Echoes of Other Suns

 

The Forgotten Room

Marla had always hated the house.

It wasn’t just the smell—the damp wood, the mildew that seemed to creep into her skin. It was the way the walls seemed to breathe, as though the whole structure had a pulse of its own. She’d told herself a hundred times that coming back was pointless, but here she was, suitcase in hand, the executor of her late father’s estate.

She paused at the threshold, staring at the warped door frame, the dark windows that reflected nothing back. She could almost hear her father’s voice: Don’t wander upstairs. Don’t open every door. Some things aren’t meant to be disturbed.

It was the sort of thing that sounded like superstition when she was a child. Now, at thirty-nine, with her father gone, it lingered like a warning she had no business ignoring.

The air inside was heavier than outside, though the storm had broken an hour earlier. She coughed, adjusting to the gloom, and set her bag down in the hall. The house was still. The quiet pressed against her ears.

Every step up the staircase groaned beneath her, as if the house resented her weight. Dust coated the banister. A spider had webbed itself across the corner of the landing, fat and waiting.

She moved from room to room, checking, cataloguing what she’d need to clear. Everything was where she remembered: her father’s study stacked with unread newspapers, her old bedroom with the wallpaper peeling at the edges, the bathroom mirror streaked and warped.

Then she noticed the door.

It was at the far end of the corridor, slightly narrower than the others, with a brass knob dulled by time. She had no memory of ever going inside. As a child, she’d assumed it was a closet, or a space crammed with forgotten boxes. But something in her chest tightened at the sight of it.

Her father’s voice echoed faintly in her head: Not that one, Marla. That room stays shut.

Her hand hovered near the knob. The metal was cool, almost clammy. She hesitated, then turned it.

The door opened with a soft groan, like the sigh of someone woken too soon.

Inside, the room was sparse. An iron bed frame with no mattress, a single wooden chair, and wallpaper so faded it was impossible to tell its original colour. A smell of stale earth and rust drifted out.

She stepped inside, the floor bending under her weight.

That’s when she saw him.

A boy sat cross-legged on the iron frame. No older than twelve. His hair was lank, his clothes plain and colourless. His eyes—too wide, too empty—locked onto hers the moment she entered.

His lips parted, and in a voice thin and cracked, he whispered:

“You can see me?”

Marla froze. Every muscle in her body screamed to leave, to shut the door and never come back.

“I… I don’t know,” she stammered. “Are you—are you real?”

The boy tilted his head, studying her. His skin was pale, stretched tight over sharp cheekbones.

“They never looked,” he said. “Not even your father. They walked past. Pretended I wasn’t here. But you—” His mouth twisted into a smile, crooked and unsettling. “You opened the door.”

Marla’s breath caught. “What are you talking about? My father—”

The boy slid off the bed, landing silently on the wooden floor. He took a step forward. The closer he came, the more familiar he looked. The nose, the shape of his jaw, even the faint curve of his lips.

Her stomach dropped.

He looked like the photos. The old black-and-white baby pictures her mother had hidden in the back of an album, the ones she’d only stumbled across once.

“You’re not—” Her throat tightened. “You can’t be.”

The boy smiled wider, teeth too sharp, too many.

“I’m your brother.”

Her pulse hammered. She shook her head violently. “That’s impossible. He died—he died before I was born.”

“Did he?” The boy’s voice was almost playful, mocking. “That’s what they told you. But fathers lie. Mothers cry. And children—children rot.”

The walls seemed to shudder. A low hum vibrated through the air, like the murmur of voices just out of earshot. Marla backed toward the door, but when she reached for the knob, it slammed shut with a force that rattled the frame.

“You opened it,” the boy whispered. “That means you let me out.”

“No.” Her hands pressed against the door, pounding, but it didn’t budge. “No, this isn’t real. You’re not real.”

His laugh was jagged, broken, as if something inside him cracked with each sound. “You think ghosts aren’t real? Or maybe you think you’re the ghost. I’ve been waiting for years, Marla. Waiting for someone who’d see me.”

The whispers grew louder. The faded wallpaper began to ripple, bulging in places as though something pushed from underneath. Pale, thin hands emerged, clawing at the air, fingers impossibly long.

Marla’s breath came in shallow gasps.

“Father tried to bury me,” the boy hissed, stepping closer. “He locked me away, pretended I never existed. But you—you came back. You remembered.”

“I didn’t remember!” she cried, her back flat against the door. “I didn’t know! I swear I didn’t know!”

The boy’s eyes glowed faintly in the dim light. “Now you do.”

Shapes began crawling from the corners of the room. Shadow-things with faces blurred, bodies bent at wrong angles. They whispered in voices like hers, like her father’s, like children she didn’t recognise.

“You see us,” they chanted. “You see us now.”

Marla screamed, clawing at the knob, slamming her shoulder against the door. Nothing. The wood seemed to absorb her effort, drinking her panic.

The boy reached out, his fingers brushing her wrist. His skin was colder than ice, yet it burned.

“Don’t fight,” he murmured. “Stay. It’s lonely here. But with you, it won’t be anymore.”

Her vision blurred with tears. “Please… I don’t belong here.”

“You opened the door,” he repeated, voice low, final. “That means you belong more than anyone.”

The hands from the walls wrapped around her ankles, her arms, pulling. Her nails scraped wood, leaving splinters lodged under her skin.

The last thing she saw before the darkness swallowed her was the boy’s face—smiling, triumphant, no longer pale but flushed with stolen color.

And then nothing.

When the neighbors broke into the house weeks later, the upstairs corridor was empty. The small door at the end was nailed shut, as it had always been.

No sign of Marla remained.

Only the faint echo of a child’s voice, drifting through the walls, asking softly:

“You can see me?”