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haunted stories go, that’s a pitiful example.”
    “Told ya. There is nothing special about my house. Except that it’s mine. Mine! Mine! Mine! ” She laughed and added with an ominous inflection. “And I shall turn it in my dream palace. Behold, you disbelievers.”
    “Fine, fine, I believe you.” He kissed her on her nose, then added in a serious tone. “Are you sure you don’t want me to help you. Honey, you look exhausted.”
    “Of course, I look exhausted. What would you expect? I lifted furniture the entire week. No, I can’t accept your help. I have to do this on my own. Please tell me that you understand this, sweetie. When it’s done, I promise I’ll let you serve drinks at the house warming party.”
    “Oh boy. I’m engaged to a slave driver. Fear not. I already have a few recipes for-”
    He grinned at her, but Lydia already snored quietly, with her mouth opened.
     
    彡彡彡
     
    In her sleep, the house metamorphosed from a half-collapsed construction into a man, who reminded her of the cheesy romance covers.
    “Call me Phrixus,” the he-house warbled, in a voice that vibrated inside her soul. He resembled Tyler a little—though that had to have been because all her lovers mirrored the same paradigm of masculine beauty, one she had crafted when she had been twelve.
    “That’s a strange name,” she mused, basking in the other’s charm.
    “It’s Greek. Phrixus and Helle—twins, offsprings of a minor king and a minor goddess. I thought it would be a suitable analogy.” His words streamed towards her like a mountain creek in the spring, joyous and enchanting.
    “And whose twin are you?”
    “Yours of course. You and I, we were made for each other.”
     
    彡彡彡
     
    ‘DIE!’
    ‘DIE!’
    ‘DIE!’
    Too many inscriptions still mutilated the walls of her home. Nancy had advanced no theory about who had vandalized the house—or when —and the questions had nagged Lydia, despite her struggle to ignore them. They ensnared her mind, even during her sleep. For reasons she couldn’t explain, the graffiti didn’t seem teenage handiwork.
    Lydia glowered and raked on the wall of the guest bedroom, the scraper an inadequate tool against the ubiquitous demand. ‘DIE!’ the unknown hand had painted everywhere. Smeared with red paint, the letters scrambled and twisted around themselves, in stunning but menacing curlicues. The word seemed to scream at her in a language she didn’t understand.
    This wasn’t meant for me, she thought, scouring a particularly unrelenting inscription.
    She paused to stare at it, as sweat pooled under her arms. The calligraphy appeared to be animated by a heartbeat, each letter pulsing with a different frequency. Her tank top stuck against her back, cold and wet. Before her eyes, the symbols lost their meaning and reformed themselves into something unreadable. Their message eluded her, but their attempt to protect emerged all too clear.
    The reality crumbled around her, everything obliterated bar the mysterious word.
    From the wall, the tendrils of the inscriptions spun, then stretched towards her. She flinched when they wrapped around her, frigid to the touch… material . She had almost anticipated them to score her skin like the barbwire she had discarded. Instead, when they cocooned her inside, they stroke her like cold fingers.
    She shuddered, her knees almost buckling. Mesmerized, she watched the lines resolving to something that resembled runes. No… Letters. They are letters. But why I can’t read them? They want me to read them.
    Somewhere far away, a window blasted in a thousand pieces, breaking her trance. The curlicues enlivened under the pressure of the shockwave, composing and decomposing new words. The red spirals pushed her harder, pressuring her to find that meaning, which she couldn’t grasp.
    So cold… Please, don’t. I don’t want to do this.
    The message consumed her entire field of view, bringing a bitter taste on her tongue. Like