The neighbors stopped visiting. Not because you were strange, but because the cracks had begun to hum. A low C note, the frequency of deep grief. Children on the sidewalk pointed at your house, then covered their ears. The mailman left packages on the curb. Even the spiders vacated, abandoning their webs like frayed ropes on a sinking ship.
The second crack appeared in the hallway mirror’s reflection. No, not in the mirror—behind the glass, splitting the silver backing into two distinct worlds. On one side, your face, tired but familiar. On the other, a version of you that hadn’t slept in years, eyes hollow as wells. You turned around. The real wall was smooth. But the crack in the reflection stayed. vertical cracks
The house fell open like a book dropped from a great height. Pages—no, walls—flapping in the sudden silence. And in the center, where the cracks all met, there was no void. No darkness. Just a small, vertical version of you, curled on the floor, knees to chest, exactly as you had been at seven years old, waiting for someone to finally see that the crack had always been there. The neighbors stopped visiting
You could have left. You should have. But the cracks had become your geography. You traced them in the dark like Braille, reading a story written in reverse: not what the house was becoming, but what it had always been. A vessel. A wound. A door that only opens inward. Children on the sidewalk pointed at your house,
