All he had left was in that house.And yet, Masahiro knew he had to escape—at any cost. Even though his strength was fading, day by day, in that house of horrors, a primal instinct still urged him to flee.
So he began searching for a secondary exit—through other rooms, doors, windows—making his way down the second hallway of the house, the one that, at least in his memory, connected the living room to the rest of the house: the bedrooms, the bathroom, the storage closet.Or at least, that's what he believed.
Because when he reached the end of the hallway and found only a massive chest of drawers blocking the way, his grip on reality began to crack.
Where had the other rooms gone?The ones that, in his memory, were the very heart of the house?The bathroom, his parents' bedroom, his own childhood room—the one his parents had kept untouched, as if he'd left Japan just the day before.
Now, everything seemed to dissolve into a fog of doubt.He could no longer trust himself. Was he losing his mind, suffering from false memories, memory gaps… or was the house itself deceiving him, mocking his perception?
And yet, a final, fragile sliver of reason whispered that no house should be capable of such tricks—especially this one, which should have been the most familiar place in the world. The cradle of his childhood. The sanctuary of his memory.
But even the very material of the house was beginning to change.The walls, once solid, now felt damp, slimy, greasy to the touch—more like the putrid slop in the refrigerator than the surfaces of any ordinary home.And with each step, it felt as if he were being drawn deeper into the belly of something alive.Something that was digesting him.
He looked at the chest of drawers.The hallway was exactly as wide as the furniture itself—that old piece, so normal, and yet so alien.
Masahiro approached it. The structure seemed banal, aged, with wood swollen from moisture and handles crusted with rust. But as soon as he opened the top drawer, he noticed something strange: the inside was far deeper than it should have been.
He reached in with one hand, then the entire arm. No bottom.His eyes caught on a sheet of paper wedged between the second and third drawers: it was a faded photograph—of himself.But the face was distorted, twisted inward as if sucked into an invisible spiral.
He leaned forward, sliding in up to his chest, trying to feel the bottom of the top drawer.The room began to tremble slightly, as if the dresser itself were breathing.Then, something grabbed him from within: a hand—identical to his own—emerged from the darkness and gripped his wrist.
Masahiro screamed, yanked back with all his strength—but now the dresser stood as tall as he was, as if it grew taller each time he looked away.The wood began to twist into impossible shapes, folding in on itself in helix-like curves, as though it followed a maddened geometry.
With a violent motion, he slammed the drawer shut.And then, from within the walls, came a whisper:
"You're not the first.You won't be the last.The room is yours now."