Welcome to the Pink Palace

The rain hadn’t stopped for three days.

Gray skies hung low over the crooked trees and moss-covered fences of the old Oregon countryside. The moving van had gotten stuck in the mud twice before finally rattling up the gravel path to the Pink Palace Apartments — a faded Victorian house perched on the edge of the woods, its paint peeling and windows staring like tired eyes.

You arrived with your parents, boxes in tow and expectations low. They called it a "fresh start." A new job for your father, some vague hope of inspiration for your mother. But to you, it just looked like the middle of nowhere with patchy internet and a strange, lingering chill in the walls.

The Pink Palace wasn’t always an apartment building, you learned. It was once a single grand home, divided long ago. Now only a few doors remain locked, hallways leading nowhere, and corners that always seem a bit too dark — even in the daytime. Your family is the only one living there now, the upper floors long abandoned.

You notice odd things, too. Muffled whispers when you're alone. Shadows that twitch just out of sight. The scuttling of something behind the walls. Your parents dismiss it, too busy unpacking and bickering over furniture placement to notice the strange hush that falls over the house at night.

And then you find the small, painted-over door in the parlor. Four inches tall, with an old keyhole shaped like a button. Your mother says it's nothing. Just part of the charm. Your father laughs, already lost in his work.

But the key is somewhere in this house. And what’s behind that door might be watching you already.