Ethan learned the first truth on the third day.
The hunger did not scream.
It whispered.
He woke before dawn, sitting upright on the thin mattress in the village guesthouse, lungs burning as if he had been running. The room was dim, washed in grey light. For a few seconds, he didn't remember where he was—or why his chest felt so tight.
Then the breathing returned.
Slow.
Measured.
Patient.
It rose from somewhere deep inside him, expanding his ribs, settling into his bones like it had always belonged there.
Ethan pressed his palm against his sternum. His heartbeat felt wrong—not faster, not slower, but layered. One rhythm over another.
"I didn't agree to this," he whispered.
The breathing did not answer.
It never did.
Outside, the village was waking. Pots clanged. A rooster cried. Ordinary sounds—comforting, grounding—but they felt distant, muffled, as if Ethan were listening from underwater.
He stood and caught his reflection in the cracked mirror by the door.
At first glance, he looked the same.
Then he noticed the eyes.
They were too focused. Too alert. Like something inside him was always watching, measuring distances, counting people.
The thought made him step back.
"No," he said aloud. "You're not me."
His reflection did not blink.
The disappearances continued.
Quietly.
A shepherd didn't return from the hills. A woman went to fetch water and never came back. No blood. No signs of struggle. Just absence—clean and terrifying.
The villagers didn't accuse Ethan.
Not openly.
But they watched him now. Conversations stopped when he approached. Children were pulled indoors. Dogs growled low in their throats, refusing to come near.
Ethan understood.
So did the hunger.
It stirred when he passed people. A faint tightening, like interest. Like curiosity.
He clenched his fists, nails biting into his palms until pain cut through the sensation.
I will not feed you, he thought.
The hunger shifted, almost amused.
That night, Ethan returned to the ruins alone.
The moon hung low, casting pale light over broken stone and blackened earth. The air felt heavy, charged, like the moment before a storm.
He stood where the house's heart had once been.
"Show me," he said softly. "If you're going to live in me… show me."
The ground trembled.
Memories flooded him.
Not images—experiences.
He felt the house's first breath. The deal struck in fear. The countless lives offered to keep the thing beneath asleep. He felt each Walker before him—some willing, some broken, all consumed slowly, carefully.
The hunger wasn't cruel.
It was efficient.
It fed not on flesh, but on what made flesh human: regret, longing, unfinished love.
Ethan staggered, nearly falling to his knees.
"This is why you chose me," he whispered. "I remember too much."
The hunger pulsed.
Agreement.
A voice—not heard, but understood—formed in his mind.
You endure. That is rare.
Ethan laughed, a short, broken sound. "That's not praise."
It is suitability.
Something moved at the edge of the ruins.
Ethan turned sharply.
A figure stood among the stones—a woman, young, her dress torn, her face pale and hollow-eyed.
One of the missing.
"Please," she said softly. "I know you can hear me."
Ethan's chest tightened.
The hunger stirred.
Hungry.
"Go back," he said. "I can't help you."
The woman stepped closer. "It's cold," she whispered. "And it keeps showing me my children. Over and over. I just want it to stop."
Her pain washed over him like a wave.
And the hunger leaned forward.
Ethan screamed—not aloud, but inside—and shoved the feeling down with everything he had.
"No," he growled. "You don't get her."
The woman blinked.
Confused.
Then she was gone—dissolving into shadow, memory, absence.
Ethan collapsed to the ground, shaking.
The hunger recoiled slightly.
Resistance noted, it seemed to say.
That night, no one disappeared.
The fourth day was worse.
The hunger learned impatience.
Ethan felt it when he walked past the marketplace. A sharp pull toward a laughing group of young men. Toward an old man sitting alone, staring at nothing.
Choices.
Options.
The hunger didn't care who.
Ethan fled the village before it could decide for him.
He walked for hours, through fields and trees, until his legs ached and his throat burned. He reached the old road—the one that led out of Blackwood Hollow.
Freedom lay beyond it.
Ethan stepped onto the asphalt.
Pain exploded through his skull.
He fell, screaming, clutching his head as memories he did not own tore through him—every soul ever fed to the hunger, every scream swallowed, every promise broken.
The road darkened.
The air thickened.
A simple truth pressed itself into his mind:
The vessel does not leave.
Ethan sobbed, curled on the ground like a child.
"Then what do you want?" he begged.
For the first time, the hunger answered clearly.
Balance.
The word echoed inside him.
I am awake. I must eat. You will choose how.
Ethan lay there until night fell, the road cold beneath him.
When he finally stood, his face was wet with tears—and something else had settled inside him.
Resolve.
He returned to the village before dawn.
People watched from windows as he walked to the center square. He stood there, pale, exhausted, eyes burning with something dangerous and determined.
"I know what's happening," he said loudly.
A few villagers gathered, fear etched into every face.
"The house is gone," Ethan continued. "But what it held isn't."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
"It needs to feed," he said. "But it won't take randomly anymore."
Silence.
Ethan swallowed. "I won't allow it."
An old man stepped forward. "Then people will keep disappearing."
Ethan met his gaze. "No. Because I'll choose."
The word landed like a blade.
Gasps. Cries.
"You?" a woman whispered. "You'll decide who dies?"
Ethan shook his head slowly. "No. I'll decide who's already lost."
That night, he made the first choice.
A man dying slowly of sickness, wracked with pain, begging for relief. Ethan sat with him, held his hand, listened to his regrets, his love, his fear.
When the hunger fed, it was gentle.
Quick.
The man died smiling.
The village slept peacefully for the first time in weeks.
Ethan did not.
He sat alone, shaking, staring at his hands.
The hunger was quiet now.
Satisfied.
But not full.
From the darkness, a thought surfaced—cold and undeniable.
This was not an ending.
It was a beginning.
And as Ethan closed his eyes, he understood the final truth:
The house had not been destroyed.
It had evolved.
And it had learned something far more dangerous than hunger.
It had learned mercy.