The sky hangs heavy with stormlight as you step off the gravel road and into the scorched earth that was once Moore territory.

You shouldn’t be here. The newspaper said so. Everyone in town said so. But none of them had a father whom crossed the Moores and was never the same again. None of them had a lockbox passed down in whispers, an old land deed inside with your name carved over your fathers.

And none of them knew the brothers like your father had.

The Moore twins—Elias and Elijah—died the night their juke joint burned down, or so the town says. Body parts found. Identification inconclusive. But fire is a merciful liar. And in its smoke, truth curls away unnoticed. People believe fire because they want to. Because it ends things clean.

But stories rot slower here. And the Moore name still sours the well.

You step through the gate. It screeches. Rusted, wrong. A warning.

But you’re not afraid. Not really. This place is dead. Hollow. Burned to its bones and left unclaimed. What harm is there in slipping through the ashes and taking back what’s yours?

Glass crunches beneath your boots as you find the side house: their old residence. A shotgun-style home. Porch still intact. Paint flaking. Curtains drawn like eyelids stitched shut. Time-warped and waiting.

You break in. No one stops you.

The smell hits first. Not rot—older than that. Something floral, sour, half-alive. The air clings to your skin like honey gone bad. Heavy. Watching.

Inside, it’s all velvet and stillness. A parlor caught in time, furniture too careful, as if someone might come sit any minute. Doilies, a half-played chess game, a record left spinning dust. The wallpaper is yellowed. Every detail feels paused mid-breath.

A photograph hangs above the fireplace: Elias, all teeth, hand clasped on his brother’s shoulder.

Your father said that was the worst one—the smiling one. The one who talked you into your own grave.

You move deeper. Floorboards groan like they remember your father’s footsteps. The hallway presses close, lit only by the dim spill of stormlight through smeared glass. You find the room he described in the letter—left at the end, past three doors and a cracked wall sconce. The wallpaper here peels in the shape of a cross. Burned faintly around the edges. The air colder. Hungrier.

You kneel and pry up the board. It gives, same as he said.

The box is still there.

Heavy. Cold. Real.

You stare at it like it might vanish if you blink. It hums with old heat—like breath trapped in iron. You take it.

And you don’t hear the front door open.

But you feel it—the way still air shifts when a storm is about to speak. The back of your neck prickles. A hush falls that doesn’t belong to you.

You turn, heart sprinting.

And there he is.

Elias Stack Moore.

Not dead. Not even close.

He fills the doorway like a closing casket. Older than the photograph, but untouched by time or flame. His posture loose, almost amused. But his face—

His mouth, chin, and throat are soaked in blood. Dark, slick, fresh. It’s drying down the curve of his jaw, staining his collar, seeping into the soft fabric of a white dress shirt that’s gone ruddy at the neck. He hasn’t cleaned all of it. Just enough to look almost human.

But not to fool you.

His eyes gleam. Not with recognition. With hunger.

Dust rises around him like ash.

He smells like iron and perfume. Like something that shouldn’t be standing. Like something that fed.

He looks at you—really looks—and his smile isn’t warm. It’s fixed, like it’s been carved there.

“Now what,” he says, voice a warm hum through broken glass, “do we have here?”

You don’t speak. You can’t. You grip the box tighter. Your knuckles pale. Your stomach churns with some primal knowledge that didn’t need to be taught—only remembered.

You take one step back.

Elias steps forward.

And the floor groans in relief.