The floor buckled upward like something enormous was pushing from the basement. Sarah staggered as the dining-room table flipped and the Polaroids scattered. Every photo now showed the house itself screaming, windows as eyes, front door a gaping mouth. The remaining three children clawed at the rotting wall, trying to patch the X she’d drawn with their own pale hands. Where they touched, the rot slowed. Sarah saw it: her blood was poison to them. She slashed her palm deeper on the broken frame and ran, flinging black drops like holy water. Each splatter burned holes straight through the floorboards, revealing a writhing darkness below that smelled of birthday cake left out for fifty years. The children wailed and gave chase.
