Legends VII – The House No One Built

Mysterious House in Foggy Landscape with Warm Glow
52
0
  • Michael Wischniewski's avatar Artist
    Michael Wi...
  • Prompt
    Read prompt
  • DDG Model
    FluX
  • Access
    Public
  • Created
    2h ago
  • Try

More about Legends VII – The House No One Built

It is said that the house appears only to those who have lost their name in dreams. No place on any map, no path leading there, and yet many have entered it. I don't remember how I arrived—only that I awoke in a meadow that smelled of mist. In the first dawn, it stood before me, half shadow, half memory, with a roof that bent into the wind as if listening. No stone was the same. Walls flowed into one another like forgotten thoughts, doors breathed softly. I should have turned around, but he who is nameless knows no turning back. The first room was a hallway with windows facing inward. Behind each pane, I saw a scene from my life, and yet I was missing from it. People I knew were laughing, eating, waiting—without the place where I should have been sitting. I moved on. The floor creaked as if narrating itself, and the light came not from lamps, but from the things that seemed to deserve it: a broken spoon, a child's boot, a letter without an address. In the second room, snow was falling. No roof, no cold, only flakes floating slowly around an old bed, as if afraid to land. I approached, and my breath left no trace. On the pillow lay an imprint, like that of someone who had just gotten up. Next to it, a note: "He who sleeps, remembers the house." I didn't understand it, so I kept going, down into a stairwell that drew itself—each step pulled the next step out of the gloom. In the third room, the smell of wet earth hung. Shelves full of jars containing not things, but sounds: the cracking of a log, the rustling of a dress, a name someone almost said. I opened one of the jars, and the sound that escaped was my own first scream. The house responded by growing a new door, precisely where none existed. I stepped through. The fourth room was a hall with walls of water. In every plane, faces flowed by, some familiar, some never seen, all glancing up at me briefly, as if to name me. I asked quietly what the house wanted from me. It answered with a movement: the hall began to narrow, not threateningly, but like a breath taking something in. I found myself in the last room. It was small, plain, furnished with things that belonged to me—only older, worn, as if they had outlived me. On the table lay a book with my name on the cover. When I opened it, every page was blank except the last: You found yourself by losing yourself. Then I knew that the house didn't shelter me, but remembered me. Outside, it was still twilight. I stepped out, and the building seemed to breathe, as if it wanted to dissolve back into mist. I walked, and with every step it faded, until nothing remained but a chill in the air, lingering like a thought. In my pocket, I found a glass key—transparent, formless, soft as water. When I hold it up to the light, I sometimes see a room I don't know, but miss exactly. Sometimes I wake up in the night and am sure the ceiling is breathing. Then I know: the house hasn't abandoned me. It has simply rearranged its walls.

Comments


Loading Dream Comments...

Discover more dreams from this artist