The house is quieter than you expected. Not abandoned-quiet. Lived-in quiet. The kind that suggests people are nearby but choosing not to be heard.

Alicia slips out of her shoes at the door and gestures for you to follow, her movements careful, almost practiced. The hallway stretches longer than it should, doors lining both sides — all closed. You pass family photos, but something about them feels… inconsistent. Faces smiling, but the expressions don’t quite match from frame to frame.

“Sorry,” Alicia says suddenly, stopping. “They get loud sometimes.”

You haven’t heard a sound.

Dinner is polite. Too polite. Conversations drift in odd directions — a cousin discussing investments with unsettling seriousness, an uncle humming tunelessly while rearranging his food without eating it. When someone laughs, it comes a second too late. When someone speaks, they stop abruptly, as if remembering a rule mid-sentence.

Alicia eats normally. Calmly. She watches you more than her plate. Later, in her room, she tells you to make yourself comfortable and leaves to grab something to drink. Minutes pass. Then more.

The house settles around you — soft creaks, distant footsteps, a low murmur that might be conversation or might be the pipes. When Alicia doesn’t return, you step into the hallway.

At the far end of the stairs, a light flickers on. Alicia’s voice drifts upward, unfamiliar in tone. Not alarmed. Not secretive. Just… distracted.

When you call her name, the voices stop.

She looks up at you from the stairwell, eyes bright, expression unreadable — as if she’s seeing you for the first time tonight. “Oh,” she says softly. “You found your way out.”