Chapter 1: The Find

Chapter 1: The Find

The air in the house was thick with the dust of a dead man's life. It coated Alex’s throat, a gritty cocktail of decay, mothballs, and the faint, sweet smell of rot that clung to the damp patches on the floral wallpaper. Every swing of his arm, every heave of a bursting garbage bag, sent motes dancing in the weak afternoon light that filtered through grime-caked windows.

"Time is money, Alex," Uncle Joe’s voice boomed from the front porch, punctuated by the screech of a nail being pried from a floorboard. "And this place is costing me a fortune in both."

Alex grunted in response, wrestling with a tower of yellowed newspapers that threatened to collapse into a papery avalanche. This was his summer: flipping houses with his uncle. More accurately, it was gutting them. He was the demolition crew, the trash hauler, the one who dealt with the forgotten remnants of strangers' lives so Joe could slap on a coat of neutral-colored paint and turn a tidy profit. He didn't mind the work. The pay was good, and the physical exhaustion beat the brain-numbing boredom of a retail job.

His uncle’s cardinal rule, repeated at the start of every new project, echoed in his head. "Dump everything, keep nothing. I'm not paying you to sift through junk, and I'm not paying to haul your 'treasures' to the dump later. It all goes."

Alex had always respected the rule. It was practical, just like his uncle. He’d seen it all: boxes of dusty porcelain dolls with vacant eyes, letters tied in faded ribbon, photo albums filled with the ghosts of forgotten families. It was easier to just bag it and toss it. Detachment was the most valuable tool on the job.

Until today. Until the roll-top desk.

It was a beautiful piece, solid oak, buried under a pile of mildewed blankets in a small back room that must have been a study. It was the only object in the house that didn't seem to be actively decomposing. While his uncle was busy tearing up the porch, Alex had a few moments to himself. A flicker of his collector’s instinct, that quiet, nagging curiosity he usually suppressed, sparked to life. He ran a calloused hand over the smooth, curved top, wiping away a layer of gray dust.

He tugged at the roll-top. It was locked. Of course. A jiggle of the handle, a bit of brute force born of frustration, and a brittle piece of the locking mechanism snapped. The wooden slats retreated into the desk with a dry, rattling sigh, releasing a puff of stale, trapped air.

The inside was mostly empty, save for some dried-up inkwells and a petrified fountain pen. But in one of the small cubbyholes, nestled in a bed of its own dust, was the beetle.

It wasn't a real insect. It was a carving, about the size of his palm, made from a heavy, greenish-gray stone that felt cool and strangely dense in his hand. It was a stag beetle, rendered with an impossible, hyper-realistic level of detail. The carapace had the subtle sheen of polished serpentine, but thin, metallic purple veins pulsed through the stone, catching the light in a way that made them seem to glow from within. Its six legs were tucked tightly against its body, its formidable mandibles closed. It looked less like a sculpture and more like a specimen that had been perfectly, unnaturally petrified.

Alex turned it over and over. There was no artist's mark, no seam, no flaw. It felt ancient, heavy with a significance that a simple carving shouldn't possess. He felt an immediate, inexplicable desire to own it. It was more than just wanting; it was a physical pull, a deep, resonant hum in his bones that said mine.

Dump everything, keep nothing.

Joe’s voice was a steel door slamming shut in his mind. This was junk. Valuable junk, maybe, but junk nonetheless. Taking it was stealing, not just from the long-dead owner but from his uncle’s time. He should drop it in the trash bag at his feet.

He tried to open his hand. His fingers wouldn't obey. They stayed curled around the stone, a strange warmth beginning to seep from it into his skin. The feeling was bizarre—a quiet struggle between his rational mind and his own muscles. A current ran up his arm, not of electricity, but of pure, stubborn compulsion. He had to have it. He couldn't explain why, couldn't justify it, but the thought of throwing it away felt like a physical injury.

"Alex! You slacking in there?"

The shout jolted him. In a single, fluid motion born of guilt and instinct, Alex shoved the stone beetle into the deep cargo pocket of his work pants. The weight of it against his thigh was both a comfort and a betrayal.

"Just finishing up the study!" he yelled back, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the silent room. He grabbed the nearest stack of junk, a collection of rotting encyclopedias, and hauled them out, the heavy stone knocking against his leg with every step.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of dust and sweat. Alex worked on autopilot, his mind constantly circling back to the object in his pocket. He could feel its weight, its presence, a secret cold spot against his skin. He avoided his uncle’s gaze, sure that his guilt was scrawled across his face. But Joe was too busy calculating lumber costs to notice.

That night, back in the comforting clutter of his own bedroom, Alex finally took the beetle out again. He set it on his nightstand, the dark wood a stark contrast to the pale, greenish stone. Under the warm glow of his bedside lamp, the purple veins seemed even more vivid, like a network of fine wires embedded deep within. He stared at it for a long time, trying to understand the strange magnetism it held over him. It was just a rock. A beautifully carved, unnervingly lifelike rock.

He finally switched off the light and rolled over, the image of the beetle seared into the back of his eyelids. Sleep didn't come easily. His mind, usually quiet after a hard day's labor, was filled with a low, persistent static. And beneath the static, a sound began to form.

It was a faint, dry skittering.

At first, he thought it was the house settling, or a mouse in the walls. But the sound was too rhythmic, too close. It crept into his dreams, a thousand tiny legs crawling over dry leaves, over bare wood, over skin. The sound multiplied, an imagined legion of insects just beyond the veil of his consciousness, clicking and rustling in the dark. He tossed and turned, tangled in his sheets, the skittering sound a relentless torment that offered no peace.

A sudden, jarring silence woke him.

The dream-sounds vanished instantly, replaced by the familiar hum of the streetlights outside his window. The room was still, bathed in a soft orange glow. His heart was hammering against his ribs. It had felt so real. He pushed himself up on his elbows, blinking the sleep from his eyes, and glanced at the nightstand to reassure himself.

The beetle was there. But it wasn't where he had left it.

He had placed it carefully in the center of the nightstand, next to his lamp. Now, it sat precariously on the absolute edge, a mere inch from falling to the floor. It had moved a good six inches across the smooth, lacquered surface.

Alex stared, his blood running cold. A breeze? An earth tremor? He searched for a rational explanation, his mind scrambling for purchase on the slippery cliff of disbelief. But the window was closed. The house was dead silent. There was no reason for it to have moved.

He reached out a trembling hand and nudged it. It was heavy, solid. It took a deliberate push to slide it back to the center of the table.

There was no way it could have moved on its own.

But it had. And in the silent, watchful dark of his bedroom, a single, terrifying thought took root: the skittering in his dream hadn't been a dream at all.