On Solstice Road, there was a house. Not much of a house, really—more of a structure, neglected, waiting. Its windows, cloudy, like memories fading in the light. Shadows collected in the corners, as they do. No one walked by. No one ever did.

Inside, the walls were thin. Whispers passed through them as easily as light. But there was no one to whisper. No one but the walls. They said things sometimes, or seemed to. Perhaps it was just the wind, pressing itself between the bricks, making sounds only a mind might turn into words.

The garden outside once grew flowers. Now, nothing grew. Even weeds turned away, retreating. The sun touched everything else but not this house, not the empty space around it. A tree, bare but not broken, leaned toward the front steps as if asking, Will you come out today?

The door had been left unlocked long ago, though no one came in. The handle was cold. The steps creaked under a weight that wasn't there, or was it? Dust circled in the air, clinging to itself in slow, tired spirals.

Stolen story; please report.

A man, or something like a man, stood in the front room. He looked through the glass that wasn’t clear. His coat hung loose on his frame, as if he had forgotten how to fill it. He stood like that for hours, maybe longer. It wasn’t clear. Time passed differently here. Sometimes, not at all.

There were letters once, now yellowing on the table by the window. Unread or read and forgotten—it didn’t matter. They said what letters often say: hello, goodbye, remember, forget. But the man never picked them up. Never opened them. He couldn’t, not anymore.

The clock in the hallway clicked, faintly, though the hands hadn’t moved in years. But time was still there, inside, doing its work quietly, without any help from the clock.

At dusk, or what felt like dusk, the house sighed. It did this every evening, though no one noticed. And then it waited, the way houses do, for someone who never came.

Outside, Solstice Road remained empty. It had always been this way.