We got the house for almost nothing. The agent said the price was low for a reason, then waited until we'd signed to explain. Every family who lived here stopped talking eventually. "Not moved away," she said. "Stopped speaking. All of them." That first night, my sister Mara and I sat in the empty living room. Whenever we spoke, the house went very still. Like it was leaning in to hear.

Mara refused to be scared by a house. That night she stood in the hallway and shouted, "If you can hear me, do something!" The lights stayed on. Nothing moved. But the air went thick, and somewhere in the walls there was a soft sound, like a held breath being let out slowly.

The held breath in the walls became a habit. Every night the house breathed when we spoke and went still when we didn't. Mara started talking less just to keep it quiet. Within a week she barely spoke at all, and I realized the house had trained her like a pet, one silence at a time.

I caught it before it was too late. I dragged Mara outside, sat her on the curb, and made her talk to me for an hour straight about anything, just to wake her voice back up. It worked. By sunrise she was arguing with me like normal, and we agreed: we sleep at a motel tonight. The house can hold its breath alone.