Chapter 3 – Following the Red Thread

The journal lay open on the cold concrete floor, its words burning into Aanya’s mind.

Her name will be Aanya.

It wasn’t possible. The pages were old, yellowed, written decades before she was even born. And yet, there it was—her name, as if whoever wrote it had known she would one day return to this house.

Her torchlight flickered, shadows stretching like fingers along the walls. The air grew colder, damp enough to sting her skin. She knelt, picking the journal back up, her hands trembling.

The entries blurred as she skimmed through them: whispers of betrayal, a fire, a child taken away. Again and again, the writer mentioned “her”—a woman whose face matched the photograph Aanya had found upstairs.

The woman who looks like me.

Her pulse raced. She thought of her mother, of the way she always dodged questions about their family. Could this be why? Was her mother hiding something so enormous it had shaped generations?

A creak echoed in the silence.

Aanya whipped around, her torch beam slicing across the basement. The trunk of journals sat open, undisturbed. The shelves loomed in stillness. But the sound lingered, like a footstep on the stairs above.

“Hello?” Her voice cracked.

No answer. Only silence, thick and listening, just as the first letter had warned.

She clutched the tin box tighter, her breathing shallow. Maybe it was the house settling, maybe just her imagination—but she didn’t want to test it. Not here, not now.

She shoved the journal back into the trunk, but as she did, her torch caught something else—another glimmer of red.

Her stomach knotted.

The red thread.

It trailed from the trunk’s base, weaving into the darkness of the basement, vanishing into a narrow crack along the wall. Unlike the earlier thread, this one looked newer, less dust-covered, as though someone—or something—had laid it recently.

Aanya’s heart hammered in her chest. Every part of her screamed to leave the house, to slam the door shut and never return. But another part whispered the same word that had carried her this far:

Why?

Why her name? Why her face? Why this house?

She crouched and tugged gently at the thread. It resisted, as if firmly tied somewhere beyond the wall. With her torch, she followed its path, inching closer until she saw a narrow gap in the stonework.

The gap was just wide enough for her to squeeze through.

Her chest tightened. “You’re out of your mind,” she muttered, but her feet betrayed her, carrying her forward. She slipped into the passage, the damp stone brushing her shoulders.

The air grew mustier, thick with the scent of earth and rust. Her torchlight barely reached ahead, but the thread guided her like a lifeline, weaving deeper into the hidden corridor.

At last, the passage opened into another chamber—small, circular, its walls lined with shelves. Unlike the rest of the house, this room was well-preserved. The air felt colder, but the dust here was thin, as if disturbed more recently.

On the shelves sat more journals, boxes, and—strangest of all—candles melted into pools of wax. Someone had been here not long ago.

Aanya’s throat tightened.

She stepped forward cautiously, her torch sweeping across the room. The red thread coiled to the center, ending at a wooden table. Upon it lay another envelope, this one newer than the last, its paper crisp, almost untouched by time.

Her name was written again.

Aanya.

She froze. Her grip on the torch slickened with sweat. This letter hadn’t been waiting decades. This letter was waiting for her.

Her heart pounded in her ears as she reached for it. The paper was cold under her fingers, the ink dark and deliberate. She unfolded it slowly, afraid of what she’d find.

You are closer now. Do not stop. The truth is not only about the past—it is about the danger that still remains. Trust the thread. It will lead you to me.
 

A chill ran down her spine. To me?

Someone knew she was here. Someone had been expecting her.

The silence pressed in harder, thicker, as if the walls themselves listened.

She shoved the letter into her pocket, her mind racing. Who had written it? Were they friend or foe? And how could they possibly know she’d come here today, of all days?

A sudden thud echoed from above—the sound of something heavy falling in the house. Aanya’s breath caught. She wasn’t alone.

She killed the torchlight instinctively, plunging the room into blackness. Her ears strained. Footsteps creaked faintly, slow and deliberate, moving across the floorboards overhead.

Her pulse thundered.

The red thread glowed faintly even in the dark, a whisper of light guiding her eyes back to the passage she’d entered from. Escape or trap—she didn’t know.

She forced herself to move, every nerve screaming. She followed the thread back through the narrow gap, her breaths shallow, her fingers trembling against the damp stone.

The basement felt different now, heavier, as if someone watched from the shadows.

She emerged back into the stairwell, clutching the tin box against her chest. She had the journals, the letters, the photo. Proof that her family’s past was tied to this place. But she also had a growing dread—someone else was tied to it too.

As she climbed the steps, the last words of the new letter echoed in her mind:

Trust the thread. It will lead you to me.

At the top of the stairs, she hesitated, her hand on the doorknob. Rain still battered the roof, but the air in the house had shifted, charged with something unseen.

She opened the door slowly, the hallway yawning before her. The red thread trailed onward, stretching deeper into the house like veins feeding a living body.

For the first time, Aanya realized the truth.

The Benson house wasn’t just holding secrets.

It was waiting for her.