The final match sat alone in the box, pale and perfect. Iris stared at it as if it might move, as if it might speak.
Her fingers trembled as she reached for it, the air in the house had changed, it was more dense, humid, like breath on the back of her neck.
Every wall creaked and every floorboard whispered.
She hadn't slept the previous night and which bled into a dawn of silence.
No birds, no wind, only the crackle of the fireplace she hadn't lit.
Iris held the last matchstick between her thumb and forefinger, her eyes were hollow, ringed in shadow.
Her lips dry, cracked from days of muttering to no one she'd stopped asking if any of it was real for reality had become porous.
The mirrors had turned against her.
The one in her mother's room no longer showed her reflection, only the back of her head.
In the hallway, her image lingered after she walked away, watching her retreat.
And in the bathroom, it smiled when she didn't.
Tonight, it will end.
She struck the match and the sulfur hissed alive, a tiny tongue of gold licking the air.
The lights died as every bulb in the house went black with a synchronized pop.
Iris didn't flinch because the match was enough.
Then came the footsteps.
Not hurried, not stealthy, not confident but familiar.
They came from upstairs.
She turned toward the staircase as the match trembled in her hand but held.
"I know," she whispered. Her voice sounded alien, too calm. "I know what she did."
The footsteps paused.
A shadow descended the stairs. No features, only a figure as if a person had been drawn in charcoal and half-erased.
The match spit sparks, Iris stepped back.
"You're not her," Iris said. "You were never her."
The thing stopped at the base of the stairs, head tilted.
Iris's mind splintered into old memories: her mother burning something in the garden at midnight; the red wax sealed letters in the attic; the way the house listened.
Protect her, her mother had written.
But from what?
The match flared again brighter now but unnaturally.
The light pulsed through the house like a heartbeat.
And the thing winced.
"You need me to put it out," Iris said.
It stepped forward.
"You can't hurt me as long as I hold it."
A laugh, low and vibrating, echoed through the walls, it wasn't the figure, it was the house.
The wallpaper peeled, the floor cracked.
Every photograph Iris had covered with sheets now screamed behind fabric.
She remembered the letter and she pulled it from her pocket, the one she hadn't dared open.
It read:
If you're reading this, I'm already dead. Burn the last match and stay still. It will come for you.
But it won't touch you unless you speak. If you speak, it will know, if you run, it will follow.
If you survive the night, the house is yours.
Iris dropped the letter.
The match was nearly gone.
The thing's hand lifted long fingers, bone-like, shaking.
It pointed at her mouth.
"You want me to say it."
The match burned her skin. She cried out, reflexively, just a sound not a word.
The figure lunged.
The flame went out.
The darkness.
Somewhere in the rafters, something creaked.
Iris blinked.
She was lying on the floor of the living room, curled around the matchbox like a lifeline.
Morning light filtered through shattered windows, the house was still.
She was still, she rose slowly, her hand throbbed from the burn.
The matchbox was empty, but nothing moved, no whispers, no shadows.
Just silence.
On the mantle, a new object rested where there had been nothing before: a brass key and a note folded once.
Her mother's handwriting:
You stayed, so it left, use the key only if you're ready to know why.
Iris took the key but her hand no longer trembled.
Outside, the woods whispered not malevolent, just curious.
She didn't open the basement.
Not yet.