The sky hung heavy with grey clouds, and the air tasted of rust and autumn. Weeks had passed since Rhea last stood before the crumbling remains of DaMira Mansion—the place that burned down before her eyes, then vanished like it had never existed.
But life didn't return to normal.
She sat in her apartment in the city, an untouched cup of tea cooling beside her laptop. Her YouTube channel, once filled with ghost-hunting thrillers and curious viewers, had gone silent. She hadn't posted anything since the final episode titled *The Curse Breaks*.
Yet her audience wasn't the issue.
The footage was.
She clicked play for the tenth time that morning. The video started with static, then black. Her own voice crackled faintly, but there was no image. Just silence. She skipped ahead to the point where she had entered the cellar—the grave, the stitched spirit, the portrait.
Nothing.
The screen glitched again and again. No visual, no sound beyond that first static. It was like she never filmed anything. Like she never even went there.
But she did.
Didn't she?
A knock at the door pulled her back to reality. She blinked hard, as if waking from a dream. It was Lena, carrying a tote bag of groceries and that same concerned expression she'd worn for days.
"Hey," Lena said softly. "You okay?"
Rhea nodded. "Just tired."
Lena walked in, put the bag on the counter, and took a look at the paused video on the screen.
"Still nothing?"
"Just static. It's like… like it never happened."
Lena sat beside her, gently resting a hand on Rhea's knee. "You were gone for four days, Rhea. Four. You said the mansion burned down, but there was nothing. No record. Not even the address exists on the maps anymore. Are you sure it wasn't just—"
"I'm sure," Rhea snapped, then softened. "I'm sorry. I just… I saw it. I felt it. I *lived* it."
"I know," Lena said, but her voice sounded like she didn't. Not fully. "Maybe it's time to talk to someone. A professional. Just to sort things out."
Rhea didn't answer.
That night, she couldn't sleep. Her dreams were filled with hallways that twisted, doors that vanished, and whispers calling her name from inside walls. She woke with her bedsheets twisted around her legs like chains.
She made tea and sat at her desk again, opening a new folder—labeled "Truth?"—and began scribbling what she remembered in a notebook. Every hallway, every message. The red door. Marissa. The betrayal. The stitched spirit's scream.
Her handwriting grew frantic.
Then her phone buzzed.
It was a message. No name. No number.
**"We need to talk. I saw the red door too."**
Her heart skipped.
She reread it three times. Then typed back, **"Who are you?"**
No response.
She spent the rest of the day pacing. Checking her phone. Rereading the message. Finally, near midnight, it buzzed again.
**"Meet me tomorrow. 2 PM. Old library. Basement level."**
Rhea stared at the screen.
She didn't know why—but she believed it.
---
The next day, she dressed plainly. Black hoodie, jeans, sneakers. She tucked her notebook in her backpack, along with a flashlight—just in case. Lena had gone to work, so Rhea left a vague note on the counter: *Gone to meet someone from the red door.*
The library was quiet, old, and smelled of dust and secrets. She moved past rows of bookshelves, ignoring the curious glance of the librarian. Down the back stairs. Past the archives. To the basement level, where dim yellow lights flickered.
She waited.
At 2:06 PM, a man stepped from the shadows. Thin, with dark eyes and a nervous twitch to his fingers. Late 20s, maybe early 30s. He looked like someone who hadn't slept in years.
"Rhea?" he asked.
She nodded slowly.
"I'm Aarav. I used to be like you. I went to DaMira Mansion... five years ago."
Her breath caught.
"But—it was abandoned."
"It *is* abandoned," he said. "It was never there. It *is* always there. The moment you step in, it remembers you. You don't escape it—not really."
She stared at him, waiting for some explanation, something to make it make sense.
He pulled something from his jacket—a folded paper, aged and torn.
It was a hand-drawn map.
Her breath caught. The outline. The curved hallway. The portrait wall. The cellar.
"This is—" she whispered.
"You know it, don't you? I never made it past the red door. I heard the screams. I ran. But I never forgot it."
Rhea suddenly felt dizzy. The hallway's coldness returned. Her fingers felt numb.
"I opened it," she whispered.
Aarav stared at her. "Then it followed you."
"No. I destroyed it. I ended the curse."
"Did you?" he asked, stepping closer. "Or did you just *release* it?"
She looked at him, trying to hold onto logic.
"There was fire. The mansion burned. It turned to dust. I *saw* it."
Aarav pulled a photo from his bag. A blurry snapshot, dated last week. A silhouette of a house in the woods.
The same mansion. Whole.
Rhea's skin prickled.
"That's impossible."
"No," Aarav said. "It's not. You see, the house doesn't burn unless *you* do. It feeds on belief. Obsession. Guilt. You brought it back. And now it's inside you."
Rhea stepped back, shaking her head.
"You sound crazy."
He nodded. "I thought I was too. Until I met another. And another. We all saw the red door. Some entered. Some never came back. Some… see things."
He held up a mirror from his pocket.
"Look."
She hesitated—then looked.
Just her reflection. Then, for half a second—
Her mouth was stitched shut.
She dropped the mirror.
"What is happening to me?"
Aarav looked at her, serious now.
"You need help. Not the kind you think. Memory is the mansion's game. It *plays* with your mind. You forget. You doubt. You question. That's how it lives. That's how it grows."
"Then what do I do?"
He pulled out a card. A name: *Dr. Vora – Trauma and Memory Specialist.*
"She helped me. She'll help you too. But only if you *want* the truth."
Rhea took the card.
As she left the library, the air felt colder.
That night, she stood in the bathroom staring into the mirror, running her fingers over her lips. No stitches. Just silence.
Her phone buzzed again. One new message.
**"It remembers you."**
She turned out the light.
To be continued...