" I Broke Into The Wrong House. It started Taking Part Of Me.. Permanently"

 

The House

It was a bitter winter night, snow piling in thick drifts while the wind screamed like a tornado. Anyone with sense stayed indoors, huddled around fireplaces with steaming mugs. Those caught outside cursed their luck and scrambled for warmth.

The homeless raced toward the shelters the city slapped together every December—long lines for watery soup with a single chunk of carrot and gristle, plus a stale heel of bread if you were quick. The ones who refused help gathered under bridges or in alleyways, feeding scrap-wood fires that spat more smoke than heat. They passed a bottle of cheap whiskey wrapped in a brown paper bag, bragging about winters they’d survived, wondering aloud which of them would be stiff and blue by morning.

Fred loved nights like this.

Heavy snow, empty streets, rich people gone—it was perfect. Christmas week had always been his harvest season. He could still remember the year he’d lifted enough to buy the beat-up van he now called home. Tonight he walked with his collar up, hood low, eyes scanning every shivering body he passed. As a burglar, he preferred to be a ghost: no name, no face, no witnesses.

“Hey, buddy!” a voice rasped from a circle of firelight. “Night’s a killer. Come warm up, have a pull.” The man waved the bottle like a flag of truce.

Fred turned his face away and kept moving.

Two more blocks and he’d reach the avenue where the mansions stood dark and silent, owners sipping champagne on some private island. Their loss, he thought with a sneer.

The old man by the fire watched him disappear into the snow. “Just you and me tonight, old friend,” he muttered to the bottle, taking a long swallow.

Fred had been watching number 17 Hawthorne Lane for weeks. The house had sat empty two years now, windows boarded, mail overflowing. Neighborhood gossip called it haunted—cold spots, footsteps, the usual bullshit. Fred almost laughed every time he heard it. Rich people and their games: spread a ghost story thick enough and nobody dares step foot on your property. Worked every time. Except on him.

He turned onto Hawthorne. Even the homeless avoided this street; the glow from the mansions felt colder than the blizzard. Fred stuck to the shadows, moving from tree to tree, checking every curtained window for a twitch of movement. Nothing. Just snow and silence.

He stopped at the iron gate, breath fogging in front of him. The house loomed three stories high, gables sharp against the swirling white. For a second the wind died, and the world went so quiet he could hear his own heartbeat.

Fred smiled, pulled the slim jim from his coat, and slipped through the side gate like smoke.

Fred hurried to the back of the mansion, moving like a shadow. He slipped his glass-cutting tools from his pocket, pressed the suction cup against the pane, and carved a perfect circle. The glass sighed free. He reached through, fingers finding the latch, and eased the window open. No alarm. He counted to twenty, heart hammering against his ribs, then exhaled with a grin that felt too wide for his face.

He slid inside, lean as a knife, and closed the window behind him. The moment his back turned, there was a soft, deliberate click. He spun around.

The window was gone.

Just smooth wallpaper and darkness. He clawed at the wall, nails scraping plaster, panic rising like bile. As a burglar, you always secure the exit first. Rule one. He’d broken it, and now the house had swallowed him.

Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Then nothing.

The phone on the side table rang—shrill, impossible in an empty house.

He froze.

A voice whispered right against his ear, warm breath that smelled of nothing at all.

“Answer the damn phone.”

Fred jumped, a whimper escaping before he could choke it back. “Who’s there?” he hissed, spinning in circles.

The phone rang again.

“Answer it, fool,” the voice said, amused.

He lunged for the receiver. “Hello?”

A laugh crackled through the line, wet and ancient. “No one enters here and leaves whole.”

“Fuck you,” Fred spat. “I’m not scared of a prank.”

“Look at your left hand.”

He did.

His index finger was gone. Not bleeding—gone. The skin smooth, as if it had never existed. The stump didn’t even hurt. It felt… old.

The voice purred. “More will follow. A toe. An ear. Maybe a leg, so I can watch you drag yourself across my floors.”

“What do you want?” Sweat soaked his collar.

“What you cherish most.”

“I’ve got nothing!” He was already backing toward the wall, searching for the window that wasn’t there.

“Oh, you do,” the voice said, savoring the words. “What can you sacrifice, head to toe?”

Fred’s knees buckled. Tears burned. “Please. I’ll never rob again. Just let me go.”

“Let you go?” A mocking chuckle. “We’re only getting started.”

He slammed the phone down and ran, hands outstretched, groping along walls that bent like rubber under his palms. He tried the fireplace—chimney too narrow, soot choking him. The voice drifted after him, lazy.

“I wouldn’t, pet. Imagine getting stuck with no arms to pull yourself free.”

He screamed then, raw, calling for police, for God, for anyone. No one came. The house drank the sound.

“Oh, you’re boring me,” the voice sighed. “Let’s take something you’ll miss.”

Fred’s hand flew between his legs. Nothing. Smooth skin where there should have been heat and weight. He made a strangled sound, half-sob, half-scream.

“Already dreaming of whores?” the voice taunted. “Check your left eye.”

The world tilted. Darkness swallowed half his vision. His fingers found the socket—empty, dry, healed over like an old wound.

“I’m dead,” he whispered. “I’m dead.”

He charged the wall, ready to bash his skull in, but the surface gave like foam. He bounced off, sobbing.

A hallway stretched ahead, impossibly long. At the end, a door stood ajar, spilling sickly yellow light. He ran for it.

The door slammed behind him.

He fell hard. The floor was warm. Wet.

Shapes moved in the gloom—people, or what was left of them. A woman with no lips smiled at him, teeth too white. A man crawled past, dragging himself with elbows because both legs ended at the knees. Someone missing a jaw gurgled a greeting.

The voice filled the room, no longer coming from the phone but from the walls themselves, the air, the marrow of his bones.

“Welcome to my playground.”

Fred curled into a ball, what was left of him shaking.

The laughter never stopped.

The End