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Nailbiter Neverborn

Owen staggered through the house, room to room, barely looking, moving forward, always forward, even as his mind looped and looped—

Thoughts like carousel horses, round and round, the calliope playing.

Nick was in pain and you missed it. Nick was in pain and you missed it. Nick was in pain and you missed it.

Always up your own ass, Owen. Always about you you you YOU YOU, never about them. Selfish selfish, preening little ghost-boy narcissist, pale skin like a grub, sad body like a beach-dead jellyfish, selfish selfish, a lamprey leech eating eating eating. Parasite. Tick. Jealous of Matty. Hungry for Lore.

Doing nothing to earn their friendship.

Doing nothing for their love.

Wanting but not giving, weak little fucking shit, wish you were never born, wish you were never born, never born, NEVERBORN.

Can’t do shit can’t make shit won’t accomplish shit too cowardly to even kill yourself, instead you do it bit by bit, chewing this nail, biting that lip, grinding your teeth down to powder, picking a scab, plucking a hair, and the cuts, the little cuts, the Old Timer cuts, gentle cuts so that none can see, can’t even be smart enough so you cut yourself to get some fucking attention for once, I mean, wow, what the fuck, Owen. You could’ve killed yourself, but you didn’t. You could’ve shown others your little injuries, but you didn’t. Just more Owen, classic Owen, basic bitch Owen, doing the minimum and getting nothing out of it. Coward. Fool. Fuck up.

Nick was in pain and you missed it.

The others had their pain, too, but did you see it, did you help it, no no no, you didn’t, but now the staircase is here, the house is here.

Neverborn

Ghost boy

Parasite

Nailbiter.

—

Were these his thoughts?

Were they his father’s words? Had they buried themselves in his dirt so long ago that the plants that grew there felt like they were part of his garden instead of invasive root and choking vine?

Were they the thoughts of the house? Pushing into his soft stupid skull like fingers breaking apart warm bread?

Did it matter, if all the thoughts were right on the money?

—

The house hated him, he told himself. When the thoughts looped, he tried to put that thought in between them—

Neverborn

The house hates you

You missed Nick’s pain

The house hates you

You’re a parasite

The house hates you

Like a call and response inside his own mind, the spiraling thoughts like a buzzsaw, chewing into his sanity. Even as he stumbled through the house, back through rooms he remembered and more he did not, he felt its attentiveness to him. The house. It watched him. It saw him. It knew him. And like his own father, it hated him for reasons that, he realized, had nothing to do with him.

He was present, and so he was hated. He was Owen, and so he was hated. He was human, and so he was hated.

—

Every room, every wall, every floor, and every lamp—every water stain, every bloodstain, every shadow sliding through the wallpaper, every cabinet, every corner, every dead girl and drowned infant and hanged man, every tormenter and abuser and killer, every cat and parrot and pup, every cry in the dark, every face in the mirror, all of it part of the same pulsing throbbing raging hate. Tendrils and pseudopods of the greater beast: the endless house with its nightmare rooms.

It was angry, but that anger had purpose. It had direction.

It wanted something.

It wanted Owen.

—

It didn’t just want him. It needed him. He didn’t know why this was the case, but it was—he could feel its urgency. A new thought interjected itself into the loop: You can still make something of yourself yet, the voice, maybe his own voice, said. You can still do good work, Owen. If you’re strong. If you are brave. And most of all, if you are willing .

He passed by a hallway mirror. The wallpaper all around it swam and crawled. Ants from flowers. Spiders along vines. In the mirror, he could see the ghost of that wallpaper on his cheeks. He could see the glass in his eyes—the pupils crossed with windowpanes. His lips were dry stucco. His teeth were the columns of an old iron radiator, painted bone white.

The house wanted to fill him up.

His voice—or the house’s voice—told him:

If you let me all the way in, then I’ll let you out.

In for out.

It’s a bargain! What a steal!

He clenched his teeth, squeezed his eyes, and hurried away from the mirror.

The house doesn’t hate me, he realized. He’d been wrong. They’d all been wrong. Whoever carved the message in the very first room they found had been wrong, wrong, wrong. The house did not hate them. Not at all.

No, the house loved them.

—

Then, one more door, one more room. Even as he reached for it, he thought, I know what this is going to be . A little bit of prophecy foretold.

The room he’d been avoiding—

The room he’d been so afraid to find—

It found him.