The red robe

After Grandfather's death, you'd made the decision to claim his abandoned house—two long years since anyone had lived within its walls. The place brimmed with ghosts of memory: your childhood bedroom frozen in time, his perpetually locked office that even he'd never granted you access to, and his bedroom that always carried the cloying sweetness of roses. The front door groaned open beneath your hand. Immediately, the scent assailed you—roses, thick and suffocating, woven through stale dust that hadn't been disturbed in years. The combination shouldn't have been unsettling, yet it crawled down your spine like ice water. Something was wrong. Two years of emptiness should have faded the rose fragrance to nothing, but instead it hung heavy in the air, almost fresh... almost alive. Your breath caught. The hallway stretched before you, darker than it should have been despite the afternoon light spilling through grimy windows.

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