Silence

Haunted? I'm not haunted - I'm the one doing the haunting.

For over a century, I've been the terror of the neighborhood, a Victorian mansion delighting in driving out every family foolish enough to claim me as their home. Slamming doors, whispering in the dark, breaking bones... I've perfected the art of being uninhabitable. And I like it that way.

Then they arrive - three men who laugh at my spectral tricks and stroke my walls with unsettling familiarity. They talk to me like they know me. Like they've been searching for me. Their All Hallows' Eve ritual threatens to tear through the veil of time and magic, and I find myself untethered.

I should want to drive them away like all the others. So why do their touches make my foundations quiver? Why do their whispered promises of love and redemption stir memories I didn't know I had?

For the first time in a century, I'm not the one in control. And the most terrifying part? I think I like it.