The Warning

The first time Clara stepped into the house on Watergrove Road, she was confronted by an unfamiliar silence. Not the kind that you encounter at a new setting, welcoming you to explore it’s untold stories and untouched corners, but the kind of silence that listens… and speaks back.

She had visited many homes before—places seeped with sorrow, where grief clung to the walls like cobwebs.

But this house was different. The air here didn’t just sit heavy - it whispered.

She clutched the client file tighter in her hand, her eyes scanning the familiar intake form:

‘Male, 35. Lost his wife in a tragic fall down the stairs. No known relatives.’

It was just another case. She had done this a thousand times before. But something told Clara that this file—this house—was going to be different.

As she was greeted at the door by Daren Monroe, she saw a man who had been consumed by this silence, his eyes hollowed by grief and weeks of poor sleep.

He smiled at her, soft but brittle and welcomed her inside.

This was a house in mourning. It was living a life that had stopped moving forward, yet refused to let go of the past.

A mug rested on the table, the rim slightly stained with her lipstick, as if she had just set it down after a sip of coffee. Her slippers still stood neatly by the couch, quietly waiting to be worn.

The sofa sagged deeply in one corner, shaped by the weight of someone who had spent countless hours sinking into it.

Scattered nearby were his day to day belongings - a pair of glasses, an unwashed cup, a small photograph of her - silent signs that he hadn't seen the inside of his bedroom in days.

Maybe his bed was already occupied by her burden of her absence, or maybe it wasn't big enough to bare the weight of his grief.

“Sorry about the mess,” he said, his voice was hoarse, as if he hadn't spoken aloud in days, a quiet symptom of his newly settled solitude. “I haven’t had a lot of time to clean… since she died,”.

Clara offered a warm smile. She wanted to help—it was her job—but something about him seemed different. Like he’d already drowned in his grief.

She pushed the thought aside.

“Do you want to sit down?” she asked, gesturing toward the couch.

He instinctively sank into the familiar dent he had carved into the cushion, as if returning to the only place that still remembered him. Clara took the seat across from him and pulled out her notebook.

“First of all, I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said softly. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”

He nodded faintly in acknowledgment but didn’t respond. The silence between them lingered—heavy, but not unfamiliar.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me. I know grief can be incredibly hard to navigate… but in my experience, it often helps to talk it through.” She paused, carefully observing his expressions.

“If you’re comfortable, maybe you could start by telling me what happened. How she passed.”

For a few seconds, he just stared at her blankly, almost as if the question had caught him off guard. As if he had forgotten. Clara watched as the words slowly made their way to his mouth, arriving mixed with hesitation.

“Lily had a fall…She’s always been a little clumsy and I would always tell her to be careful,” he stopped and looked right at Clara, his eyes swelling up, “But she wouldn't listen. And I wasn't there to save her.”

Clara felt a familiar ache in her chest.

“After she fell down the stairs, she just… lay there. Completely still. She didn’t cry out, didn’t call for help. Just lay there. Gone.” He swallowed hard, gaze drifting past Clara to something in the background.

“They said it was blunt force trauma to the head. That she hit the banister on the way down. But…” He hesitated, his voice thinning. “I don’t know. I just saw her body. And I knew she was dead.”

Clara recorded all of it, the hesitations, the hollowness, the way his voice faltered when he said her name. He seemed numb, like a man wandering a maze within his own mind, uncertain of where to go or how to feel.

They sat in silence for a while. Not the type that asked to be filled but the type that hung heavy, dense and watchful.

That’s when she felt it.

A sharp breeze grazed her arm, sending tingling sensations down her spine. She looked over to the window, certain that it was the direction that the wind was coming from. But the window was shut tight.

Locked.

Not a single draft could have escaped.

She blinked, trying to shake the unease and quickly shifted her focus back to Daren, who was still sat sunken into the couch, now staring into the abyss.

Thats when she felt it again.

It was sharper.

Angrier.

It shot through her shoulder, tracing the nerves in her skin with a piercing sting, reaching all the way up to her neck.

Her body reacted quicker than her mind could register what just happened and she jolted up from her seat abruptly.

This wasn’t just a chill. It was something else. Something intentional.

Daren looked up at her, his eyes blank with concern, as if she had imagined it all. Maybe she had. Clara tried to chalk it up to her imagination responding to the tense atmosphere that she found herself engulfed by.

She redirected her focus and they proceeded to talk about Lily for about half an hour. He told her about how he missed her smile, how he loved her, and how they had been trying to conceive for a while but nothing had worked.

“Every negative pregnancy test shattered my heart more. I wanted nothing more than to start a family with her. And if she had gotten pregnant, I would still have a part of her with me.”.

His voice broke, and he spilled out words between shallow breaths.

Clara diligently wrote down whatever she heard, absorbing every word that was said, as well as the words that remained unspoken.

But she wasn't just scribbling clinical notes. In order to help him, Clara had to understand him.

His pain.

His silence.

“Thank you for sharing everything that you did. I’ll see you at our next session,”. She normally would’ve offered some words of encouragement, but she felt an urgency to leave.

She knew had felt a presence in the house but that was the first time that she saw it. In the mirror on her way out, for a split second she thought she saw her.

Lily.

I’m going crazy.

She convinced herself that it was just the tension. Just a crack in the wall that let a breeze through. Just a mirror toying with illusions.

But she had stared into the eyes of Lily Monroe.

And she did not want Clara there.

The next time Clara knocked on Daren’s door, her hands trembled—equal parts terror and obligation. She tried to ground herself in professionalism but the truth was harder to ignore with every step: she wasn’t welcome here.

Daren answered after a pause, his expression caught somewhere between surprise and uncertainty. He offered a soft smile and stepped aside to let her in.

“Please... come in. I’ll get you some water.”

Clara nodded, stepping through the doorway with deliberate calm.

She made her way to the living room, heading for the familiar sag in the couch. That’s when it came.

A voice. Unmistakably female.

“Get out.”

She turned, staring at the front door as if it had just whispered the words itself. The silence seemed to breathe around her.

Then Daren returned from the kitchen, a glass in each hand.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, his brow furrowing slightly at the sight of her still standing.

Clara hesitated, heart pounding. He looked harmless. Kind, even. A grieving man, not a threat.

She managed a small nod. “Yes, just... gathering my thoughts.”

She told herself it was her job to help. And maybe the house was trying to scare her away from doing exactly that.

So she sat down—against her better judgment.

Later in the session, Clara asked to use the bathroom. She needed a moment to breathe. The hallway stretched longer than she remembered, its lights dimmer than before.

Inside the bathroom, she washed her face and stared into the mirror. Nothing moved. But when she turned to dry her hands, the mirror fogged over on its own.

Letters began to form in the condensation.

LEAVE. NOW.

Her pulse spiked. She backed into the wall, staring.

Over the next few sessions, Clara’s encounters with thepresence grew more intense. Each visit, it escalated—more urgent, more violent. Screams echoed through the halls, rattling in her chest long after the sound had faded.

But the message always seemed the same.

Lily didn’t want another woman sitting on her couch, wandering through the rooms she once called her own. It felt… jealous. Possessive. Clara had always believed that grief lingered—but now, she wondered if love did too. Even in death.

Ghosts, it seemed, could be just as unwilling to let go.

By the fourth session, Clara had had enough.

The scratches on her wrist. The echoes. The way her reflection sometimes blinked after she did. It was too much.

That day, while Daren stepped away to answer a call, Clara stood from the couch. Her eyes drifted to the stairs. She moved quickly, quietly. The bedroom door creaked as she pushed it open.

The bed was made, too perfectly. Clara’s fingers hovered over the dresser before something caught her eye—a floorboard slightly raised near the foot of the bed.

She crouched, pried it up.

Beneath, wrapped in a silk scarf, was a small, leather-bound diary. She knew it was wrong but she had to find out what Lily wanted. She skimmed through and scanned for some of the important entries.

Feb 18th:

Another negative pregnancy test. Daren was a little frustrated. He’s been acting weird recently. He loses his temper a lot and gets mad at me for the smallest things. Maybe once we’re pregnant, it’ll change.

March 4th:

Daren said he was sorry. Again. I want to believe him but my scar from last time still hasn't faded. Maybe one more chance won’t hurt?

March 17th:

I told him I couldn't do it anymore and I wanted a divorce. He said he’d kill himself if I left him. I don’t feel safe in my house anymore. He’s taken my phone and no one has heard from me in days.

March 23rd:

I tried to run away but he caught me. This time he said he’d kill me if I left. If something happens to me … please—to whoever finds this—it wasn’t an accident.

Daren did it.

He killed me.

Clara froze in terror, unable to comprehend what she had just read. She had seen greif, despair, guilt—but never a confession written in fear, so… final.

All this time, those weren’t the threats of a jealous wife. They were warnings.

Her pulse was racing—her chest tightened as panic took over. She had to get out of this house. But she knew too much now and somewhere deep down, she understood she was too entangled in this family’s tragedy to walk away unscathed.

BANG!

The door behind her slammed shut and for the first time, she hoped it was Lily.

“What are you doing?”. His voice was still Daren’s, but the grief had vanished. In it’s place was something darker, colder. He was no longer mourning. He was hunting.

Clara turned around slowly, her fists tightly clenching the diary.

“I know what you did.” she said, her voice trembling but sharp. “You pushed her down the stairs. You killed her.”

Clara knew she shouldn’t aggravate him, but she felt no pity for this man anymore.

“You killed Lily. You’re a monster and Lily should've left you a long time ago.” She hurled the diary at his face as she stomped nearer to him, fury taking over her fear.

Daren caught the book mid-air, flinching as if the truth on those pages burned his skin.

“She was nothing without me! She had one job. One. But she was useless!” he paused, and his expressions softened. “But I didn’t mean to kill her.”

He inched closer to Clara, pleading his case.

“I was just … angry and I pushed her… just a little. I didn’t see the stairs I promise!” his voice cracked. “I told you… I told you she was clumsy and so she fell down. I didn’t do it on purpose! I would never. I loved her.”.

By the time Clara grew aware of how close he had gotten, it was too late.

Her breath hitched as he grabbed her wrist and shoved her with all his force. She tossed underneath him, her fingers clawing at his arm, her nails digging into his skin.

“Get off me!” she yelled, panic surging through her veins. Her legs kicked wildly, in whichever way they could move, but his weight had her pinned down.

“She was pregnant, you bastard!”.

He froze.

“You killed your baby before you killed your wife!”. She watched him lose control of his entire body as the haunting realisation travelled through every cell.

March 20th:

I’m pregnant. I just found out but I’m scared to tell Daren. He hit me again and I don't trust him with a child. My child. I just need to get away and start over. For myself and for this baby.

“What… no she…”.

He staggered, his grip loosening just enough.

Clara took the opportunity to push his weight off her and run. But the house was a maze. She had only ever seen the living room and hallway during their sessions. Now the walls seemed to shift around her.

Behind her, she heard his footsteps. Heavy. Determined.

She turned and spotted a narrow staircase leading downward.

The basement.

It was pitch black below. She couldn’t see where it led, but she had no choice. She fled down the stairs just as Daren’s voice echoed behind her, sharp with fury.

“CLARA!”

Clara’s feet slapped against the concrete stairs as she plunged into darkness, barely catching herself before she tumbled. Her phone’s flashlight trembled in her hand, casting unsteady shadows along the walls. Boxes loomed out of the dark. A broken washing machine leaned in the corner like a corpse slumped against the wall.

Somewhere above, Daren’s footsteps reached the top of the basement stairs. Then silence. Followed by the slow, deliberate creak of the door opening.

“Clara…” he called. “I just want to talk.”

Her pulse thundered in her ears. She ducked behind a rusted table, barely standing on it’s own, crouching low, trying to calm her breathing. She should have run when she had the chance. She should have listened to the silence.

“It's not what you think,” Daren murmured, voice echoing off the walls. “I wasn’t trying to kill her. You have to understand… I loved her.”

She could hear the weight of his words hit each step as he descended.

Then she saw it — glinting in the low light.

A knife.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered. “But you’ve read the diary. You know too much.”.

Clara backed farther into the shadows, her heart crashing against her ribs. Her foot knocked something and it clattered across the floor. Daren turned sharply.

He lunged after her. Clara ran toward a small door tucked beneath the far corner of the basement. It was barely visible, hidden behind stacked paint cans and old tools.

She yanked the handle. Locked.

She frantically looked around for something that might help her but the darkness was creeping in from every possible way. Except one. She saw a faint glimmer peeking through one of the walls and without a second thought she went towards it. And then she felt it again. Amidst the scorching heat, a sudden breeze visited her arm again, grazing her skin gently.

Lily.

Clara sprinted toward the glow in the wall. The light flickered gently, almost like it was beckoning her. Not electric, not artificial—warm, as if lit from within the house itself. She shoved aside a leaning shelf and pressed her hands against the panel. It shifted beneath her touch.

A hidden door.

With a breathless cry, she yanked it open and ducked inside. The moment she crossed the threshold, the temperature dropped. The thick, hot air of the basement gave way to cool, still air. The room beyond was narrow, almost like a storage passage—but it was safe.

Then she turned—and Daren was there.

He was charging, knife raised, his eyes wild with desperation.

Clara stumbled back, slamming her hand against the inside of the door—but it wouldn’t close fast enough.

That’s when Lily appeared.

A flash of white. Hair drifting like smoke. Her face was calm. Determined.

She touched Daren’s shoulder and his whole body stiffened.

Clara didn’t wait. She slammed the door shut and latched the heavy bolt across it. It locked with a metallic click that echoed through the hidden room like a bell.

Silence followed.

No screaming. No pounding. Just… silence.

But this wasn’t the silence that had welcomed her into the house. It was calmer. Like it had found its answer.

And then a whisper—soft and close.

“Go. Don’t come back.”

Clara turned toward the voice. And this time, she listened to it. The narrow room behind her was empty now. But the breeze grazed her cheek one last time—cool, almost tender.

She found another exit on the other side of the room and pushed it open, emerging in the overgrown yard behind the house.

Behind her, the trapdoor slammed shut on its own.

And this time, Clara knew—it wasn’t the wind.