Why do the blueprints show rooms that don't exist? What makes the shadows form impossible angles? How do the walls shift when no one is watching? Why do the floor plans change each time they're drawn? What causes the architectural models to move on their own?
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A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.
― Robertson Davies
The house had always been more than just walls and beams to me - it was my greatest creative achievement. Every detail of the Architect’s House was carefully designed and crafted by my own hands.
But lately, shadows seemed to lurk where no shadows should fall. Floorboards creaked at all hours, though I walked alone. At night as I tried to sleep, I heard whispers through the walls, just below the threshold of understanding.
Tonight, a crash jolted me from my desk. I ran upstairs, throwing open door after door of empty rooms. At the end of the hall sat a portrait I was sure I had never hung. It grinned down with dead eyes.
Heart pounding, I fled back downstairs. But the front door was gone, replaced by featureless gray. I pounded my fists raw against the seamless wall.
A murmur rose behind me, resolving into words in a language my mind refused to comprehend. I whipped around to see the shadows in the corners pulsate and breathe like living things. Dark tendrils snaked across the floors, feeling blindly toward me.
My creation had taken on a terrifying life, a malign intelligence awakening in the secret spaces between the beams and joists. This house I built with such pride had become a labyrinth configured to torment me until the end of days. My skills as an architect had birthed a nightmare made manifest.
