Chapter 1: The First Rule is Don't Look Back

The cardboard boxes had been stacked against the living room wall for a week now, labeled in Chloe's neat handwriting: Kitchen, Bedroom, Books. Liam had been promising to unpack them for just as long, but somehow there was always something else that needed attention in their new home. A leaky faucet. A squeaky door hinge. A light switch that seemed to have a mind of its own.

Tonight, it was the plates.

"Jesus Christ," Liam muttered, sweeping ceramic shards into a dustpan for the third time this week. The kitchen tiles were cold against his bare feet as he crouched down, picking up the larger pieces by hand. Another plate had somehow managed to slide off the counter and shatter across the floor – the same counter he'd checked twice to make sure everything was pushed well back from the edge.

The house creaked above him, old bones settling in the October wind. At least, that's what he told himself. Every house made noises. Every house had its quirks. This was their first home together, and Liam was determined not to let paranoia ruin what should have been the happiest time of his life.

He dumped the ceramic fragments into the trash and glanced at his phone: 11:47 PM. Chloe had gone to bed over an hour ago, exhausted from another day of dealing with what she called "the house's tantrums." She'd started staying up less and less in the evenings, claiming headaches, claiming stress from the move. But Liam had seen the way she looked at the staircase when she thought he wasn't watching – like something up there was waiting for her.

The rational part of his mind, the IT technician who troubleshot problems for a living, knew there had to be logical explanations. Old houses settled. Dishes weren't always placed as carefully as you remembered. Doors slammed when there were drafts. But the primitive part of his brain, the part that had kept his ancestors alive in caves and forests, whispered something else entirely.

You're not alone.

A door slammed upstairs.

Liam froze, dustpan still in his hand. Chloe was a deep sleeper – had been since college. She could sleep through fire alarms, thunderstorms, even the neighbor's dog that barked at 3 AM every night without fail. But maybe she'd gotten up to use the bathroom. Maybe a window had been left open.

He waited for the sound of footsteps, the flush of a toilet, anything that would confirm his girlfriend was moving around up there. The silence stretched on, broken only by the whisper of wind against windows and the electric hum of the refrigerator.

Another slam. Closer this time.

Liam's grip tightened on the dustpan handle. That was definitely the bedroom door. But if Chloe was in the bedroom, what had slammed the first time? The bathroom door was at the end of the hall, and the spare room they'd been using for storage didn't have a door that would make that kind of noise.

"Chloe?" His voice came out rougher than he'd intended, barely above a whisper.

No response.

He set the dustpan on the counter and moved toward the base of the stairs. The staircase rose into darkness – they still hadn't gotten around to replacing the burnt-out bulb in the upstairs hallway. Looking up, he could make out the faint outline of the landing, but everything beyond that was swallowed in shadow.

"Chloe, you okay up there?"

Still nothing. But as he stood there, straining to hear any sound from above, something else crept into his awareness. A feeling he'd been trying to ignore for days now, a sensation that made the hair on his arms stand up and his mouth go dry.

He was being watched.

Not just watched – studied. Examined with the kind of intense focus a cat gives a mouse just before it pounces. The feeling seemed to emanate from the darkness at the top of the stairs, and with it came an irrational but overwhelming urge.

Go upstairs. Go upstairs right now.

His foot found the first step before he'd consciously decided to move. Then the second. The wooden steps creaked under his weight, each sound seeming to echo longer than it should in the enclosed space. The darkness above grew deeper as he climbed, not lighter, as if something was absorbing the meager light that filtered up from the kitchen.

Faster.

The urge hit him like a physical push, and suddenly he was taking the steps two at a time. His heart hammered against his ribs as his legs pumped, carrying him up into the suffocating blackness. Behind him, he could hear something else on the stairs – not footsteps exactly, but a sound like fabric dragging across wood, keeping pace with his frantic ascent.

The rational part of his mind screamed at him to slow down, to turn on his phone's flashlight, to call out to Chloe again. But the primitive part, the part that was fully in control now, had only one imperative: reach the top, reach the safety of the landing, don't let whatever's behind you catch up.

He was almost there when the urge changed.

Look back.

The command hit him with such force that he stumbled, catching himself on the banister. Every instinct he'd ever possessed was suddenly focused on a single, overwhelming need: turn around and see what was following him up the stairs.

No. The word formed in his mind with crystal clarity, cutting through the supernatural compulsion like a blade. Some buried part of him, some ancestral wisdom that had nothing to do with logic or reason, knew with absolute certainty that looking back would be a mistake. The kind of mistake you only get to make once.

But the urge was so strong it felt like a physical force, twisting his head to the side, trying to rotate his body around. His muscles fought against themselves, rational thought battling with something far older and more powerful. The dragging sound behind him grew louder, closer, and with it came the unmistakable impression of height – something tall and thin rising up the staircase toward him.

LOOK BACK.

The command exploded through his skull with such intensity that his vision blurred. His neck began to turn against his will, and in the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of something impossible – a shadow that moved independently of any light source, reaching toward him with fingers that were far too long.

"No!" The word tore from his throat as he wrenched himself forward, taking the last three steps in a single desperate bound. His feet hit the landing, and suddenly the urge vanished like a switch had been flipped. The dragging sound stopped. The feeling of being watched disappeared so completely that its absence was almost more disturbing than its presence had been.

Liam stood there gasping in the hallway, his whole body shaking with adrenaline and terror. Behind him, the staircase was silent and still. He fumbled for his phone, fingers slipping on the smooth surface before he managed to activate the flashlight.

The narrow beam illuminated empty steps descending into the kitchen below. Nothing moved in the pale circle of light. Nothing watched him from the shadows. But as he stood there, trying to convince himself it had all been his imagination, he noticed something that made his blood freeze in his veins.

The family photo that hung on the landing wall – the one Chloe had insisted on putting up their first day in the house – was turned around. The back of the frame faced outward, as if someone had carefully rotated it 180 degrees while he'd been climbing the stairs.

Someone.

Or something.

Liam's hand shook as he reached out to turn the photo back around, and as the glass caught the light from his phone, he could have sworn he saw two perfectly round eyes staring back at him from the reflection – eyes that weren't his own.

But when he blinked, there was nothing there but his own terrified face, pale and drawn in the ghostly light of his phone's LED. He turned the photo back to face outward, revealing the smiling faces of him and Chloe at last year's Christmas party, looking happy and carefree and utterly unprepared for what was waiting for them in their new home.

From behind their bedroom door came the soft, even sound of Chloe's breathing, deep and undisturbed. Whatever had happened on the stairs, she'd slept through it all.

Liam stood in the hallway for a long time, listening to the house settle around him and trying to convince himself that old houses did strange things. Pipes shifted. Foundations settled. Photos fell and turned themselves around when you weren't looking.

But deep down, in the part of him that had almost turned around on those stairs, he knew the truth.

He'd broken a rule tonight. A rule he'd never known existed until the moment he'd almost violated it. And in that moment of near-violation, something had seen him. Really seen him.

And now it knew he was here.