Chapter 1 – The Empty House

The rain had a way of making Willow Street look lonelier than it already was. Drops slid down crooked roofs, tapped against rusting gates, and gathered in the potholes that lined the uneven road. But none of the houses wore that loneliness more heavily than the one at the very end of the street—the old Benson house.

For years, people called it haunted. Its cracked windows glared like blind eyes, and its sagging porch leaned forward as though it might collapse onto the weeds below. The paint had long since peeled away, leaving behind a skeleton of weather-beaten wood. Children dared each other to run up to the porch, knock, and sprint away before “the ghost” could open the door. Most never made it past the rusted gate.

But Aanya wasn’t like most children. At seventeen, she was neither foolish nor easily frightened, yet the house tugged at her curiosity like a persistent thread she couldn’t untangle. Every day after school, she passed it on her walk home, and every day her steps slowed, her gaze catching on its broken windows, its silence.

On this particular rainy afternoon, her umbrella had flipped inside out from the gusting wind, and she pressed herself under the Benson house’s porch roof to escape the downpour. She shivered as raindrops drummed around her. For the first time, she stood close enough to touch the flaking paint on the door.

“Just shelter,” she whispered to herself. “Not trespassing. Just shelter.”

Yet her eyes betrayed her, darting to the door handle, the keyhole, the faint sliver of darkness visible between the warped wood and the frame. A strange thought crept in—what if there was something inside waiting for her?

Lightning split the sky, and for an instant, the hallway beyond that crack seemed to breathe.

Her pulse quickened. Aanya’s grandmother always warned her that curiosity was both gift and curse. “The things you chase,” she used to say, “might be running for a reason.”

Still, Aanya’s fingers stretched forward before she could stop herself. She pressed lightly against the door, and to her surprise, it creaked open on its own. The smell hit her immediately—dust, mildew, and something faintly sweet, like old paper.

The house swallowed the storm’s noise. Inside, time felt suspended. Her sneakers squeaked against the floorboards, each step raising a puff of dust. Wallpaper curled from the walls like pages of an unread book. A broken chair sat in one corner, facing nothing.

“Hello?” Her voice trembled, though she hated that it did.

Of course, no one answered.

Her torchlight—a cheap one she kept in her backpack for power cuts—cut across the hall. Shadows stretched long and thin, playing tricks on her imagination. The house wasn’t empty; it was filled with silence so heavy it felt alive.

She turned a corner, her beam landing on the staircase. Most of the steps sagged, but one—the third from the bottom—looked oddly lifted, as though something bulged beneath it.

Curiosity burned hotter now, pushing aside her fear. She crouched and tugged at the wood. To her shock, the board shifted loose, and beneath it, wrapped in a thin layer of dust, lay a small envelope.

Her breath caught.

The paper was yellowed, its edges curled as though it had been waiting a long time. She brushed off the dust and froze when she saw the writing on the front.

Her name.

Aanya.

Her throat tightened. Hands trembling, she whispered aloud, “What is this doing here?”

The handwriting was unfamiliar—slanted, elegant, but hurried in a way that suggested desperation. She wanted to drop it, to run, but the weight of the letter pulled her deeper into the house than she’d ever intended to go.

The rain hammered against the roof as though urging her to open it. Slowly, carefully, she tore the envelope’s flap.

Inside lay a single sheet of paper, folded neatly, though its corners had yellowed with age. She unfolded it, her eyes scanning the inked words.

To Aanya,
If you are reading this, then time has brought you here for a reason. Do not be afraid. The truth about your family lies hidden in this house. Follow the red thread, and you will find what was lost.
Do not trust the silence. It listens.
 

Her heart pounded so loudly it drowned out the storm. The letter quivered in her hand.

The truth about her family?

She stumbled back, the beam of her torch darting wildly across the floor. That’s when she saw it—a faint line, almost invisible beneath the dust, peeking from under the staircase. A thread.

Red.

Her breath hitched. It stretched across the floorboards, winding into the darkened hallway beyond.

For a long moment, Aanya stood frozen, torn between sense and instinct. Every part of her screamed to leave, to forget the letter, the thread, the house. But another part—the same part that had made her stop here every day after school—whispered louder.

Follow it.

She tightened her grip on the torch, the letter crumpling slightly in her fist.

The red thread waited, patient and thin, like a trail leading deeper into the unknown.

And with a final breath, Aanya stepped forward.