That night, when Daniel handed me the cup, I was ready.
I smiled as always, nodded as always, and brought the rim of the cup to my lips as always… but instead of swallowing, I let the liquid rest on the tip of my tongue.
Bitter.
Metallic.
Nothing like valerian.
“Drink it slowly,” Daniel said, leaning against the doorframe with that calm expression that lately had started to terrify me. “It’ll help.”
I performed the entire act: a few fake sips, a sigh, eyelids pretending to grow heavy. Then, when he briefly glanced toward the hallway, I carefully tilted the cup and poured the tea into the dry potted plant in the corner, behind the curtain.
“Good night, Dani,” I whispered, lowering my voice a little.
He smiled.
“Good night, little sister.”
I heard his footsteps moving away.
Slow.
Unhurried.
As if he knew exactly what time everything was supposed to happen.
I waited.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Fifteen.
I stayed completely still, controlling my breathing, until the silence began to feel “safe”… though in that house nothing was truly safe; it only pretended to be.
Exactly at nine o’clock, as if the clock itself were an accomplice, I heard the first creak in the hallway.
Then another.
Footsteps. Daniel was coming.
I lay on my side in bed, as always. I let one arm hang slightly off the mattress, as if I were asleep. I opened my eyes just a sliver.
My heart was beating so hard I was sure he could hear it.
The door opened without anyone pushing it. Daniel had left it ajar earlier, and now he slipped inside.
He wasn’t carrying the cup.
He was carrying a key.
A black, old, long key with strange teeth—the kind used for very old houses… or for doors that were never meant to be opened.
He walked to the nightstand, opened the bottom drawer, and took out something wrapped in cloth. He unwrapped it slowly.
A small glass vial.
Inside were white pills.
My throat went dry.
“Just valerian.”
I watched him put the vial back, as if hiding a secret in his pocket. Then he approached the bed and leaned over, studying my face.
I held my breath.
Daniel took my wrist, checking for a pulse.
One.
Two.
Three seconds.
He smiled, satisfied, and stood up.
Then he did something that chilled my blood even more than the pills.
He walked toward the wall.
The wall next to the wardrobe.
He ran his fingers along it, like someone who knows exactly where the seam of something hidden is.
He pressed.
A small click echoed in the darkness.
The wall… moved.
It wasn’t a normal door.
It was a panel.
A section of wood identical to the wall, so perfectly concealed that in all my years living there I had never noticed it.
Daniel pushed the panel and a narrow gap appeared, just wide enough for a thin person to pass through.
Beyond it there was no wall.
There was space.
A narrow, dark passageway that smelled of dampness and dust.
Daniel stepped inside.
Before closing it, he whispered something… as if speaking to someone in there.
“She’s asleep.”
The panel closed.
I lay frozen in bed.
My head was buzzing.
Suddenly, the house was no longer a house.
It was a stage full of traps.
A body full of hidden organs.
I sat up abruptly, trembling. The bed creaked softly.
I froze, waiting for him to return.
Nothing.
Only a distant sound… like something being dragged beneath my feet.
Metal scraping against concrete.
I swallowed hard.
And then I remembered Mom’s last week.
How she tried to tell me something when she could barely breathe.
How she grabbed my hand and pointed downward, to the floor, to the house itself, as if the house were the enemy.
And I remembered her last clear words, barely whispered:
“Never drink anything… unless you’re prepared.”
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