The Snakes in the House
It began with a faint rustle behind the wall. The air in the room was motionless, and yet he thought he heard a subtle glide, like the whisper of an invisible hand brushing the plaster. He held his breath, listened, and the sound fell silent. Then, as he thought it a trick of his nerves, it returned, more rhythmic, closer, like a breath that wasn’t his. An undefined unease pressed against him, as if something long repressed had surfaced, a truth hidden deep within the structure of the house.
He rose, groped for the switch, but the lamp flickered only once and died. The room lay in half-light, wavering between shadow and memory. From the hallway came a new sound, a dry scrape that lodged in his mind. When he opened the door, there was only darkness, but the certainty of presence pressed down on him. A cool current brushed his ankle, as though something had slid past beneath him, too fast to catch.
He sought words, but none would form. The house replied itself: a creak in the beams, a dull knock from below. Then silence returned, the absolute kind, sharpening rather than soothing. He looked at the carpet, its lines and circles shifting as though the pattern itself stirred. From it emerged a contour, first vague, then sharp: a gleaming skin threading through the fabric.
He stepped back, but the vision would not be stopped. One snake slipped free, then another, until the carpet’s pattern revealed itself as a living net. Their bodies shimmered as though formed from shadow itself. He wondered if they saw him, if they sensed the fear thickening in his chest. But they moved indifferently, tasting the air with tongues that sliced it, as though he were no more than another shadow among many.
He turned to escape, but the hallway was already filled with endless gliding. The house itself seemed to breathe, to swell, exposing its hidden anatomy. Walls grew porous, doors dissolved. He was trapped inside a labyrinth not of architecture but of motion and silence. It struck him that he had never truly lived here alone, that the snakes had always been present, unseen until this morning.
Then his gaze caught the mirror in the living room. Within it he did not find his reflection but a face that belonged to him and yet was strange. Eyes widening, lips moving soundlessly, it stared back. Behind this figure, however, the tide of bodies kept flowing, filling the room without making a sound. He pressed his palm to the cold glass, his breath quickening as the snakes devoured the order of the house.
He wondered if he should run or stay. But where could he go? The house was no longer wood, stone, and glass. It had become a weave of skin, muscle, and hissing, a dwelling made of movement. And he was caught within it, not as its master but as its guest. A guest who had realized too late that the rooms he inhabited were never empty.
He closed his eyes and braced for the bite, the crush, the end. But nothing came. When he opened them again, the room was still, the walls quiet, the carpet inert. Only his heart raced, straining to escape. Perhaps it had been nothing but a dream, a waking delirium. Yet in the silence a certainty lingered: The snakes were there. They belonged to the house, hidden in every crack, and they were waiting.