

She turns on her heels and walks out of the room quickly. Once past the threshold, y/n pulls the door shut with more force than necessary, hears the click of the latch, and glides back down the hallway with a deliberate slowness. She activley refuses tonacknowledge the feeling of eyes on her back, or the sense that something in that room had given her its full attention.

"Weird roombupstairs. Great" Y/n huffs, words escaping into the air, directed at no one. "Full of creepy writing...double great" 

The kitchen greets her with its dated appliances and the smell of mildew hiding beneath lemon-scented cleaner. The girl thinks for a moment. She had been under the impression that the house only belonged to one person before her.

The agent mentioned old furniture.

Furniture.

Not scribbles. She makes her way back downstairs, each step an exercise in normalcy.

So why were there so many scribbles on the walls in the first place? And who the hell is Michael? There were a thousand questions running through her head. Could there be some deranged man living in the walls? 

Yeah right, as if anyone would risk being crushed by a loose support beam for the sake of terrorizing others. The house has been uninhabited for quite sometime, maybe it was some girls playing a little joke. You know, one where you trick your friends into believing the boogeyman exists?

Y/n shakes the thoughts from her mind, and moves to open the refrigerator. All she finds is the bottle of water she placed in there earlier. 'I'll head to the store in the morning.' she thinks, and closes the door softly. The sound moves through the house in a strange way, bouncing off walls that seem to drink in noise rather than reflect it.

Y/n pads back toward the stairs, and again huffs. She only came down to escape the oddity she’d just encountered, but that doesn’t mean anything to the grime resting on top of her skin.

The second trip up feels longer than the first, each step a small mountain she must convince herself to climb. She keeps her eyes forward, refusing to glance at the door at the end of the hallway, the one with its secrets pressed against the wood like a held breath. Instead, she focuses on making it back to the bedroom. Once there, Y/n opens her suitcase and pulls out whatever she can find, now solely focused on getting to sleep as fast as possible. She collects a towel, her toothbrush, some clothes, and the rest of her night time routine. 

The bathroom is childlike, to say the least. Those Mickey Mouse fixtures from before are almost an endearing sight after the weight of what she'd seen just moments ago. Y/n turns the shower on, and watches steam fill the small space. Only then does she allow herself to shiver. The shower does very little to ease the tension that has settled between her shoulder blades, a physical manifestation of the warning she’d red.

She scrubs at her skin until it stings, as if she could wash away the knowledge of Margaret, Skylar, Jamiee, and Janine. As if the stream could dissolve the image of that folding chair positioned like a throne for some invisible audience. She can't get it out of her head. 

The diagrams, the rooms that shouldn't exist, the basement marked in red. It all feels like something she should take note of. Once the water runs cold, y/n leaves the shower. She wraps herself in a towel that has seen better days, and stands in the mirror. The low light catches something there in the steam. She squints, and leans in closer. More writing. This time though, it nearly stops her heart.

‘Missing something? :)’ 

The smiley face is what does it, that casual punctuation mark turning the words from observation to threat. Her eyes dart around quickly, scanning the bathroom to see what's been disturbed. Toothbrush? Check, still in its case on the sink. Skincare? Check, the bottles are lined up like soldiers. Clothes?

 Shit.

She knows she brought them in. Y/n knows she folded them over the towel rack. She knows she placed them there with her own hands not even twenty minutes ago.

So where the fuck are they? 

Her heart is now trying to break through her ribs like a trapped bird throwing itself against the bars of its cage. She can feel it in her throat.

'Ain't no way,' she thinks, but the words feel hollow, childish, the kind of thing people say in movies right before the monster appears. 

Y/n's first thought is to lock the door and bunker down for the night.

Problem number one?

The bathroom door has no lock, she realizes, staring at the empty hole where a mechanism should be. 

Whoever wrote that can't still be in here. The steam is dissipating, taking with it her cover, revealing more of the small space with every passing second. The shower curtain hangs, with no sign of movement. Under the sink is a cabinet she hasn't checked, but a small child couldn’t even fit there, let alone a full-grown person. The linen closet, barely big enough for a body, stands ajar. All clear, but she can't stay.

Problem number two?

She left her phone in the bedroom.

It's only ten feet away, surely she can make it and set up camp there. Ten feet of dark, ominous hallway past that door, the one she's been avoiding. Ten feet to the relative safety of four walls and a window she could break if she had to. 

With a deep inhale, and false courage manufactured out of pure desperation, the young lady cracks the bathroom door open, and peers around. To her left, she sees nothing but the stretch of hallway leading to stairs she doesn't want to descend. The right side is almost the same, save for the door at the end watching her. 

Fuck it. 

She takes her chances and all but leaps across the hallway,feet slapping wood, towel barely clinging to her damp body. The door to her bedroom is open, and she crashes through it in what could only be described as a panic.

Once she's safely inside the confines of the room, she spins around and makes quick work to lock the door. The click of the mechanism is the sweetest sound she's ever heard. Y/n presses her forehead against the wood, breathing hard, counting to ten, to twenty, even to fifty. For now,  just waiting for her heart to remember its proper rhythm. 

When she turns back, she finds a young man in a white t-shirt and plaid pajama pants lounging on her bed. One arm behind his head, casual as Sunday morning, and the other holding up the stolen clothes.

Her clothes. The ones she'd left in the bathroom. 

He's beautiful really, the kind of beautiful that makes her think of old paintings and galleria art. The kind that doesn't belong in this sagging house with its Mickey Mouse lights and its murder room upstairs. The man flashes a perfect set of teeth at her, and stares with the gaze of a predator who has already eaten and is simply enjoying the afterglow. 

Terror floods through her veins as he sits up a bit, dangling the clothes out in front of her, like a question with no good answer.

"Did you lose these?" He asks, brows flitting up ever so slightly, the perfect picture of innocent concern. His voice is warm and intimate, as if he has every right to be here, in her bed, with her things.

Y/n looks at him, then the clothes, then the doorknob. The locked doorknob. Then, her eyes flicker to the window. She’s on the second story, and there’s no fire escape. The walls are thick, no one would hear her cry for help either.

'Fuck!'

The word rattles inside her head, silent and desperate. 

An ear piercing scream is the only response she offers. It tears out of her throat before she can think to stop it, raw and ragged. Y/n’s just hoping that someone, anyone, might be close enough to hear. 

Before the gentleman can make any type of move, she starts hurling whatever she can get her hands on in his direction.

Her shoes, the box of miscellaneous knick-knacks she hasn't unpacked, even toiletries. She throws with the precision of a sharpshooter, and the strength of someone who has nothing left to lose. 

The young man dodges each one with ease, laughing as if this were all some sort of game to him.

"Who are you?" She questions, still hurling inanimate objects at the intruder. "What are you doing in my house?"

He catches the remote that she's launched at him, and raises one of those perfectly arched brows.

"Your house? You must be confused." The young man chides.

Y/n pauses her onslaught, just for a moment. That's all he needs though, in an instant, he stands in front of her, peering down. She didn't even have time to blink. The stuffed bear that was sure to be cannon fodder next, falls from her hands. She backs away, but that only makes him take a step forward.

"I'm not. You need to go. I'll call the police." She tries to be firm. Oh how she tries.

The waver in her voice gives her away quicker than the tremble of her body.

Again he laughs.

"Call 'em mama," He dares, not breaking eye contact, "let's see how that works out for you."

Y/n slides to the right, before speaking again "What do you want?"

The strange man pretends to think for a moment, then snaps his fingers as if he just remembered a crucial detail.

"Well, I'd like to know how you managed to buy this place. After Nicole, I was sure they'd take it off the market." He then rubs his chin while moving back toward the bed. The intruder plops down and smiles knowingly, as if he's just figured something out.

"Oh, I get it. They tricked you, huh?" He chuckles to himself, and continues.

"Doesn't matter. I also wanna know what you did with my stuff."

What the fuck is this guy talking about?

 Y/n isn't dead yet, so maybe there's time. She gauges the distance between him, her, and the exit. She'll make it there faster. No longer wanting to entertain this bullshit, y/n makes a dash for the door.

It's three steps away, so why is she still running?

The hallway stretches. The walls breathe outward, then contract, the wood paneling groaning like tired lungs. She catches glimpses of impossible things. A window where there shouldn't be one, showing night instead of the afternoon she left behind. A door she doesn't remember, slightly ajar, revealing a staircase leading up. Up? The house only has two floors.

Safety stretches farther and farther, until she grows tired. What is happening? It was just right there.

When y/n stops to catch her breath, her eyes squeeze shut.

When they open again, she’s certain this is some kind of fever dream.

The young woman is standing right where she was three minutes ago. But something's different. Her coffee cup, the one she'd left in the kitchen, sits on the windowsill beside her. And on the wall, a photograph she doesn't recognize: herself, asleep in this very bed, taken from above. Which is anything but possible.

She fixes her gaze on the floor, as she swallows gulps of air, not wanting to acknowledge any part of that.

"Is that outta your system now?" The man asks, rather condescendingly.

"What— what did you just do?" Y/n rasps, knowing full well that she was sober, and definitely not dreaming.

"Manners are important y'know." The man shrugs. "You tried to leave before you even introduced yourself. How rude."

He then waves in front of him and looks at her expectantly. When she doesn't give him an answer, he rolls his eyes and scoffs.

"Okay...guess I'll start us off. Hello, I'm Michael Jackson. Nice to meet you"

The name hangs in the air between them like smoke, thick and suffocating and utterly impossible. Y/n feels the blood drain from her face, feels her knees go weak beneath her, feels the towel she's clutching slip another inch.

Michael Jackson. As in M.Jackson? The owner from what, fifty years ago? This man has lost it.

"That's not funny," she whispers, but her voice sounds distant, disconnected, as if someone else is speaking through her mouth. "That's not...you're not—"

"Not what?" He tilts his head, genuinely curious, that smile still playing at the corners of his lips.

"Not Michael Jackson? Not the man who owned this house before you? Or not the person whose name is on half the documents you had to have signed without reading?"

He reaches into his pocket and (Wait...when had he gotten clothes with pockets?) and produces a faded driver's license, holding it up for her to inspect. The photo is unmistakably him, a little younger perhaps, with the same sharp cheekbones and pretty doe eyes. The same beauty that makes her want to look away and stare simultaneously. Beauty be damned though, that isn't what really catches her eye.

It's the date of birth. 1958. She looks a little closer, the license was issued in 1981. Alarm bells are ringing but y/n can't bring herself to believe what she's seeing. Not knowing how to handle the situation, she settles for comedic relief.

"You look...good for sixty-seven." She says in a rather dry tone.

He looks at the girl in front of him incredulously.

"That's all you have? A compliment?" Michael questions.

Her face falls flat. How has she managed to enter a back-and-forth with a complete stranger claiming to be forty-five years her senior?

"I mean honestly, I could be some psycho!" He continues to rant, seemingly unaware of the irony in his exclamation.

"You could be, which is why you need to leave." Y/n deadpans.

Michael tuts and shakes his head, "Funny thing about being dead, girl. You're stuck wherever you die. At least I am."

Oh for fuck’s sake.

Y/n's sure now that this man escaped some kind of facility and wound up in her house.

"Are you on something? If you need help I can dial 911 for you." She tries the gentle approach. Best case scenario, this young man is just crazy.

Again, he rolls his eyes. "You don't believe me. None of you ever do."

Y/n lets out a frustrated breath. It's surely nearing one in the morning now. She's tired, naked, and currently in a standoff with a loose patient. Triple great.

Michael senses her frustration, and decides to show mercy. "Why don't I leave you to get dressed, and we can talk after?"

A window of opportunity.

 The young woman thanks whatever god is listening and nods frantically, itching to lock him out of the room. It's her turn to wait expectantly. Instead of moving toward the door, Michael simply smiles a little harder and disappears.

 Out of thin. fucking. air. 

Plumes of his being are left in the air.

"Hell no!" Y/n screams, stumbling toward the pile of clothes while looking around for the little box that will bring her salvation.

 She dresses quickly, being sure to throw on a pair of tennis shoes just in case. Her next mission is her phone. As soon as y/n reaches for it, Michael reappears. The girl lets out a yelp in surprise.

"You don't need that," Is all he says before it disappears too.

Y/n feels the weight of the device linger in her hand, almost like a phantom limb. It's very clearly gone tough. She looks at Michael, and at this moment, her brain finally decides it's time to stop pretending.

"There's a ghost...in my house." She mutters to herself, trying to grasp what she subconsciously knows to be true. She continues to process out loud. Just a little longer before

Michael speaks up again, this time with a tone that indicates he's losing patience.

"You still haven't introduced yourself." The girl pauses, and remembers one of the writings.

'Play along.

Okay…Okay. She can do that. Y/n takes a breath to steady herself, and stands up straight. Her eyes meet his, no doubt full of fear.

"I'm y/n, nice to meet you."

Michael finds it in himself to smile, and nods "I like that. Y/n." He tests the name on his tongue like he's committing it to memory, like he'll need it for later.

"Okay, y/n. It's late, you should get some sleep. See you in the morning."

Like hell he will. As soon as he vanishes, y/n starts packing her shit. Anything she'll actually need. Her wallet, keys and purse. That's it. To hell with everything else. The girl waits patiently, for hours, letting the sun rise high enough to shine through the house.

Once the coast is clear, she quietly heads out of the room and down the stairs. From the living room window, she can see the car parked in the driveway. Twenty more steps, only twenty. The front door opens with no problem, but the sight before her quickly becomes one. 

It's dark. Well, dark might be an understatement. It's pitch black outside. Not only that, but the same car she just laid eyes on, is missing. 

Actually, the entire front yard is missing. In its place is a bottomless pit. She turns back toward the house, but finds the same thing over her shoulder. All she has is the porch, and its steps. Y/n's ears are ringing. What could she possibly do in this situation? 

Cry, that's what. 

There on the steps, a twenty-two year old woman sobs (violently might I add) with her head in her hands. Is she dead? Is that what this is? Will she ever see her mom again? These are all questions y/n doesn't have the answer to. 

Her chest feels tight as she realizes that any conventional means of escape don't exist here. 

Where even is here?' 

Her shoulders shake a little harder. How did she end up in this place? With that thing pretending to be a man.

"Y/n, are you okay?" 

Speak of the devil.

The woman’s eyes snap open, and she finds herself seated at the bottom of the house's staircase. Not even five minutes ago, she was stranded in literally the middle of nowhere, and now she's back inside, safe and sound, with Michael taunting her. 

"No! I'm not o-fucking-kay! What was that?" she grills, long past small talk. Michael shrugs, extending very little comfort. 

"You haven't slept, I didn't want you on the road like that." Michael responds, less than amused.

He did that?

Made the whole damn house disappear? 

What kind of ghost is he? 

"One that finds you to be incredibly rude. I was just looking out for you." He mumbles arms folded with a serious look of disapproval. 

Y/n laughs. It starts small, but soon develops into some wild unhinged cackle. Of course, he moved the damn house. Of fucking course. The cackles die down to a sigh. 

"Alright, Michael. You win."

But she's already planning. Making a serious mental note of the scribbles, and at the forefront of her mind, that warning from before: "Study the maps whenever you can, he can't see them."

She'll play along. She'll smile and make nice and learn the geometry of her cage, and when she finally understands how he bends the halls, she'll run.

Three weeks. That's how long she lasts.

Three weeks of "Good morning, Michael" and "Could you pass the salt?" 

Almost a month of watching him watch her with those pretty, patient eyes. 

Y/n spent that time finding reasons to be in the same room, asking innocent questions about the house's history, studying the maps in her head when he thinks she's asleep, and pretending the warnings on the walls upstairs don’t even exist.

Most importantly, y/n spent twenty-one days noting how the house breathes heavier when he's irritated, of learning that the geometry shifts with his mood. The calmer he is, the more normal the house behaves.

But alas, as time continues to progress, she starts to forget.

Not all at once. Gradually, like a cold you don’t quite notice until it hurts to swallow. She forgets that the floorboards groan with his anger, and that a fifth door appears when he's jealous. She forgets that he stole her clothes, her phone, and her reality on her first night here.

Instead, she sees a man who makes her coffee exactly how she likes it. One who remembers that she hates mushrooms but loves onions. A man who listens to her talk about her job, her real job, the one she hasn't seen in weeks, and speaks as if he truly understands.

Y/n learns that Michael is kind and gentle. Or at least, he can be. 

Eventually, the house settles around them, and after a while, she forgets that it ever moved in the first place.

"You're different," he tells her one morning, sliding a mug across the kitchen table. 

"The others never settled in. Always fighting. Always trying to break things."

"I'm not settled," she lies, blowing steam from her coffee. "I'm just... practical."

He smiles like he knows better. "You miss your mother."

The words hit her chest like a stone. She hasn't thought about her mom in days, not really. The worry is there, background radiation, but she's stopped actively remembering to escape.

"She's probably worried," y/n admits, staring into her cup. "I should call her."

Michael's hand stills on his own mug. "You don't have a phone."

"I know, but... maybe I could borrow one? Go into town?" She looks up at him, and her voice carries genuine pleading now, not strategy.

"Just for an hour. Just to let her know I'm alive."

The house groans in response.

It's subtle, a low creak in the walls, a shift in the floorboards beneath her chair, but she hears it. She'd forgotten she could hear it.

Michael's expression doesn't change, but his eyes have hardened in a way that puts the young woman on edge.

"You want to leave," he says.

Make no mistake, this isn’t a question. He’s testing for something.

"I want to see my mom." Y/n says as she reaches across the table and touches his hand before she can think better of it. 

"She's the only family I have. You understand that, don't you?"

Michael looks at her hand. His skin is warm, alive. 

"Family," he repeats, voice low. "Yes. I understand family."

Relief floods her. "So I can go? Just for a little while?"

His fingers turn and capture her hand in his grip. His hold is soft, something meant to show sympathy.

"I told you," he says softly. "This is your home now. You don't need to go anywhere else."

"But my mother—"

"Will forget you."

His voice remains gentle, even kind, but the walls are bending now, expanding and contracting with a rhythm that reflects how Michael truly feels.

"They always do. The outside world moves on, honey."

Y/n pulls her hand back. "That's not true."

"It is true." He stands, and the chair behind him doesn't scrape—it simply isn't there anymore, swallowed by the shifting floor.

 “You’ve asked me about everything you could think of. Not once did you mention the attic though. Why is that?” Michael asks, only blinking once.

It’s at this moment that y/n realizes she’s been caught. Really, this is the point where she finds out she’s just like every other girl in a horror movie. I mean, why wouldn’t the guy who can bend the laws of time and space with the snap of his fingers know about a room he created.

Those girls didn’t know any more about how he works than she does.

Michael cuts through her epiphany with a sigh. "You've been happy here. I know you have. Don't ruin it now."

Y/n stands too, backing away with caution. 

"I'm not ruining anything. I just wanna see my mom."

"Y/n. I’m your family now," 

His voice carries warning, and the hallway behind him stretches, darkens, the familiar four doors multiplying into eight, then twelve, then into a corridor that has no business existing. 

"Please, don't make this difficult."

She doesn't bother to listen to another word, already moving before he can register what's happening.

Not toward the front door, she knows better than to go where he would expect. Instead she heads toward the back, to a side door in the living room. The one that leads to the yard (and possibly freedom). Her feet know the path. She's planned this for weeks, even mapped it in her head while pretending to make conversation over breakfast.

All of that planning falls apart when she crashes through the doorway and finds herself in the attic room, the one with the warnings, the one she hasn't opened in days. The folding chair is gone and the walls are bare. No writing, no names, no desperate instructions from women who escaped…or didn't.

"That's not right," she breathes, spinning. "That's not—"

"You're not supposed to be here." Michael's voice booms, from everywhere. "You were never supposed to be here."

She runs back through the door and emerges in the basement. All that waits for her are concrete floors, damp air, and a single bulb swinging from a cord that wasn't there before. The stairs lead up, she knows they lead up, but when she climbs them she finds herself in a hallway she's never seen, with walls painted a sickly green and.

"Michael!" she screams, hating how frightened she sounds. "Stop this!"

"You stayed," his voice echoes, patient as ever. "Took care of my house. Of me. And now you want to leave?"

The hallway loops. She recognizes it from the walls. The labyrinth, the folding of space, the geometry that responds to his mood. She walks past a window that shows night, then afternoon, then dawn in quick succession. She passes a mirror that reflects her running but doesn't reflect him behind her, though she can feel him there. He’s always there.

She turns a corner and finds the front door. Relief washes over her as a shaky hand reaches for the handle. As she turns the knob, His fingers close around her wrist.

She didn't hear him approach. 

Didn't feel the floorboards shift. 

He's simply there, beautiful and terrible and smiling like she's disappointed him.

"Y/n," he sighs, and the house sighs with him, walls contracting, air growing thick. "I was nice."

"Let me go." She pulls against his grip, but his hand is stone wrapped in warm skin. "Please, Michael, I just want—"

"I know what you want." He steps closer, close enough that she can smell whatever aftershave he's imagined for himself, something clean and old-fashioned. "You want to leave me. Like they all do. Like Skylar, and Janine. Like my brothers–"

"I don't care about them!" She twists and feels his grip tighten, feels the bones in her wrist grind. "I care about Mama! I care about—"

"You care about a life that doesn't exist anymore." 

His other hand rises, traces her jaw with something like tenderness. 

"I can give you a better one. I can give you anything. You just have to stop fighting."

“Michael, you’re dead. And you’re here for an eternity. I can’t sta–"

Sunlight.

That's what wakes her. Real, warm, ordinary sunlight streaming through a window, across her face, onto sheets that smell like lavender detergent.

Y/n opens her eyes.

She’s in her bedroom.

The sage-green siding of the house is visible through the window. Already painted, and the wildflowers are blooming in neat rows outside. The birdhouse hanging over the porch, baby blue, swaying in a breeze she can feel on her skin.

She sits up, slow, waiting for the catch.

The house is silent. Not breathing or groaning, just silent, the way houses are supposed to be. She presses her hand to the wall and feels plaster and wood, solid and inert.

"Michael?" She calls, testing the waters.

Her voice sounds strange. Almost like it’s too loud for the space.

She moves through the house like it's made of glass, expecting any moment for the geometry to shift, for another door to appear, or for the hallway to loop back on itself. But, the bedroom door opens into the hallway she remembers. There are four doors on each side, the bathroom is at the end, and everything is where it should be.

She checks the attic and finds it…finished. There’s dusty boxes, and old insulation, but no warnings. No impending sense of doom

She heads down the stairs, checking everything twice, and walks out the front door. A car sits in the driveway, not the used sedan she bought at twenty, but something older, boxier, and bright red. The yard exists. The street beyond is ordinary, a neighbor walking a dog, cars passing with a wave because everything is normal.

She stands there shaking, waiting to wake up properly.

She feels something in her pocket. Her phone, charged and functional, shows three weeks of daily texts from her mother, each one more panicked than the last. The date at the top of the screen makes her stomach drop.

She's lost three more weeks.

But…the sun is shining, the world is normal, and she can’t find a shred of evidence that Michael Jackson was ever here. 

None of it makes sense though. Six weeks have gone by without her noticing? The house couldn’t have been fully restored in that amount of time, and even if it had been, y/n sure as hell didn’t do it.

The young lady tries to call her mother, to tell her she's fine and loves the house, but the phone simply won’t cooperate. It’s something she’ll have to deal with later. For now, she’s just glad to have survived whatever mental exercise the last month and a half have been.

Y/n takes a deep breath, and that’s when she notices the smell.

Coffee, bacon, and something floral she can't name.

She walks back into the house, following the scent to the kitchen, telling herself she's being paranoid, that she's traumatized and that six weeks of captivity would break anyone's grip on reality.

Unfortunately for y/n, Michael’s standing at the stove.

He’s in different clothes now. A soft yellow shirt, and jeans that flare slightly at the ankle. 

"Good morning, sleepyhead," he giggles out, not bothering to turn around. "Eggs are almost done. You want toast?"

Y/n freezes in the doorway. "What—"

"Scrambled, right? You hate runny eggs." He finally spins, wearing a warm, domestic, utterly unconcerned smile. 

"Though the doctor said you might forget things for a while. The episodes, you know. They scramble more than eggs."

"I don't—" She swallows, pressing her hand to the doorframe to steady herself. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Michael's expression shifts. Not angry. Worried. The perfect performance of a concerned husband.

"Oh, y/n." He sets down the spatula, crosses to her, touches her shoulder with gentle familiarity. "Not again. We just talked about this last week."

"Talked about what?"

He guides her to the table—her table, her chairs, but the checkered linoleum is wrong, the avocado fixtures are wrong, everything is wrong in ways that feel almost right. He sits her down, presses a cup of tea into her hands. The cup has her name on it. Y/N. The letters feel familiar and foreign all at once.

"You're confused," he says softly, kneeling beside her chair. "That's okay. That's why I keep the calendar. So when you forget, I can help you remember."

He pulls something from his pocket. A calendar, the kind with kittens on the corners, dangling from a wire hanger. He flips to the current month and points to the bold numbers at the top.

1981.

"That's not—" Her voice fails. "That's not possible."

"Oh, it's possible." He sits across from her, studying. "It's happening right now."

"My phone—"

"Doesn't work the way you want it to." His smile turns sad, pitying. " And it won't. Not out here. Not in the life we built together."

"We didn't build anything—"

"We're married." 

He says it like a fact, as if it’s something she should already know.

"Three months now. You had some trouble…adjusting to the new house. The doctor said your memory might play tricks. But you're home now. You're safe, I promise."

Y/n shakes her head, and immediately starts reminding herself of what she knows to be true. 

"No…No! My name is y/n. I just moved in, I’m twenty-two–"

"You're twenty-three." His voice is gentle, patient, and absolute. 

"You teach second grade at the elementary school on Maple. We've been together for two years. Don't you remember?"

He slides something across the table. A photograph.

In the picture, y/n is smiling, her hair is styled differently, and a large ring shines on her finger. She's wearing a white dress, and beside her, is Michael.

His arms are around her waist, and he has the same smile he's wearing right now, but in the picture there’s something off about it.

"That's not me," she whispers.

"Of course it's you." 

Michael reaches across the table and takes her hand in his. His skin is warm, and a pulse that shouldn’t be there beats steady against her palm. "Look at your smile, baby. Look at how happy you are. This is who you are, who you've always been."

She stares at the girl in the photograph. The woman looks back with her eyes, her nose, her mouth curved in an expression she doesn't recognize.

"My mother," she says, but her voice sounds distant. Uncertain. "She was here. She helped me move."

"Your mother passed," Michael says, and his voice carries genuine sorrow, the perfect performance of grief. "Two years ago. The funeral was hard on you, and you don't talk much about it."

"Stop." She presses her hands to her ears, but the words keep coming, keep slotting into place, keep building a world around her that feels more real with every syllable.

Michael stands, moves closer, kneels beside her chair. His hand covers hers on the table, warm and heavy and absolute.

"You're confused," he murmurs. "That's all this is, honey, I understand."

He leans close, his breath warm against her ear, his voice dropping to a whisper that fills the room, the house, the world he's built around her. 

"But you don't have to be. You just have to remember."

Y/n swallows. Tries to find the crack in his story. Tries to find the lie. But he's good. 

Too good. The sunlight, the calendar, the photograph, the way the house holds still when he speaks, like it's reinforcing every syllable.

It all makes sense. In fact, the only thing out of place is that phone. Y/n thinks she may actually be sick. Did she dream of a world that never existed? 

Her voice goes small as she wrestles with the possibility that she might be the crazy one.

 "Remember what, Michael?" She asks, no longer sure of herself.

Michael smiles, and the walls breathe with him. Slow, satisfied, like the trap is finally comfortable enough to close. 

“That I’m your family now.”

Teen Titans Go played lowly on your tv, of course Jermajesty’s suggestion. Your completed math assignments were plastered on your laptop showing 100’s which is how you ended up here. The simple conversation of, “How much do you want?” That’s it. That all you asked.

You expected a price, $20, $30, even $50. Instead, “Let me eat it.” He shrugged. You were in disbelief, that would be one of the last things you expected.

But hey, he’s fine, smart, and funny so why not?

He should’ve came with a warning sign. Your mind was every bit of discombobulated. His tongue swirled around your clit, sucking it with a gentle squeeze on your thigh.

“Okayyy,” you whined, hand lightly pushing at his head trying to disconnect his lips from your dripping warmth. He didn’t budge an inch, only leaning farther in to pull another orgasm out of you.

Your head thrashed around from the overwhelming sensations. Pleasure and overstimulation circling through your body all at once. Your hips bucked into his face regardless of the fact you were sensitive.

“Come on, mama, don’t you wanna reward me?” He mumbled, chin and lips dripping in your essence. He was obsessed with your taste, he knew he would be once he first saw you.

You asking him to do your work was just the perfect gate of opportunity.

“Y-you have been.” You whined, thighs attempting to close but only pressing against his ears. “Give me one more.” He went back down, slurping your clit into his mouth.

Your eyes rolled back from the stroke of his tongue against your nub. His eyes were fixated on you, watching every reaction to his ministrations. His tongue circled your clit with precision, and you couldn’t help but grind against him.

His tongue flicked your clit quickly, and you could’ve floated in that moment. “C-cumming.” You whispered, struggling to get anything other than moans out.

He sealed his mouth over you, gently sucking, coaxing your orgasm out of you. You felt your body vibrate as if you just survived an hour long workout. Your toes curled and your breath felt caught in your chest, the pressure from your release taking over your oxygen.

“Just like that, mama. You did so good.” He kissed against your clit, not forgetting to deliver small kitten like licks. You panted heavily, body going limp. You had no energy to push him away but he decided to give you a break.

He stood up, dragging one hand down his face, feeling the slick mix of his drool with your juices. The bed creaked as he kneeled over you, leaning down to give you a passionate kiss.

Good God he can kiss.

His full lips moved against yours so smoothly and easily like he was made for you. His tongue eased into yours mouth and you tasted your own juices. Feeling his warm body on top of yours sent another strike of heat through you even while you were calming down from the time of your life.

His large palm rubbed against your thigh, massaging the shaky limb—he also loved the feel of your plump thigh in his hand. He pulled away, smirking at the dazed look on your face.

“Come on ma, let’s go get something to eat.”

Would it be crazy to say you just fell in love?