Memories

The light flickered once. Then darkness swallowed everything whole. For a moment, all I could hear was breathing — ragged, uneven breathing that did not sound entirely human. Mine, I hoped, although I could no longer be certain.

The air tasted metallic, sharp against my tongue, as though the room itself had been rusting quietly for years. Somewhere in the distance, water dripped with mechanical precision: slow, rhythmic, patient. I stood motionless, fingers curled around the object in my pocket, tracing its edges over and over again like a prayer. Outside, the storm continued its quiet violence, rain hammering against the windows hard enough to sound like fists. The old building groaned beneath it all, exhausted yet stubborn, as though it had survived countless nights like this one before.

I moved forward carefully. The floorboards complained beneath my weight; every sound seemed magnified in the darkness — every breath, every heartbeat, every hesitant step. Shadows stretched unnaturally along the corridor, twisting into shapes that vanished whenever I focused on them directly. At the end of the hallway stood the door, half open, waiting.

I told myself not to be afraid. Fear was, after all, rational — a survival instinct inflated beyond usefulness — yet my hands still trembled because deep down I already knew what waited beyond it. Memories have a peculiar way of surviving. They hide themselves in cracked walls and abandoned rooms beneath dust that lies untouched like fallen snow, and sometimes they return all at once, violently, without warning.

I remembered the laughter first: warm light spilling across kitchen tiles, the sharp scent of burnt toast, a voice calling my name from another room. Back then, the house had felt alive — not haunted, alive. But time changes places, and time changes people more.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the corridor in harsh white light and, for the briefest second, I saw my reflection in the window beside me: pale, hollow, older than I should have been. Slowly, I pushed the door open. The room beyond was almost empty. Dust swirled lazily through the stale air while moonlight leaked through torn curtains in thin silver ribbons, illuminating the single chair positioned at the centre of the room. And on it sat the photograph.

I stared at it for a long time without moving. It was strange how something so small could contain an entire lifetime. My fingers tightened around the object in my pocket: the key, cold enough to burn against my skin. For years I had carried it without understanding why I could never throw it away. Perhaps some part of me had always intended to return.

The photograph showed four people smiling at the camera. One of them was me. The others felt like strangers.

Then came the sound: footsteps. Slow, deliberate, not imagined. Every instinct screamed at me to run, yet my body refused to move. The footsteps grew louder until they stopped directly outside the room. My heartbeat pounded

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