The House With No Doors

The lights flickered like they were deciding whether he deserved to see anymore.

Not off. Not on. Just enough to make the shadows slide a fraction of a second too late. His heart beat louder than the silence, a thick, uneven thump that seemed to echo through the walls. He stood still, breath shallow, and for one sharp moment the thought came fully formed and undeniable.

“I should’ve left.”

The house didn’t answer.
It didn’t need to.

He noticed the lack of doors only after he’d walked the perimeter twice. Smooth walls. No seams. No frames. No hinges. Where exits should have been, the surface curved inward slightly, like muscle under skin. The floor dipped beneath his feet, warm, faintly elastic.

“Okay,” he muttered, forcing a laugh that didn’t stick. “This is just stress. Just—”
The word just died in his throat when the floor shifted again.

Welcome.

The word wasn’t spoken. It bloomed in his head like a bruise. He backed away, catching his reflection in a tall mirror that hadn’t been there a second ago. It showed him standing still, staring, but his mouth moved a moment after his own did.

“We got you,” the reflection said quietly.

He spun around. Nothing. When he turned back, the mirror showed only him again—eyes too wide, jaw clenched, sweat beading at his temples.

His thoughts felt strung up like meat in a slaughterhouse, each one hanging, waiting its turn. The air thickened. He paced, faster now, and with every step the walls seemed to inch closer, breathing in rhythm with his heart. Names began to surface from the floorboards—not spoken, not shouted, just present. Names he didn’t remember learning but somehow knew were important.

“Stop,” he whispered. “Please. Just stop.”

The lights snapped off.

Laughter erupted from somewhere above him, canned and hollow, cutting short the instant the lights flickered back on. The ceiling dripped slowly, and in the wet sheen he saw scratches—dates, tally marks, every one ending in December.

“There is no tomorrow,” he said, voice shaking. “That’s what you want me to think, right?”

The house shifted, pleased.

He tried prayer first. Words stacked clumsily, desperate, echoing wrong. Then pills, dry-swallowed, hands shaking as he shoved the bottle back into his pocket. When that didn’t work, he found a stairwell that led down into something that felt like a basement.

“I’ll lock it away,” he told himself, breath ragged. “Just put it down there.”

The basement exhaled.

The door—if it could be called that—sealed behind him with a sound like flesh pressed together. The darkness pressed close, alive with a low, wet breathing that wasn’t his own. He ran back up the steps, pounding, screaming now, and burst into the main room again, gasping.

“I’m not crazy,” he said aloud, forcing steadiness. “I’m just… paying attention.”

The house learned his voice after that.

Sirens wailed whenever his eyelids grew heavy. Shadows leaned in when he tried not to look. Friends appeared in his thoughts and faded before he could reach them, like ghosts who’d learned better than to stay. Time folded in on itself, looping, chewing, leaving behind a ticking sound in the back of his skull.

“Relax,” a voice said once—familiar, comforting. His own, maybe.

“Look around,” he snapped back. “You don’t hear it?”

The walls flexed. The floor rippled. The mirrors multiplied. His shadow lagged behind him, then stepped ahead, then turned to watch him with a tilt of the head that felt wrong.

Breathing hurt. Words felt alive. When he spoke to himself, something answered too quickly.

“If I disappear,” he said quietly, testing it, “don’t look for me.”

The house leaned closer. Still here, it seemed to whisper. Just not free.

His face felt unfamiliar when he smiled, like it didn’t belong where it was sitting. Skins layered over skins, each version worse than the last. He didn’t bother with masks anymore. He didn’t need them.

He spoke anyway. Created anyway. The words cut through the panic like a blade, shaping it, forcing it to behave. If he was trapped, he would take control. He would sit at the center of it all and name it his own.

The house pulsed, slow and steady now.

Welcome to the house with no doors.
No exits. No help. Just floors that breathe.

Every thought he’d ignored came crawling back, dragging teeth across the tile. No sleep. No peace. No trust in what he saw. He understood then—not around him, not beneath him.

Inside.

“You still here?” the house asked softly, without sound.

He swallowed, heart hammering, and nodded.

Good.

The house liked him.