#ik i went overboard but such a good question 🤧

[starlit-lilies]

What type of haunted house would you character be?

It’s a beautiful house—it’s looked different to every lost and weary soul that’s stumbled upon it. A car run out of gas, a road trip hopelessly turned around, a night spent on the street with nowhere else to go… open your weary eyes and it’s there.

The house is warm, and it adjusts its décor to the occupant’s taste. You have a bed to sleep in. You have running water to brush your teeth and shower. You have a working fridge full of your favorite foods. There are blooming rose bushes flanking every door and window, the scent strong enough to seep through the walls.

(There are voices in the kitchen as you pad down the stairs that vanish when you get too close. A little girl’s laughter and running footsteps in the halls. A bird, too, though you can never find the source of its chirps. There are doors that are closed, even to you. As your recovery progresses, you start to think maybe there was a family that lived here, before you. What happened to them?)

Eventually, as is its wont, time heals all wounds. Eventually you rest and you are recovered enough to return to the outside world. But the front door is locked. The windows no longer look to the outside—instead they are covered up, the glass choked by green and scratched from long black thorns. You try to find the back exit, or the side door, but the halls stretch on too long. The doors jam and the turns get you lost. You go back to the kitchen and find the beautiful dining table rotted and collapsed, the floors thick with dust, the warm atmosphere now cold and silent. Still, it doesn’t stop you from finding something heavy so you can break down the attic door.

It takes you hours—days—years to find the attic door. Every room you’ve broken into has been full of furniture draped in sheets, of dust, of decay. You found a child’s bedroom, a lone worn teddy abandoned on the floor, and as you ran out you heard the family mother singing a lullaby.

When you do find the attic door, stumbling up to the window, you find the roses have grown over this exit, too, and the blooms are dead but the thorns are black and everywhere. Still—you’d found an axe, somewhere. This house was never wont to deny her guests what they needed.

The thorns shred your skin, but you cut a path. And as you start to climb out, you glance behind you—and a woman stands there, dark eyes alight with something malevolent. Her face twists. She opens her mouth and no words come out but you hear it, nonetheless:

Don’t leave me—you can’t leave me—I WON’T LET YOU—

(darkness. it is over. it is alright, i forgive you. we will never be apart again. welcome home.)