“Good night, Dani,” I whispered, dragging my voice slightly.
He smiled.
“Good night, little sister.”
I heard his footsteps moving away. Slow. Unhurried. As if he knew exactly what time everything happened.
I waited.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Fifteen.
I stayed completely still, controlling my breathing, until the silence felt “safe”… but in that house, nothing was truly safe—only pretending to be.
Exactly at nine, as if the clock itself were an accomplice, I heard the first creak in the hallway.
Then another.
Footsteps.
Daniel was coming.
I lay on my side on the bed like usual. I let my arm hang slightly off the edge like someone who had fallen asleep. I opened my eyes just a tiny slit. My heart was pounding so loudly I thought he might hear it.
The door opened without being pushed. Daniel had left it slightly ajar and stepped inside.
He wasn’t carrying the cup.
He was carrying a key.
An old, long black key with strange teeth—the kind made for ancient houses… or for doors that were never meant to be opened.
He walked to the bedside table, opened the lower drawer, and took out something wrapped in cloth. Slowly he unwrapped it.
A small glass bottle filled with white pills.
My throat went dry.
“Just valerian.”
I watched him put the bottle back, as if tucking a secret into his pocket, then he approached my bed. He leaned over and studied my face.
I held my breath.
Daniel reached for my wrist, checking my pulse.
One.
Two.
Three seconds.
He smiled, satisfied, and stood up.
And then he did something that chilled my blood even more than the pills.
He walked to the wall.
The wall beside the wardrobe.
He ran his fingers along it, as if he knew exactly where the seam of something false was.
He pressed.
And a small “click” echoed in the darkness.
The wall… moved.
It wasn’t a normal door.
It was a panel.
A section of wood identical to the wall’s color, so perfectly hidden that in all my life there I had never noticed it.
Daniel pushed the panel open and a narrow gap appeared, just wide enough for a thin person to slip through.
On the other side there was no wall.
There was a passage.
A narrow, dark corridor that smelled of old dampness and dust.
Daniel stepped inside.
And before closing it, he whispered something… as if speaking to someone inside.
“She’s asleep.”
The panel closed.
I froze on the bed.
A ringing filled my head.
Suddenly the house was no longer a house. It was a stage full of traps. A body hiding organs of secrets.
I suddenly sat up without thinking. My legs were shaking and the bed creaked.
I stayed still, waiting for him to come back.
Nothing.
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