The Room That Remembers

The first time I saw it, I thought I’d walked into a dream. It was late—the kind of late when the world feels more like a memory than a reality. I’d been wandering, the fog thick and unrelenting, when I stumbled upon the old house. The door had been ajar, its edges warped and splintered with age, and against my better judgment, I stepped inside.

The room greeted me like an unwelcome guest. The teal walls glistened faintly, their surface damp and textured like rotting bark. It was the color of decay, yet somehow alive, pulsing faintly in the flickering glow of a single, grimy lamp. The light pooled weakly on the frayed edges of a faded rug, its patterns barely visible beneath the grime of decades.

I didn’t mean to linger, but something about the room wouldn’t let me leave. It was the amber glow from the window, I think, that held me in place. The panes shone like molten glass, casting a warmth the room itself refused to provide. Outside, there was nothing—just darkness that swallowed the edges of the horizon.

The furniture sagged, worn and weary, as if it, too, carried the weight of endless waiting. A couch slumped in the corner, its cushions cratered as though someone had sat there for years and never moved. The fireplace yawned like a black mouth, cold and lifeless, its mantel lined with objects I dared not touch. Books sat on the shelf above it, their titles faded, their spines rigid with disuse.

As I stepped further inside, the air thickened, wrapping around me like a suffocating embrace. I touched the back of the wooden chair near the table, its surface rough under my fingers. The wood felt warm, as though someone had only just risen from it, though the dust coating its seat suggested otherwise.

I should have left then, but something in the room felt familiar. Not in the comforting way of a childhood home, but in the unsettling way a nightmare does—too vivid to dismiss, too surreal to be real. I stared at the glowing window, expecting to see movement, but there was none.

Then I heard it. A soft creak, as if the house itself were breathing. It came from the corner, where the shadows clustered thickest. My heart thundered, and I stepped back, but the room wouldn’t let me go. I felt its pull, its desperate longing to be seen, to be remembered.

“You’ve been here before,” a voice whispered, soft as the rustle of leaves.

I turned, but there was no one. Only the room.

And then I understood. It wasn’t the house that was haunted. It was me. The room was a reflection of all I had tried to forget—the sorrow, the loss, the guilt. It had always been here, waiting, growing damp and heavy with neglect.

I don’t know how long I stayed. The world outside faded, replaced by the amber glow of the window and the steady creak of the house’s breath.

When I finally stepped outside, the fog had cleared. But the room stayed with me, etched into my mind like a scar I could never heal.

Somewhere, it still waits, growing darker, older. Waiting for me to return.