Her mother didn’t look up from her coffee. “What crack?”
Her parents noticed the change. Dinner became a negotiation. “Kendra, you’ve barely touched your food.” “Kendra, why are there maps of the house taped to your wall?” “Kendra, the school called again. They say you’re not paying attention in class.” kendra s obsession
December 22: I don’t need friends anymore. I have the house. The house loves me. Her mother didn’t look up from her coffee
Her friends thought it was a game at first. They’d come over and help her measure the crack with a fabric tape measure. 14.3 centimeters. Then 14.6. Then 15.1. “It’s growing,” Kendra would whisper, and her friends would laugh and say, “It’s just drywall, Ken.” “Kendra, you’ve barely touched your food
She began staying up late, listening. Not for monsters under the bed—those were childish things. She listened for the between sounds. The pause between the furnace kicking off and the refrigerator humming on. In that silence, she swore she could hear something. A low, slow pulse. Like a heart buried in the walls.
But drywall didn’t breathe. And Kendra was starting to think the house did.
She sat bolt upright in bed. The room was dark, but the crack glowed faintly—a thin, phosphorescent line against the plaster. Not a trick of the moonlight. Not a reflection from the streetlamp. A soft, internal light, like the belly of a firefly.