Vivian stood before the carved mahogany door, the brass gas lamp in her hand emitting a faint, rhythmic hissing.
10 minutes ago, Mrs. Durand — a widow as plump in stature as she was in voice — had been clutching Vivian’s hand in the downstairs parlor, weeping uncontrollably.
“The sound always appears! It is definitely haunted!” At the time, the powder on Mrs. Durand’s face was nearly washed into ravines by her tears.
“Someone is scratching the floor with their fingernails… and there is a strange smell! It is like the scent of sulfuric acid; it must be a demon from hell!”
Vivian sighed and looked up at the scene before her.
The house was overly exquisite.
The hallway walls were adorned with pale green floral wallpaper, and porcelain vases were placed every few meters. There was a faint scent of lavender in the air.
*Click.*
Vivian reached out, gripped the doorknob, and gave it a tentative twist.
It didn’t budge.
Was it locked?
She frowned, subconsciously adding a bit more force with her hand.
*Crack — snap!*
The resistance in Vivian’s hand suddenly vanished.
She stared blankly at the broken brass doorknob in her hand, then at the dark, hollow hole in the door.
“…”
‘Damn it.’
If the penny-pinching Mrs. Durand saw this, the commission fee probably wouldn’t even be enough to pay for the damages.
‘The door started it.’ Vivian righteously stuffed the doorknob into her trench coat pocket, vowing to herself that she would never admit to it.
Although the door was missing its handle, it had at least opened a crack.
A stale breath of air drifted out from the gap.
There was also a faint, lingering hint of something sour.
Was this the “strange smell” Mrs. Durand had mentioned?
Vivian sniffed.
The sourness was so faint that it would be impossible to notice without paying close attention. It was a bit like… aged cheese?
“Is anyone there?”
Vivian pushed the door open and raised the gas lamp.
The dim, yellow glow poured inside like water, dispelling the darkness that had occupied the entrance.
The attic was large.
the slanted skylight wasn’t fully closed, and the moon tonight was exceptionally bright. A pale ray of moonlight cut through the room, dividing the attic into two halves of light and shadow.
Dust danced thickly within the beam of light, making her nose itch.
There were no ghosts.
There were only piles of old furniture, a television covered in a white cloth, and several strangely shaped mannequins standing in the corner — likely left behind from Mrs. Durand’s days as a tailor.
The bald heads of those mannequins glowed with a deathly white light under the moon, looking quite eerie.
‘That bastard Cicero, making me come alone.’
Vivian “attacked” her boss in her mind while walking forward cautiously.
The wooden floorboards beneath her feet emitted a *creak* that felt infinitely amplified in the dead silence of the space.
With every step, the shadows of the furniture covered in white cloth shifted along with her, as if they were waiting to swallow her whole.
‘Don’t scare yourself, Vivian,’ she whispered to herself. ‘You’ve seen big scenes.’
Suddenly.
*Hiss — *
A faint sound caught her ear.
Vivian came to a sudden halt, the hair all over her body standing on end.
It sounded like something was crawling along the base of the wall. Fingernails were scratching against the wallpaper, producing a series of intermittent friction sounds.
Was it on the left?
Vivian snapped her head around, the beam of the gas lamp sweeping over the left corner.
A few boxes were piled there, covered in thick dust.
There was nothing.
Had she misheard?
Vivian held her breath and strained her ears.
*Hiss… hiss-hiss…*
The sound returned.
It was clearer this time.
Moreover, it wasn’t just the sound of scratching; it was mixed with a low whimpering.
The sound made her heart tighten. Vivian gripped the handle of the lamp, her palms sweating slightly.
Damn.
Mrs. Durand wasn’t wrong; this place really was a bit sinister.
Vivian’s mind uncontrollably began to replay cases she had read out of boredom: clowns hiding in wardrobes specifically to eat fingers, serial killers who disguised themselves as coat racks…
‘…If there’s a ghost, I’ll shove the door handle in its mouth.’
Vivian gritted her teeth and emboldened herself to walk toward the pile of boxes.
Since she had accepted the job, there was no reason to back down.
One step.
Two steps.
That strange, sour smell seemed to grow stronger.
Just as she was 3 meters away from the corner.
The door behind her.
*Creak — bang!*
A draft of unknown origin blew through, and the heavy wooden door, which hadn’t been properly latched, slammed shut.
The light in the attic dimmed significantly in an instant.
The only exit was sealed.
Vivian flinched at the loud bang, nearly dropping the gas lamp.
“Calm down, calm down.”
She took a deep breath, trying to steady her racing heart.
“It’s just the wind, a physical phenomenon, a pressure differential. I learned this in middle school… even if the physics of this world are nearly dead, they still twitch like a corpse every now and then, don’t they?”
The impact of the door hitting the frame was quite substantial, causing years of old dust to flutter down from above.
Vivian shielded the gas lamp in her arms while raising a hand to cover her nose.
“Cough, cough… how long has it been since this house was cleaned?”
Her heart skipped a beat.
Guided by the dim lamplight, Vivian did not huddle in a corner shivering like the protagonist of a horror movie.
She walked forward a couple of steps, her heels producing a series of crisp *tap-taps* on the solid wood floor.
This place was too strange.
According to the *Introduction to Ghostology* she had flipped through on that charlatan Cicero’s bookshelf, the standard equipment for a haunted site should be: moldy wallpaper, rotting floorboards, and the stench of a dead rat that had been fermenting for 3 months.
But this wasn’t that.
Vivian extended one finger, lightly stroking the armrest of a sofa covered in white cloth.
There was only a layer of surface dust on her fingertip, with no clammy moisture.
The air also lacked that nauseating stench; instead…
Frowning, she leaned in toward the armchair draped in white like a burial mound and sniffed deeply like a bloodhound.
*Sniff — *
Hmm?
Besides the smell of dust, there was a very faint acidity.
It wasn’t vinegar or citric acid; it was more like… the residue of evaporated ammonia-based substances?
This scent, mixed with the lavender aromatherapy, had unexpectedly created the illusion of the so-called “sulfur smell.”
How had that loudmouth Mrs. Durand put it?
“The sulfurous stench of hell! The devil’s breath!”
Vivian’s lip twitched.
‘If it were an object or a ghost, it wouldn’t produce metabolic waste,’ Vivian muttered softly.
‘As long as there is metabolism, it’s a carbon-based lifeform; as long as it’s a carbon-based lifeform, it falls under the domain of physics; as long as it’s physics…’
She weighed the base of the gas lamp in her hand.
This thing was made of solid brass; its hardness was well-guaranteed.
Now that she was certain it wasn’t a supernatural phenomenon, the rest would be easy to handle.
She raised the lamp and began to seriously examine the so-called “haunted house.”
It was just a perfectly normal storage room.
All the furniture was arranged according to its original layout, with no signs of being tossed or smashed.
If there had been a break-in or a hidden killer, the place should have been a complete mess by now.
Unless…
The suspect was very small and weak, so weak that they couldn’t even push over a chair.
*Hiss — scratch — *
The sound came again.