I
Beyond the road where pale mists creep,
There stands a house the night has claimed,
Its windows stare, they never sleep,
Its doors remember what was named.
The wind moves slow through broken stone,
Like breath that rises from the grave,
And every step you take alone
Awakes the things the dark once gave.
II
The moon hangs thin above the hill,
A silver wound in frozen sky,
The trees stand bent and deathly still
As though they heard a distant cry.
No bird will sing, no dog will roam,
No lantern dares to light that land,
For shadows guard the silent home
Like ancient wardens made of sand.
III
One traveler came through storm and rain,
His cloak was torn, his face was pale,
He sought a roof to ease his pain,
A fire, a chair, a simple ale.
He knocked upon the rusted gate,
The iron rang a hollow tone,
As if the house had learned to wait
For wandering souls to call its own.
IV
The door swung wide with ghostly grace,
No hand had touched its rotting frame,
Yet in the dark and empty place
A whisper softly spoke his name.
The candle shook within his hand,
Its trembling flame grew weak and thin,
While somewhere deep beneath the land
A laugh began to stir within.
V
The hallway breathed a breath of frost,
The portraits watched with hollow eyes,
Each face appeared forever lost
Inside forgotten lullabies.
The traveler felt the creeping chill
Of unseen footsteps on the stair,
And in the silence cold and still
A presence gathered in the air.
VI
A mirror cracked along the wall
Reflected shapes that were not there,
Tall shadows moved along the hall
Like drifting smoke of black despair.
He called for help with shaking voice,
No answer came from roof or floor,
Except a sigh without a choice
That slowly closed the ancient door.
VII
From deeper rooms a sound arose,
A dragging step, a brittle groan,
As though the earth itself disclosed
A sorrow carved in flesh and bone.
The candle died, the darkness grew,
A cloak of ink around his sight,
And something breathed behind him too—
A hunger older than the night.
VIII
Two hollow eyes began to glow
Within the corner of the room,
A face of dust and death below
The silent ceiling of the gloom.
Its fingers stretched like broken roots
That clawed the cold and waiting air,
And every breath the traveler loosed
Was answered by a darker stare.
IX
He tried to run, but walls had turned,
The hallways twisted like a maze,
The ancient house had slowly learned
To fold the path in crooked ways.
Each door revealed another shade,
Each stairway sank in deeper dread,
Until the very floor was made
Of whispers rising from the dead.
X
Then all the shadows gathered near,
A circle formed around his breath,
Their murmurs thick with frozen fear,
Their voices old as silent death.
They spoke his name in hollow tone,
As if it once had lived below,
A soul that now was coming home
To join the dark they used to know.
XI
And when the storm had passed away
The road lay empty, cold and bare,
But those who wander there by day
Still feel a watchful presence there.
For in the house a candle glows
Where none had burned the night before,
And someone walks where no one goes
Beyond the rusted, waiting door.
XII
So if you hear the distant call
Of wind that sighs your hidden name,
Turn not your steps toward that hall
Nor seek the house of silent flame.
For once inside its breathing stone
No soul returns the way it came—
The dark will claim you as its own
And learn forever how you came.