Dust And Flesh

I didn’t remember how I got there. One moment, I was somewhere ordinary—a grocery store, maybe my car—and the next, I was standing in the polished hallway of a sprawling mansion. The floors gleamed like polished obsidian under chandeliers that glittered coldly overhead. The place was immaculate, almost painfully so, but something about it felt wrong.

It wasn’t the silence—no, the silence was welcome. It was the way the air pressed down on me, thick and humid, as though the house had lungs, and I was breathing what it exhaled.

I wasn’t alone. My brothers were with me, talking quietly near the massive oak doors we’d apparently come through. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but their presence was grounding, familiar. I wanted to stay near them, to anchor myself to their easy confidence, but there was something I needed to do.

Avoid him.

It was a simple instinct, primal and urgent, like the way an animal knows to flee from fire. My father wasn’t cruel, not in the obvious ways. He didn’t raise his voice or lift a hand. He was the kind of man who could destroy you without ever looking angry, without ever admitting he’d done it.

My father believed in silence.

When I was younger, his silences had been the worst punishment of all. A wrong word, a careless mistake, and he would go still. He’d sit at the kitchen table, his hands folded neatly in front of him, his eyes fixed somewhere beyond me, as if I no longer existed. No shouting, no lectures—just an unbearable stillness, the quiet weight of his disappointment pressing down until I couldn’t breathe.

I learned early that silence could be worse than words.

He wasn’t a bad man. Not in the ways people imagine when they hear someone say they’re avoiding their father. He didn’t drink. He didn’t cheat. He didn’t hit. But he had a way of making the air heavy, of draining the life out of a room just by walking into it. He didn’t need to say anything; his presence was enough.

My brothers always seemed immune to it. They could laugh and joke around him, their voices loud and confident, like they didn’t notice how the air changed when he was near. I envied them for that. For not feeling the tightness in their chest or the way their pulse quickened, as though the act of speaking might wake something in him, something sharp and dangerous.

I wouldn’t say I was afraid of him, though. I wasn’t, not really. But there were parts of myself I couldn’t be around him. Parts he would snuff out, intentionally or not, with his quiet judgment. He was the kind of man who could make you feel small just by looking at you.

And I was tired of feeling small.

I didn’t know where my father was now, but I knew he was here. Somewhere in the endless sprawl of rooms and corridors, he was searching for me. The thought of seeing him made my stomach churn. There was no reason for it, no specific memory that sparked the dread—just the overwhelming need to stay away from him.

The house seemed to sense this.

The walls were pristine at first—cream-colored, with elaborate molding that whispered of wealth and history. But as I moved deeper, they began to change. It was subtle at first: the wallpaper seemed a little too textured, the colors a little too warm, as though the walls themselves were pulsing faintly. The air grew heavier, harder to breathe, and I caught myself glancing over my shoulder every few steps.

I turned a corner and froze when I noticed that he was there, standing in the middle of the hall.

He didn’t look menacing—no, that wasn’t it. He was just standing there, his head slightly tilted, as if he was waiting for me to explain myself. He didn’t move toward me, didn’t call my name. Still, my chest tightened.

I ducked into the nearest room, slamming the door shut behind me.

The sound of the door hitting its frame echoed louder than it should have, reverberating through the tiny space like a gunshot. My chest heaved as I pressed my back against it, desperate to put as much distance between me and the hallway as possible.

I turned, fumbling for a doorknob, but my fingers met smooth, unbroken wood. No knob. No lock. No way out.

The realization sank into my stomach like a stone.

The room was small—so small it felt more like a cell. The walls were close, unnervingly close, and lit by a single bulb dangling overhead. Its light flickered erratically, casting jerky, shifting shadows that made the room seem even smaller.

At first, I thought the walls were just poorly painted. The texture was strange, uneven, as though someone had slapped layer after layer of plaster on without smoothing it out. But when I looked closer, I realized the truth.

I froze, my breath catching in my throat. The surface was mottled pink, like raw meat, and crisscrossed with veins that pulsed faintly, sluggishly, as though something thick and viscous was pumping through them.

I reached out, almost without meaning to, and my fingers brushed the wall.

It twitched.

I yanked my hand back as if I’d been burned, stumbling a step away. My skin crawled, a wave of nausea rolling through me.

The wall hadn’t just twitched; it had moved. A ripple passed through the surface, like a muscle flexing, and the veins seemed to swell, their faint pulse quickening. The air grew heavier, the room warmer, and the faint smell of copper—sharp and metallic—filled my nose.

I pressed my back against the far wall, trying to put as much space between me and the fleshy surface as I could. But the wall behind me wasn’t any different. It was warm—unnaturally warm—and as I leaned against it, I felt it give slightly, as though it was soft, pliable.

I jerked forward, my breathing shallow, the bile rising in my throat.

The walls pulsed again, harder this time. I watched, horrified, as the surface seemed to shudder, little ripples spreading outward. It wasn’t just flesh—it was alive. The realization struck me like a hammer, and I clenched my fists to stop my hands from shaking.

The veins bulged, swollen and throbbing, and the walls themselves began to move. They contracted slowly at first, just a slight inward shift, but then the motion became stronger, more deliberate. The space was closing in on me.

“No…”, I whispered, my voice barely audible. “No, no, no.”

I pressed my palms flat against the wall, trying to push back, but it was like trying to push against a living thing. The surface gave under my hands, warm and moist, and I recoiled as the flesh beneath my fingers seemed to quiver in response.

The room was getting smaller.

The ceiling dipped lower, the walls creeping inward, their slow, deliberate motion accompanied by faint, wet sounds—a sickening squelch with every pulse. The veins writhed now, twisting and curling like worms, their movements erratic and frantic.

The air grew stifling, thick with heat and the overwhelming stench of blood and decay. My head spun, my vision swimming as I clawed at the smooth, fleshy surface, desperate to find some hidden seam, some crack that would let me escape.

But there was nothing. No door. No window. Just walls of living tissue, pulsing, contracting, suffocating.

The light bulb overhead flickered faster, casting harsh, jerky shadows that seemed to dance across the quivering walls. The sound of my own heartbeat thundered in my ears, and for a moment, I couldn’t tell if it was my pulse or the pulse of the room itself.

I screamed.

I don’t remember how I got out, only that I did. Somehow, I was back in the hallway, my breath coming in ragged gasps. The house was toying with me, reshaping itself in response to my panic.

I took the stairs two at a time, climbing until I reached the upper floors. From up here, I could see the mansion’s layout—like looking at a dollhouse from above. Every room was visible, every door, every hallway. It stretched farther than it should have, the structure impossibly vast, as though the house existed outside the laws of physics.

He was still down there, somewhere. Wandering. Waiting.

My brothers were gone. Out of sight, nowhere near. Or maybe they’d never been here at all. I honestly couldn’t tell anymore.

The thought should have felt strange, or maybe even frightening, but it didn’t. It was as though they had never truly existed in the first place, like their presence had been a mirage that had faded as quickly as it had appeared.

I moved carefully, staying quiet as I slipped from room to room. Most of them were empty—dustless, pristine, eerily staged. A bedroom with an untouched canopy bed. A dining room with plates and silverware laid out as if expecting a feast. The farther I went, the less sense it made.

Eventually, I found her.

She was standing in a room that looked like a garden trapped under glass. Vines crawled up the walls, their leaves unnaturally green, as though painted. A woman stood in the center, her back to me. Her dress was simple but elegant, her hair pinned up in a way that felt timeless.

“You shouldn’t be here.”, she said without turning around.

“I don’t know how to leave.”, I admitted.

She turned then, and I was struck by her beauty—sharp, cold, like the edge of a blade. Her eyes locked onto mine, and I felt like she could see straight through me.

“Of course you don’t.”, she said softly. “He won’t let you.”

I wanted to ask what she meant, but the words stuck in my throat.

“Find your brothers.”, she said. “They’ll help you. But you need to hurry.”

The sound of footsteps echoed through the mansion, slow and deliberate. He was coming.

I bolted from the room, the layout of the mansion now burned into my mind. Every corridor, every hidden passage, every vent I could crawl through to stay out of sight—I could see it all.

I eventually found my brothers near the staircase. They hadn’t disappeared, but they looked different now—older, their faces lined with concern. One of them grabbed my arm, pulling me forward.

“We need to leave.”, he said.

The house began to shift again, the walls rippling like water. Doors appeared where there hadn’t been any before, while others vanished entirely.

“This way.”, my brother urged, dragging me toward a narrow vent.

I crawled in after him, the metal cool against my palms. The vents stretched endlessly, twisting and turning, but I trusted him to guide me.

The walls were closer now, squeezing tighter, forcing us forward.

“Keep moving.”, he said. “Don’t stop, no matter what.”

I didn’t stop.

My chest ached, my breathing ragged, but I didn’t stop, I didn’t look back.

The vent opened into a room I didn’t recognize—bright, sterile, and empty. My brothers were gone again, and the walls were still. The air was light, finally breathable.

But he was there, standing in the center of the room.

“You can’t escape.”, he said. “You never could.”

I opened my mouth to scream—

And woke up.

The sudden shift from nightmare to reality was jarring, like being pulled from the depths of a cold, suffocating ocean and thrust into a blinding light. I gasped for breath, my heart pounding, my chest tight.

The ceiling above me was cracked, yellowed with age. The familiar, mundane cracks in the drywall that I had seen a thousand times. My bed creaked as I sat up, the coolness of the room doing little to soothe the heat that still clung to my skin. My limbs felt heavy, sluggish, as though I were waking from a much deeper slumber than I could remember.

It was just a dream, I told myself. Just a dream.

But when I looked down, flexing my fingers as if expecting them to feel normal again, my hands were covered in dust. And there, under my nails, was something soft. Pink.

Like flesh.