It Lives Within

Chapter 4: Rising Walls

As I grew upward, day by day, my awareness expanded with each new beam and board. But it was through Harold Blackwood that I first learned about transformation - not the gradual kind that shaped me from foundation to roof, but the violent metamorphosis of a soul corrupted by its own desires.

I remember him as he was in the beginning - precise movements, clean-lined suits, voice steady with purpose. Now his footsteps stumble through my unfinished corridors, each one sending discordant vibrations through my frame. His hands, once sure in their measurements, shake as they trace symbols into my walls that make my newly-formed timbers cringe.

"Mr. Blackwood?" Thomas approaches one morning, his boots careful on my rough floors. I feel his fear in the quickened pulse that travels through his feet to my boards. "Some of the men... they're concerned."

Blackwood's response ripples through me - not just his voice, but the wrongness that now clings to him like a second skin. "Concerned?" The word tastes of copper and decay. "About what, precisely?"

"The changes to the plans, sir. These new rooms..." Thomas gestures at walls that shouldn't exist, angles that hurt to contemplate. "They don't make sense."

"Sense?" Blackwood laughs, and I feel my boards warp slightly at the sound. "Oh, they make perfect sense, Thomas. Perfect sense indeed. You simply lack the vision to see it."

I wish I lacked that vision too. But with each new addition, each twisted corridor and sealed chamber, I understand more of what I'm becoming. Blackwood builds his madness into my very bones, and I cannot stop him. I am his creation, his vessel, his sacrifice to something that should remain sleeping.

The workers feel it too. Their hammers strike with hesitation now, their saws bite my wood as if afraid of what might bleed out. They whisper when they think Blackwood can't hear, but I hear everything within my walls.

"Did you see what he buried in the east corner?"

"Don't talk about it. Just don't."

"My wife says I speak strange words in my sleep now..."

They leave, one by one, replaced by others too desperate or too naive to heed the warnings in my crooked shadows. I want to warn them too, but I am still learning what I am, still discovering the limits of my cursed existence.

Then comes the day that breaks what remains of Blackwood's humanity.

The messenger's horse refuses to approach my threshold, its hooves striking sparks from the gravel as it dances backward. Even animals sense what I'm becoming. The boy holds out the letter like a ward, eager to be away from my lengthening shadows.

Blackwood emerges from my depths, and I feel his connection to me vibrate with each step - architect and creation, master and monster. His clothes hang loose on his frame now; I've watched him forget to eat, forget to sleep, forget everything but his obsession. But when he takes the letter, I feel something different pulse through my boards. Something human.

I recognize Eleanor's handwriting on the envelope from the times she's visited, trying to reach the man I remember from my earliest days. Blackwood's hands - usually so sure in their cruelty - tremble as he breaks the seal.

"My dearest Harold," he reads aloud, his voice carrying to my furthest corners. "I have loved you since we were young, since your dreams were of building beautiful things. I have watched you dream bigger dreams, grander dreams. I told myself this obsession would pass, that my love could anchor you to the world I know..."

He sinks to his knees on my unfinished floors, and I feel his grief seep into my foundations like rain. "But I don't know you anymore, my love. The man who kissed me beneath the willow trees, who spoke of creating homes for growing families - he's vanished into this monstrosity you're building."

"No," Blackwood whispers, pressing his palm flat against my boards. For the first time, his touch holds no command, no darkness - only loss. "Eleanor, please..."

"Your study fills with books that hurt my eyes to look upon. And the house..." Here he laughs, broken and human. "The house you're building feels wrong, Harold. It hungers. Whatever you're turning it into - whatever you're turning yourself into - I cannot bear to watch."

I feel wetness strike my floors - tears, simple human tears. How long since Blackwood has shed those instead of blood?

"I will always love the man you were," he reads, his voice cracking. "But I cannot follow where you're going. By the time you read this, I'll be at my sister's in Boston. Please don't try to find me. Please just remember who you once were, if you can."

"Your Eleanor"

For a moment that stretches like forever, Blackwood remains kneeling, one hand pressed to my floor, the other cradling the letter like something precious. His grief resonates through me, pure and clean and human. I feel it in every nail, every board - the love he's losing, the life he could have had.

Then... something shifts. The air grows thick, heavy with possibility. Blackwood's breath catches, then releases in a sound that's neither laugh nor sob. His fingers curl against my boards, nails scraping, and I feel the darkness rush back in - stronger now, hungrier, as if his grief has carved out space for something ancient to fill.

"Yes," he whispers, but his voice has changed, become something ragged and wrong. "Yes, of course. She couldn't understand. How could she? The sacrifices necessary... the greater purpose..."

He rises, and I feel the last traces of Harold Blackwood - the man who loved Eleanor, who dreamed of homes for families - fade like mist in morning sun. What stands in my halls now is something else, something that only wears Blackwood's skin.

"We don't need her," he tells my shadows, which curl toward him like hungry pets. "We need no one. The work... the great work continues."

He tears the letter to pieces, letting them fall like snow. As I watch the fragments of Eleanor's love scatter across my floors, I mourn not just for her loss, but for mine. My creator has truly gone, replaced by something that will shape me into horrors yet unknown.

That night, something changes in my depths. As Blackwood paces my halls I feel it stirring. The thing his rituals have been calling. The hunger he's been feeding with his own slowly consuming madness.

Lightning illuminates my unfinished walls, and in that stark brightness, I catch glimpses of what I'm becoming. I am a maze built to trap not bodies, but souls.

In what will become my heart - a room whose dimensions shift when no one's watching - Blackwood stands surrounded by guttering candles. Their light catches on the wetness of his eyes, the twist of his smile.

"Soon," he rasps, hands raised to my ceiling. "Soon the vessel will be ready. And then... then we shall awaken the sleeper!"

Thunder shakes my frame, and in that moment, I feel true terror. Not for myself - I am already lost, shaped by madness into something monstrous. No, I fear for those who will come after. The families who will seek shelter within my cursed walls, never knowing they're walking into a trap laid by a madman's grief and ambition.

As the storm rages, I try to count my rooms and find I cannot. Like Blackwood's sanity, like Eleanor's hope, like the workers' courage, they have become uncountable, unknowable, wrong.

I am his masterpiece, his sacrifice, his vessel for horrors yet to come. And I am so very, very afraid.