The staircase felt aged than the house above it, as if it had been sculpted long before the Rahman family ever erected their estate. Each step moaned beneath our weight, echoing into the darkness below, swallowed incontinently by air so still it felt untouched by time. My flashlight ray wobbled as we descended, the narrow walls closing in around us, the smell of iron growing thicker with every step. Farhan stayed behind me,

You know how some recollections do n’t fade, no matter how numerous times you put between yourself and the moment? This story starts with one of those. It begins on a night when the wind felt sharp enough to slice through clothes, and the sky hung low like it was harkening in on every step I took. That was the first time I saw the house — the place that would come the center of everything that followed, the place where the iron casket awaited like commodity alive. I had n’t planned to be anywhere near the old Rahman Estate. People avoided it for reasons no bone could explain with a straight face. townies rumored effects, but the moment