The walls had lost their solidity, becoming viscous like pitch, bubbling and roiling. The bubbles gradually coalesced into a dark human shape, protruding from within the wall, and after a moment took the form of someone he recognized.
"Lynn? I thought you went out of town. And your appearance..." The figure was indeed Lynn, but with darker skin and plainer features—closer to the Lynn he remembered from college.
"That's not me." Lynn's expression was sorrowful. "Luke, you've all been fooled. That so-called Lynn was just an illusion the house conjured to lure you inside. Once you agree to stay in the house, you can never leave."
"What? Does that mean you've already..." Luke's heart plunged into an icy abyss.
"Actually, you being trapped here—well, it's retribution. You deserve what you get." Lynn's expression shifted abruptly, her face turning ashen.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Luke bristled. He'd always been law-abiding, never wronged anyone—how did he deserve this?
But Lynn didn't answer. She retreated slowly, her body melting like butter near a flame, merging with the wall until she vanished into it.
He woke with a start, his heart hammering.
The nightmare had been so vivid it left him shaken and disoriented.
Zach and the others were up too.
They all wore dark circles under their eyes, looking like they'd slept poorly.
Sunlight flooded the dining room. The table had materialized crispy toast, fried eggs with bacon, and freshly brewed coffee.
"I dreamed about Lynn last night." Luke picked up a piece of toast and spread butter on it, trying to sound sane. "She said once we came in, we can't get out."
Zach hesitated. "That's funny—I dreamed about her too. She said the bunch of us wronged her. Ridiculous—I barely even remember her."
"There's no signal." Wendy fiddled with her phone. "Everything here is great, except there's no WiFi. I can't stand it."
"We should leave." Serena sipped her coffee. "The long weekend is over tomorrow. We'll just call Lynn to let her know."
Luke agreed.
The house was extraordinary, yes, but it defied all reason—and that left a knot of unease in his chest.
After breakfast, they left the dining room. A few steps in, they all stopped dead.
Luke could barely believe his eyes.
The villa's front door had vanished.
Where the door had been, there was now a solid, unbroken wall.
The four of them ran their hands over the wall in disbelief, but eventually had to concede—not even a crack remained.
They returned to the dining room. Sure enough, the French windows had also become a cold, rough brick wall.
Every door and window in the villa had disappeared. The house had become a reinforced-concrete tomb.
Lights in every room flicked on simultaneously, casting a sterile glow.
All their phones lost signal, and after a while they shut off automatically, refusing to power on again.
They searched the entire house, trying to find another route outside—a basement, an air vent, anything—but there was nothing.
Lynn had indeed been the bait a monster placed on its tongue. The four of them had stumbled blindly into a trap.
The massive LCD television on the wall turned on by itself.
The screen showed a gray, misty haze at first. The mist cleared, and a man appeared.
Judging by his skin tone, he was unmistakably Asian, yet his features had distinctly Caucasian characteristics. His eyes were gray as a sky before rain, his hair a mass of brown curls.
He grinned silently, laughing so hard he doubled over, gasping for breath.
Gray mist curled around him, soon obscuring his figure entirely.
"You think you can trap me?" Zach, still hung over, roared at the empty air. "Go ahead—give me a pickaxe, a shovel, a power drill!"
Clatter. Clatter. Clatter. The tools Zach had demanded lay on the floor.
The house didn't seem particularly intelligent, producing tools that could be used to destroy it.
"Watch me tear you apart!" Zach swung the pickaxe and smashed the LCD television.
The screen shattered, sparks flying.
Suddenly he screamed and dropped the pickaxe. It clattered to the floor.
Blood poured from Zach's eyes. He roared and growled like a wounded beast, his hands clawing wildly at the air.
Driven by unbearable pain, he swung the pickaxe in a frenzy, gouging the wallpaper.
Luke watched in horror as large patches of skin peeled from Zach's face, arms, and body—like wallpaper stripping away—exposing raw, crimson flesh.
He collapsed, convulsed a few times, and went still.
A beam of bright sunlight fell upon his corpse, then vanished in an instant.
The dark floral patterns on the wallpaper came alive, transforming into countless black vine-like tendrils that wrapped around Zach's body like an octopus's tentacles. The wall boiled and churned. Zach's corpse was drawn into the wallpaper, and in an instant became a dark golden flower.
Wendy fainted, hitting the floor with a thud.
Luke slumped to the floor, as if every bone in his body had been removed.
Serena trembled violently, her hand on his shoulder, as though seeking comfort and strength.
"Luke, did you notice something just now? At the exact moment Zach died, a ray of sunlight came in. I saw it—in that instant, the villa's door was there." Serena bit her lip, her expression terrified and troubled. "Maybe... maybe when someone dies and the house absorbs them, the door opens once."
Luke glanced at the unconscious Wendy.
A terrible thought surged up, so sudden it horrified him.
He tried desperately to banish the monstrous notion, but failed.
Serena leaned close to his ear, a wisp of fragrance drifting toward him, making his heart race.
"Wendy had an affair with Lynn's father in college. She even had an abortion. When Lynn's mother found out, she divorced him."
Serena's soft words landed in Luke's ears like a thunderclap.
"Only Lynn and I knew about it," Serena continued. "I'm guessing that's what Lynn meant when she said we wronged her. We're innocent—why should we be buried alive along with Wendy?"
"I see." Luke finally recovered from the shock. "You're saying..."
"Even back in school, I always thought you were different. Not like the other boys falling all over themselves to flatter me. You had backbone." Serena's voice was soft and persuasive. "A man needs to be decisive—ruthless when the situation calls for it."
Luke's blood surged, thoroughly overlooking the fact that he'd only been too scared to confess his crush on Serena, not too principled to pursue her.
Serena's smile was radiant, intoxicating.
IV
It had never occurred to Luke that the moment he grabbed Wendy by the throat, she would snap her eyes open.
Wendy's thin body erupted with astonishing strength. She thrashed wildly, broke free of his grip, and raked his face with long, sharp nails, leaving several bloody scratches.
"Useless!" Serena's refined, composed expression vanished entirely, replaced by withering contempt. She gripped a gleaming dinner knife, advancing step by step.
"Why are you trying to kill me?" Wendy shrieked, sobbing hysterically.
Serena lunged with the knife.
But she was an untrained civilian, after all. She failed to land a killing blow, grappled with Wendy, and the knife clattered to the floor.
With a heavy thud, Wendy's head struck the hard table leg during the struggle, and she passed out again.
"What are you waiting for? Kill her! Then we can get out!" Serena screamed.
Luke picked up the knife, his hand trembling as though electrified. In the end, he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Serena sneered, snatched the knife from him, and drove it with all her might into Wendy's heart.
A shaft of brilliant sunlight pierced the dim hall—the villa's door had opened!
Serena sprinted toward it. Luke followed close behind.
He watched in horror as the door shrank at a visible rate. It seemed the door would only remain open for an instant—if they missed the window, they'd be trapped.
He ran faster, pulling ahead, and reached the doorway first.
By now the door had contracted to barely the width of a single person, and it was still shrinking.
Luke was about to step through when a searing pain shot through his back.
His legs gave way. He collapsed.
"Sorry about this." Serena's smile was pure and sweet. The tip of the dinner knife in her hand was still dripping blood.
She squeezed through the narrow opening. The instant she did, the gap slammed shut like a monster's maw, reverting to solid wall.
The deep black surface boiled like pitch. Serena let out a piercing scream as she merged with the wall, becoming a fresh dark flower in the wallpaper.
Luke's strength drained away along with his blood.
Whether it was a dying hallucination or not, the entire house was trembling, as though it were shaking with uncontrollable laughter.
The house had never intended to let anyone escape. Everything had been a cat toying with a cornered mouse.
From childhood to the present, Luke had been cursed with rotten luck for most of his life.
Always missing the bus to school. Always the one at the front of the breakfast line when the buns sold out.