The knocking didn’t stop.

  It wasn't frantic pounding; it was polite, patient. As if the person on the other side had all the time in the world.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  I pressed my back against the bedroom wall, eyes wide and useless in the dark. My mind raced through the man's rules.

  Fourth rule: A door that must remain closed. Do not open it.

  "Jun? Are you in there?"

  The voice was muffled by the heavy wood, but it jolted icy adrenaline through my chest. It was my uncle—rough, slightly accented, with that familiar low chuckle.

  "I forgot to tell you where the spare blankets were. It gets cold in this house. Open up, Jun. I’ve got a thermos of tea."

  My hand moved before I could stop it. Reflex. The sound of family, of safety, calling in a place that felt like a nightmare.

  Halfway off the bed, the old woman’s face flashed in my mind.

  Attention invites correction.

  I bit my lip until I tasted copper. Don’t answer. Do not answer.

  The voice shifted. Warmth evaporated, replaced by flat, hollow tones.

  "I know you're awake, Jun. I can hear your heart. It’s very loud."

  Then the scratching began. Not fingernails, but something harder—like dry bone dragging down the length of the door.

  Screeeee.

  Screeeee.

  I pulled the moth-eaten blanket over my head, curling into a ball. Eventually, the scratching stopped.

  The silence that followed was worse. It felt like the house itself leaned in, listening to me breathe.

  Then, a new sound drifted from the kitchen.

  Clink.

  Ceramic hitting wood. Followed by the rhythmic clack-clack of chopsticks against each other.

  I had forgotten the third rule.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Every household sets an extra bowl. It stays empty.

  I hadn’t set the table. I had just dropped my bag and collapsed in terror.

  My stomach twisted. If the bowl was supposed to be empty, and I hadn't set one… was the "guest" looking for a place to sit?

  I forced myself to stand. Legs like water. Moving by touch, I crept toward the kitchen.

  The hallway air was freezing, smelling of stagnant water and something metallic, like a butcher’s shop at the end of a long day.

  I reached the kitchen table. In the faint, grey starlight filtering through the grime of the windows, I saw it.

  There was a bowl on the table. I hadn’t put it there.

  It wasn’t empty. It was heaped with something dark and wet that glistened in the shadows.

  And sitting in the chair—the one that should have been vacant—was a shape.

  Not a person. A silhouette that seemed to absorb what little light remained. It sat perfectly still, head tilted at an impossible angle.

  Clack. Clack.

  The shape lifted a pair of chopsticks. It wasn’t eating. It was moving the dark pile from one side of the bowl to the other.

  "You're late," a voice whispered.

  It wasn’t my uncle. It wasn’t the man from the street.

  It was dozens of voices layered together—whispering, screaming, sobbing all at once.

  "The bowl was missing," the voices said. "So we had to find our own."

  The shape turned its head. I couldn’t see eyes, but I felt a gaze—cold, ancient, hungry—sweep over me.

  "Sit," it commanded.

  My body moved as if pulled by invisible wires. I sat opposite it, hands trembling over the second set of chopsticks.

  "Eat," the voices hissed.

  I looked down. My bowl was filled with white rice, but drops of something dark fell from the ceiling, landing in the center.

  I didn’t look up. I knew where it had come from.

  I took a bite. The rice tasted like dirt and old copper. I chewed, swallowed, and stared at the empty space where a face should have been.

  "Good," the guest whispered. "A polite boy. Not like the one before. He tried to leave."

  The shape leaned forward. I could smell it now—the overwhelming scent of a freshly opened grave.

  "Do you want to know where he went, Jun?"

  My phone vibrated sharply in my pocket.

  I didn’t move. I didn’t look. But the guest’s “head” twitched toward the sound.

  "A light," the voices murmured, predatory hunger rising. "You have a light in your pocket, don’t you? Show it to us. We want to see your face when we tell you the rest."

  The shape’s fingers—long, grey, jagged—crept toward my pocket.

  At that moment, the wind outside howled through the cracks in the walls.

  A red cloth strip, torn from the village post, whipped against the window.

  The guest froze. It pulled back, hissing.

  "The wind is counting," the voices whispered. "Hide, little bird. The ceremony is starting early."

  In a blink, the chair was empty. The bowl was gone. The grave smell vanished, replaced by the sharp, ozonic scent of a coming storm.

  I sat alone, heart hammering. My thumb hovered over the power button. I needed to see. To know I was still in a kitchen and not a tomb.

  But then, I remembered the old woman's warning.

  I looked at the window instead. Outside, the pitch-black village held a single, tiny yellow flame.

  A candle.

  Someone had broken the first rule.

  A second later, a scream ripped through the night—raw, agonized, inhuman. Then, abruptly, silence.

  The candle didn’t blow out. It was snuffed, as if a giant hand had pinched the world shut.

  My phone buzzed again.

  Unknown Sender:

  One has been corrected. Ninety-nine remain. Don’t be ninety-eight.

  I stared at the screen. The blackness of the room seemed to crawl into my eyes.

  I wasn’t just in a village with weird rules.

  I was in a countdown.