The house leaned like an old man tired of standing. Its walls were cracked, its roof patched with tin sheets that rattled whenever the wind passed through. Arjun lived there with his younger sister, Meera. They owned nothing of value—no gold, no land, no future people admired. But they owned each other.
Every night, the house whispered.
Not with words, but with sounds that didn't belong—soft knocks from inside the walls, footsteps in rooms no one entered, and sometimes a breath that wasn't theirs. Meera heard it most.
"It's calling," she whispered once, eyes wide in the dark.
Arjun didn't answer. He was used to lying—to himself, to her, to the world. He told her it was just the wind, just rats, just imagination. But deep inside, he knew the house remembered something.
Meera had not slept peacefully in years.