The scream hadn’t just ended; it had been erased.

  I stayed pinned to my chair long after the silence returned. My breath came in shallow, jagged hitches. The glow from my phone had timed out, plunging the kitchen into darkness so thick it felt like wool in my throat.

  Don’t be ninety-eight.

  The message burned in the back of my mind. This wasn’t folklore or eccentric tradition. It was a system. A ledger. And the village was balancing its books.

  I didn’t sleep. You don’t sleep when the walls are waiting to speak. I sat against the kitchen cabinets, clutching a heavy iron ladle—the only weapon I could find—until the first grey light of dawn bled through the window grime.

  Daylight didn’t bring warmth. It revealed the village for what it was: a skeletal collection of grey wood and cold ash.

  I stepped outside. My limbs were stiff. Across the lane, the house where the candle had flared was different. Not burned. Not broken. Vacant.

  The front door stood wide open. A small crowd of villagers had already gathered. They didn’t speak. They didn’t cry. They just stood in a semi-circle, watching.

  The man who had led me here yesterday—the smoker—was there. He wasn’t smoking. He was staring at the porch.

  "What happened?" I whispered, my voice cracking.

  He didn’t look at me. "Someone looked for the light. They found the correction instead."

  Driven by a desperate need to know, I pushed past him and looked inside.

  The interior was pristine. No blood. No struggle. But on the floor, where the candle had been, lay a pile of clothes: a shirt, trousers, and socks, perfectly laid out, as if the wearer had simply evaporated.

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  It was the table that made my stomach turn.

  Three bowls were set for breakfast. Two filled with steaming porridge. The third was empty.

  A woman stood by the stove, stirring a pot. Her eyes were vacant. Her movements mechanical.

  "Ma’am?" I asked, voice trembling. "Your… your husband? The person who lived here?"

  She stopped stirring. Polite, puzzled. "I live alone, young man. I’ve always lived alone. Would you like some tea?"

  A cold shiver ran down my spine. I looked at the man outside. "She’s in shock. We have to call someone. We have to—"

  "Call who?" he interrupted, flat, emotionless. "There is no one missing. Look at the post."

  He pointed to the village entrance. I ran. My lungs burned as I reached the wooden post with the red rags. The carved characters seemed sharper now, as if the wood had bled into the grooves.

  Next to the post was a tally mark scratched into the stone base. Fresh, dust still white.

  Underneath it, a name had been chiseled into the rock. Not my uncle's. The letters shifted before my eyes, the stone softening like wax, the name blurring until the surface was blank.

  "The village doesn’t keep ghosts," the man said, appearing behind me. "If you break a rule, the village corrects the mistake. It doesn’t just take your life. It takes your place in time."

  He leaned in, the scent of stale tobacco clinging. "To the world, that man never existed. His wife doesn’t remember him. His house doesn’t know him. Only the tally remains."

  I felt the world tilt. "Why do you remember? Why do I?"

  "Because we are the witnesses," he whispered. "The witnesses keep the rules alive. If no one remembered the price, no one would fear the debt."

  He touched one of the red rags. Damp. Not from rain.

  "Your uncle was a witness once," he said. "Until he decided he wanted to be a martyr."

  "Where is he?" I demanded, grabbing his sleeve. "Where is the Liu family house?"

  For the first time, genuine terror flickered in his eyes. He leaned close. Breath cold.

  "You’re standing in it, boy. This whole village is the Liu house. Your uncle didn’t invite you to visit. He invited you to take his turn."

  My phone buzzed violently. Fingers trembling, I pulled it out.

  Unknown Sender:

  The count is ninety-eight. The ceremony requires a tithe. Find the room with no windows before the sun hits the zenith, or you will be ninety-seven.

  The sun climbed. Shadows shrank.

  "Where is the room with no windows?" I screamed at him.

  He was already walking away, figure blurring into the grey mist, footsteps silent.

  I was alone in the village center. Then, I heard it.

  From the earth beneath my feet.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  The knocking wasn’t coming from a door. It was coming from the soil.