I never thought it could happen to me. I’ve always been a responsible adult, a man who prides himself on his attention to detail and organization. But somehow, in my own home, I managed to get lost.
It started innocuously enough. I was looking for a book I had misplaced and found myself turning down the wrong hallway. No big deal, right? Except that hallway seemed longer than it should have been. The walls stretched out ahead of me, and the air felt thick and oppressive.
I tried to turn back, but I couldn’t seem to find my way. The hallway kept twisting and turning, the doors and windows disappearing until all that was left was a featureless, endless expanse of pale beige walls.
That’s when I started to panic. I tried calling out, but my voice echoed strangely, as if the walls were swallowing my words. My heart racing, I started running, desperate to find a way out.
That’s when I noticed something strange happening to my body. It started with a subtle tingling in my fingertips, a sensation that spread up my arms and across my chest. It was almost like pins and needles, but more intense, more painful.
I tried to shake it off, but it only got worse. My skin started to crawl, as if something was burrowing under it. I could feel my muscles twitching uncontrollably, my bones shifting and cracking. And then the pain hit me, a searing agony that felt like every nerve in my body was on fire.
I collapsed to the ground, screaming and writhing in pain. But even then, I couldn’t escape. The hallway had closed in around me, trapping me in a space no larger than a coffin. The walls seemed to be pulsing and rippling, as if alive, as if feeding on my fear and pain.
I don’t know how long I was there. Time seemed to lose all meaning in that place. But eventually, the pain subsided, and I was able to drag myself to my feet. I stumbled forward, my body aching and weak, and found myself in a new hallway.
This one was different. It was narrow, cramped, the walls coated in some slimy, pulsating substance that looked like raw flesh. The air was thick with the stench of decay and something else, something indescribable.
I knew then that I was no longer in my own house. I was in some twisted, nightmarish version of it. And I was trapped.
I tried to retrace my steps, but every door I opened led to another grotesque hallway. The walls seemed to be closing in on me, and my body was changing. I could feel my skin stretch and warp, my bones elongating and twisting.
It was then that I realized what was happening to me. I was becoming part of the house, merging with the walls and floors and ceilings. The pain was unbearable, but I couldn’t stop it. I was being consumed, absorbed into the very fabric of the house.
As the transformation reached its climax, I felt a strange sense of peace. I was no longer lost, no longer struggling to find my way. I was home, in a way that I had never been before. I was one with the house, and the house was one with me.
But even in that moment of acceptance, I knew that I was no longer human. I was something else entirely, a part of the house’s malevolent, sentient being. And as the last vestiges of my humanity slipped away, I knew that I would never be able to leave. I was trapped, forever lost in my own home.