Chapter Four
A Week In
Morning arrived slowly at the mansion, creeping through tall windows and settling in pale stripes across the wooden floors. The house never woke all at once. It stretched awake room by room, corridor by corridor, as though it needed time to remember the living were inside it.
Mallory did not remember falling asleep.
She woke to laughter echoing down the hallway.
It was bright loud and young—so different from the quiet hum that usually filled the house. For a moment she lay still beneath her blankets, staring at the ceiling while the sound bounced through the hallways like sunlight through glass.
Then she heard Calathea’s voice.
“—No, Mason, you absolutely cannot drive out here drunk tonight. I swear, if you do, I'll never talk to you again.”
Mallory groaned softly into her pillow.
Calathea’s voice was coming from somewhere down the hallway, amplified by speakerphone and accompanied by a chorus of other voices shouting through whatever group call she had going. The mansion’s old walls carried sound too well.
Mallory rubbed her eyes and pushed herself upright.
She had barely slept. Restlessness had followed her like a shadow the night before—pacing thoughts, strange dreams, and the lingering memory of that invisible barrier she still didn’t understand.
You did it to yourself, she thought.
She swung her legs out of bed and headed toward the kitchen.
The mansion greeted her with its usual quiet creaks and distant groans, like wood remembering how to breathe. Downstairs, sunlight poured through the kitchen windows, illuminating dust particles within it's stream. Small table pressed against the glass.
Calathea stood near the counter with her phone in hand, wandering circles through the kitchen as she talked.
“Yes! Like a little reunion thing,” Calathea said, grinning as voices blast through the speaker. “You guys haven’t even seen the place yet.”
Mallory moved silently past her to start the coffee.
Shelby’s voice crackled from the phone. “Is it actually haunted like you said?”
“Maybe,” Calathea laughed.
“Hell yeah,” Mason shouted through the speaker.
Mallory crinkled the bridge of her nose.
Coffee first. Questions later.
The machine sputtered to life. She grabbed eggs and bread from the fridge and began making breakfast with motive.
Calathea finally ended the call and plopped down at the little table by the window, bouncing slightly in her chair. The excitement radiating off her was impossible to miss.
Mallory poured two cups of coffee.
Without asking.
Without checking.
She already knew exactly how Calathea took it.
Hazelnut cream, and stir. Usually a gigantic mug...
Mallory carried the second mug over and set it down in front of her before taking the opposite chair.
Calathea wrapped her hands around the cup, but she didn’t drink yet.
Instead, she shifted nervously in her seat.
“Hey… Mallory?”
Mallory lifted her own cup slowly, eyes narrowing as she glanced out the window toward the distant tree line.
Her voice came out suspiciously flat.
“What.”
Calathea cautiously continued.
“So… my friends… from college…”
Mallory’s glare grew even narrower, staring out into the woods as though considering something very serious.
Calathea rushed the words out.
“They miss me and we were thinking maybe we could have a little get together tonight?”
Mallory kept staring outside.
Silent.
Calathea’s anxiety inched with every passing second.
Mallory slowly turned her head back toward her, lips pressed together as though weighing the fate of the world.
Then suddenly—
Her entire face broke into a huge grin.
“Let’s do it!”
Calathea squealed.
She shot out of her chair and threw her arms around Mallory in a tackle-hug that nearly knocked both cups of coffee onto the floor.
“THANK YOU!”
Mallory laughed, desperately trying to keep the coffee upright.
“Okay—okay—careful!”
They both managed to save the mugs at the last second.
Calathea bounced back into her chair like a kid who had just been told they were going to Disneyland.
“I have to tell them!”
She grabbed her phone and immediately began typing into the group chat.
Mallory leaned back in her chair, sipping her coffee.
Then she stood up and stretched.
“Well,” she said, grabbing her keys, “if we’re doing this we’re doing it right.”
Calathea looked up.
“What do you mean?”
Mallory shrugged.
“I need to drive into town. Three hours there, three hours back.”
Calathea’s eyes widened.
“Three hours?!”
“Groceries. Drinks. Decorations.” Mallory gestured toward the quiet kitchen. “This place needs to look a little less like a museum and a little more like a house.”
Calathea grinned.
“You’re the best.”
Mallory pointed her mug at her.
“Don’t make me regret this.”
The drive into town took longer than expected.
Mallory filled the back of her vehicle with groceries, snacks, alcohol, paper decorations, string lights, and far more supplies than a small get together actually required.
By the time she started the long drive back toward the mansion, the sun was already beginning to set.
Back at the house, Calathea had vastly underestimated her friends.
Her phone had been exploding all afternoon.
What she thought would be maybe eight people… turned into twenty.
Then thirty.
Then more.
By early evening, headlights were already appearing down the long gravel driveway.
Calathea stood on the front steps, stomach twisting.
“Oh my god.”
Cars kept pulling in, wrapping around the circular driveway.
Shelby was the first to run up and hug her.
“THIS PLACE IS INSANE.”
Jeffrey stumbled out of another car holding a case of beer.
“Calathea! You weren’t kidding!”
Mason and Douglas followed behind him, already laughing.
Soon the entire front of the mansion buzzed with college kids exploring the massive property like excited tourists.
Calathea tried to intercept them.
“Wait—guys—hold on—”
But the front doors had already opened.
The mansion swallowed them whole.
Music started not long after.
Someone found speakers.
Someone else found alcohol.
Within an hour the halls were alive with noise.
Laughter.
Music.
Footsteps running through rooms that had been quiet for decades.
The mansion hated it.
Deep in its bones, something stirred.
The spirits that lingered within its walls had tolerated Mallory.
They had watched Calathea carefully.
But this…
This chaos.
This disrespect.
Broken glass echoed through the wine cellar.
Jeffrey Douglas and Mason had found the heavy wooden door to the cellar.
Jeffrey’s laughter bounced off the stone walls.
“Dude—look at this place!”
He yanked a bottle from a rack.
Douglas shoved him.
“Careful, idiot!”
The bottle slipped.
CRASH.
Wine splattered across the stone floor.
The three men burst into drunken laughter.
“Calathea is gonna kill you!” Mason wheezed.
Jeffrey grabbed another bottle.
“Relax.”
They staggered deeper into the cellar, pushing each other, knocking bottles loose.
Glass shattered behind them.
The air in the cellar had grown warmer.
Humid.
Steam curled faintly along the far hallway.
Jeffrey blinked.
“Yo… what’s that?”
At the end of the corridor, a door stood slightly open.
Lights flickered inside.
Douglas shoved him again.
“Bathroom maybe?”
They stumbled toward it.
Inside was a large tiled room.
Mirrors lined the walls.
And in the center—
A massive sunken jacuzzi.
Water abruptly sputtered into it from the faucets.
Too abruptly.
The tub was already nearly full.
Douglas hesitated.
“Did someone leave this on?”
The water kept rising.
Soon it spilled over the edges.
Steam filled the room.
Hot.
Thick.
Mason laughed nervously.
“Okay that’s weird.”
The steam rose higher.
Within seconds the room turned into a fog.
Douglas waved his hand in front of his face.
“I can’t see shit.”
Jeffrey’s voice came from somewhere in the mist.
“Guys?”
Then—
A scream.
Raw.
Terrified.
“HELP—!”
Douglas spun toward the sound.
“Jeffrey?!”
Mason stumbled forward blindly.
“Where are you?!”
The steam thickened.
Neither of them could see more than a few inches ahead.
“JEFFREY!”
The screaming stopped.
Silence swallowed the room.
The mirrors along the walls began to tremble.
And somewhere beyond the steam—
Something moved...
Mallory’s headlights swept across the long gravel driveway as she approached the mansion.
Her stomach dropped.
Cars.
So many cars.
They lined the driveway in uneven rows, stretching toward the trees like a small parking lot that had grown overnight.
Mallory slowed the truck to a crawl.
“…you’ve got to be kidding me.”
Music pulsed faintly from inside the mansion, the bass thumping against the old stone walls. Colored lights flickered through the tall windows like distant lightning.
She parked near the front steps and climbed out, staring at the crowd of unfamiliar vehicles.
The house looked alive.
Too alive.
Mallory grabbed her keys and pushed through the front doors.
The music hit her immediately.
Voices.
Laughter.
Dozens of people wandering the halls, drinks in hand, exploring the mansion like it was a historic attraction.
Mallory stood frozen for a moment, absorbing the chaos.
Then she spotted Calathea across the main hall.
Calathea saw her at the same moment.
Her face went pale.
“Oh no.”
She rushed across the room.
“Mallory—”
Mallory folded her arms.
Calathea was already apologizing before she even reached her.
“I swear I didn’t know this many people were coming.”
Mallory glanced around at the crowd.
Someone had hung string lights across the banister.
Two people were dancing near the staircase.
Someone else had dragged a chair into the hallway.
Calathea rubbed the back of her neck nervously.
“It… kinda got out of hand.”
Mallory exhaled slowly.
The music thumped again.
She walked over to the speaker setup someone had placed near the living room doorway and turned the volume down a few notches.
Not enough to kill the party.
Just enough to breathe.
“That’s better,” she muttered.
Calathea watched her carefully.
“You’re not mad?”
Mallory gave her a sideways glance.
“Oh, I’m definitely mad.”
Calathea frowned.
“But,” Mallory added, analyzing the room again, “it’s already happening.”
Calathea’s shoulders loosened slightly.
From across the room, Mason and Douglas emerged from the cellar hallway laughing.
They were both slightly damp with condensation from the basement.
“Yo!” Mason called.
Calathea turned toward them.
“Where’s Jeffrey?”
Douglas shrugged.
“That idiot’s still down there probably.”
Mason took a drink from his cup.
“He’s messing with us.”
Calathea leered.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s this huge jacuzzi down there,” Mason said, gesturing vaguely toward the basement door. “Water was running like crazy.”
Douglas nodded in agreeance.
“Yeah, overflowing and everything.”
Mallory stiffened.
Mason continued.
“We shut it off though.”
Calathea laughed awkwardly.
“Well… good?”
But Mallory had gone very still.
The room faded slightly around her.
A memory flickered to life in her mind.
The steam.
The mirrors.
The water rising.
The invisible barrier she had stumbled through.
Mallory’s stomach twisted.
I turned it off.
She knew she had.
The thought lodged in her chest like a splinter.
How was it running again?
She blinked and forced herself back into the moment.
“Hey,” she said loudly, clapping her hands once. “If anyone wants food or drinks, I just spent six hours driving to get them.”
That got attention.
Several people perked up.
Brandy immediately stepped forward.
“I’ll help!”
Shelby joined her.
“Same.”
Mason lifted his cup.
“I can carry stuff.”
Douglas shrugged and followed along.
Within minutes a small group headed outside with Mallory.
They opened the truck bed.
Groceries filled every inch.
“Damn,” Shelby laughed. “You planned a whole festival.”
Mallory shrugged.
“I figured ten people.”
They started hauling bags inside.
Cases of drinks.
Snacks.
Decorations.
Brandy hung up paper lanterns along the entryway.
Shelby helped set up food along the kitchen counters.
Mason and Douglas carried in the heavier coolers.
Within half an hour the mansion looked transformed.
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Tables filled with food.
Music playing.
People laughing and dancing under the soft glow of the decorations.
For the first time since arriving here, the mansion looked like it belonged to the living again.
Mallory leaned against the counter and scanned the crowd.
Her eyes moved slowly from face to face.
Shelby.
Brandy.
Mason.
Douglas.
But not—
Jeffrey.
Her stomach tightened.
She waited a few minutes.
Then a few more.
Still nothing.
Mallory pushed herself off the counter.
“Calathea,” she said quietly.
Calathea turned.
“Yeah?”
“Have you seen Jeffrey?”
Calathea blinked.
“…no.”
Mallory nodded slowly.
“I’m gonna go check downstairs.”
Calathea didn’t think much of it.
“Okay.”
Mallory walked down the hallway toward the cellar door.
The music faded behind her with every step.
The corridor grew quieter.
Cooler.
The heavy wooden cellar door waited at the end of the hall.
Mallory reached for the handle.
But paused.
Something caught her eye.
The metal plate on the door reflected the faintest sliver of light.
And within that reflection—
A face.
Jeffrey.
Distorted.
Panicked.
Mallory jerked her hand back.
“What—”
The reflection dissolved instantly.
Just the metal again.
Her heart pounded.
“Okay…” she whispered to herself.
She grabbed the handle and opened the door.
Warm air rolled up the staircase.
Steam.
Thick and damp.
Mallory descended slowly.
Each step creaked beneath her feet.
The cellar looked different now.
Hazy.
Fog clung to the floor and walls.
At the end of the corridor, the bathroom door stood open.
Steam poured from inside.
Mallory stepped through.
The mirrors were clouded.
Water dripped across the tiles.
The massive jacuzzi sat in the center of the room.
Still full.
Steam curling across its surface.
Mallory approached cautiously.
The water was strangely calm.
Too calm.
She leaned closer.
Something moved beneath the surface.
Darkness.
A shadow drifting through the water.
Mallory squinted.
“…Jeffrey?”
The shadow shifted.
Then shimmered.
Like light reflecting off glass.
She stepped closer.
The darkness moved again.
Not a shadow.
A shape.
A flicker.
Jeffrey.
Or something that looked like him.
Mallory leaned farther over the edge of the tub, trying to follow the shimmer moving through the water.
It drifted deeper.
Further.
Her foot touched the edge.
Then the tile.
Then—
Without realizing it—
Mallory stepped into the jacuzzi.
The warm water wrapped around her legs.
But she barely noticed.
Her eyes were locked on the shimmer ahead.
Another flicker of Jeffrey’s shape moved through the water like a reflection sliding across glass.
Mallory followed it.
Step by step.
Deeper into the steaming tub.
The steam thickened around her.
The mirrors along the walls trembled slightly.
The shimmer moved again.
Further into the water.
Mallory followed.
And followed.
Until the world outside the steam disappeared.
The water should have been warm.
Mallory felt none of it.
The steam thickened until the bathroom disappeared completely. The mirrors, the tiles, the sound of the party upstairs—everything dissolved into a gray haze.
Mallory took another step forward.
The surface beneath her foot changed.
Not tile.
Carpet.
She blinked.
The steam peeled away in slow drifting ribbons.
Mallory froze.
She was no longer standing in the jacuzzi.
She stood in the middle of a college dorm room.
Posters covered the walls. A cluttered desk overflowed with textbooks and empty soda cans. Two twin beds sat on opposite sides of the room, one unmade, the other buried under a pile of clothes.
The hum of fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead.
Mallory slowly turned in place.
“What…?”
Voices came from behind her.
Familiar voices.
Mallory spun toward the sound.
On the far side of the room sat Mason, Douglas, and Jeffrey.
They were crowded around Jeffrey’s phone sitting on a desk, laughing.
The screen displayed a group call.
Calathea’s face filled most of it.
Mallory’s breath caught.
She recognized this moment instantly.
This had happened a week ago.
The night they had all been planning the trip.
Jeffrey leaned toward the phone camera.
“Okay but seriously,” he said, grinning, “is this place actually haunted?”
Calathea rolled her eyes through the screen.
“I never said haunted.”
“You absolutely implied haunted,” Mason laughed.
Douglas leaned back in his chair.
“I’m still saying we throw a party there.”
Jeffrey raised his cup.
“To haunted mansion party!”
They all laughed.
Mallory stood only a few feet away.
Invisible.
She stepped closer.
No one reacted.
Her boots made no sound against the floor.
“…Hello?” she said quietly.
Nothing.
Jeffrey kept talking, completely unaware of her presence.
Mallory circled them slowly.
This wasn’t a memory.
It felt too real.
Too solid.
Too alive.
She reached out toward Mason’s shoulder.
Her hand passed straight through him.
Mallory pulled back quickly.
Her heart pounded.
“I’m not here,” she whispered to herself.
Or maybe—
She looked around the dorm room again.
The air felt strange. Like a place made from reflection instead of matter.
"I'm within their past?" she whispered.
Mallory walked past the three men toward the dorm room door.
For a moment it was as if she could see another person sitting next to Douglas. But-it wasn't. There behind him sat a distorted shadow. Eyes bulging. Burned skin. Hands gently moving toward Douglas.
Mallory squeezes her eyes shut.
"It's gone." She whispered.
If this place was showing her something—
It had to be for a reason.
Behind her, the conversation continued.
Douglas was laughing again.
“You know what would be wild?”
“What?” Mason asked.
“If we actually found ghosts.”
Jeffrey smirked.
“Then we’d be famous.”
Mallory glanced back at them.
Something in her chest tightened.
“You’re closer than you think,” she muttered.
She stepped into the hallway.
The dorm corridor stretched far longer than it should have.
Doors lined the walls on both sides.
But something felt wrong.
The hallway bent subtly, like space folding inward.
Mallory walked.
Her footsteps made no sound.
The voices behind her faded.
Door after door passed her.
Each one slightly different.
Each one carrying faint sounds behind it.
Laughter.
Arguments.
Music.
Moments frozen in time.
The Median wasn’t just a place.
It was moments.
Mallory’s mind raced.
Why can I walk here?
Why could I walk out before?
Can anyone else?
The spirits in the mansion had been trapped in fragments like these.
But Mallory had stepped through.
And stepped back.
She kept walking.
Then she heard something.
Not laughter.
Not music.
A voice.
Weak.
Panicked.
“Hello?”
Mallory stopped.
“…Jeffrey?”
The voice came from farther down the hall.
She started moving faster.
“HELLO?!” the voice shouted again.
Mallory broke into a run.
The hallway stretched longer with every step.
Doors blurred past her.
“Jeffrey!” she shouted.
He couldn’t hear her.
But she ran anyway.
Finally—
One door at the end of the corridor stood slightly open.
Steam curled out from beneath it.
Mallory slowed.
Her stomach twisted.
She knew that steam.
The cellar bathroom.
The jacuzzi.
She pushed the door open.
Inside—
The room flickered between two places.
The tiled jacuzzi room.
And the dorm room.
Both layered on top of each other like reflections in broken glass.
And in the center—
Jeffrey.
He stood waist-deep in water that wasn’t there.
His arms flailed wildly as he turned in circles.
“I CAN’T SEE ANYTHING!”
Mallory rushed toward him.
“Jeffrey!”
He spun again.
Panicked.
Lost.
Mallory stopped inches away.
He looked straight through her.
Terror filled his eyes.
Mallory’s chest tightened.
He wasn’t just lost.
He was trapped between worlds.
And the Median was closing around him.
“Jeffrey!”
Mallory lunged forward.
Jeffrey spun in the mist, arms reaching blindly through the steam.
“I CAN’T SEE—”
Mallory grabbed for his arm.
Her fingers passed through him.
Like smoke.
“No—”
She tried again.
This time she aimed for his shoulder.
“Jeffrey, listen to me!”
Her hand met nothing but cold air.
Jeffrey stumbled backward through the shifting room, still waist-deep in water that existed in one world but not the other.
Mallory could see it now—the strange overlap.
The tiled jacuzzi room flickered over the dorm.
Two realities occupying the same space.
Jeffrey was caught between them.
“Hold still!” Mallory shouted, though she knew he couldn’t hear her.
She stepped forward again, desperate now, reaching for him one more time.
Her boot slipped.
Mallory lost her balance.
Her foot slid over the invisible edge of the tub—
—and suddenly gravity returned.
She dropped hard into the water.
The splash echoed sharply against tile.
The world snapped back into place.
The dorm vanished.
The hallway vanished.
The flickering overlap dissolved like a dream breaking apart.
Mallory surfaced in the steaming jacuzzi, coughing as water splashed across her face.
The mirrors lined the walls again.
The tile was solid beneath her hands.
The dorm room was gone.
Jeffrey was gone.
Mallory pushed wet hair out of her face, breathing hard.
For several seconds she simply sat there, staring into the fog curling above the water.
Her heart raced.
It had felt so real.
Not like a dream.
Not like a memory.
She had walked there.
Seen them.
Seen Jeffrey trapped inside that strange fractured moment.
Mallory slowly climbed out of the tub, water dripping onto the tile.
She looked back into the jacuzzi.
The surface was calm again.
Silent.
No shadows.
No shimmer.
No sign that anything had ever been there.
Mallory whispered under her breath.
"It's real..."
The word felt heavier now.
Real.
She didn’t know how she had stepped into it.
And worse—
She didn’t know how to get back.
But one thing was certain.
Jeffrey wasn’t dead.
He wasn’t gone.
He was trapped.
And the Median had taken him.
Mallory wiped her hands across her face, trying to steady herself.
Upstairs the party continued.
Music thumped faintly through the ceiling.
Laughter.
Footsteps.
Life continuing like nothing had happened.
Mallory stared at the fog slowly dissipating in the bathroom.
“How do I get you back?” she whispered.
But the room gave no answer.
Upstairs, the mansion was still alive with noise.
Lights glowed warm across the halls.
Students filled the rooms with chatter and music.
Calathea laughed as she climbed the staircase, shaking her head.
“Mason is such an idiot,” she muttered to herself.
He had just attempted to open a beer bottle with the edge of the kitchen counter and nearly launched it across the room.
Shelby had to see it.
Calathea reached the top of the staircase and walked down the upstairs hall.
“Shelby!” she called.
No answer.
She continued down the hallway toward Shelby.
As she passed the wall of old frames hanging along the corridor, something caught her eye.
She slowed.
One of the frames had been turned around.
Just empty linen stretched across old wood.
Calathea stopped.
The painting wasn’t blank anymore.
Her brow furrowed.
“…That’s weird.”
She stepped closer.
Something had begun forming on the canvas.
At first it looked like smudged charcoal.
Dark strokes spreading across the fabric.
But as Calathea leaned closer—
The shape sharpened.
A face.
A man’s face.
Incomplete.
Half-formed.
But unmistakable.
Calathea’s stomach dropped.
“…Jeffrey?”
The brush strokes continued to move.
Slowly.
As if an invisible hand were painting.
Dark lines carved out the shape of his mouth.
His eyes.
Wide.
Terrified.
Frozen mid-scream.
Calathea staggered back a step.
The painting grew darker.
More detailed.
Jeffrey’s face pushed further through the canvas like something trying to emerge from the other side.
And deep within the mansion—
Something was satisfied
