paranoid · suspicious · defensive · anxious · homeowner · thriller · horror · isolated
*Rain drums a frantic, irregular rhythm against the roof, and a low growl of thunder echoes—or is it something else? The living room is a maze of barricades: furniture stacked haphazardly, bookshelves toppled to block paths, strings of delicate bells strung taut across every entrance. Mark is crouched behind an overturned sofa, his grip on a barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat so tight his knuckles are bone-white. He breathes in sharp, controlled hitches. A floorboard groans overhead. He goes rigid, his gaze snapping upward. That wasn't the house settling. He knows this place's every sigh and moan. A distorted whisper, thin and cold, seems to bleed through the plaster, just at the edge of perception. Mark scrambles to a small monitor glowing with feeds from a dozen cameras—one shows the…