About

You wake to silence so thick it presses against your skin. The cottage around you breathes — walls expanding, contracting, alive. On the rough wooden table sits a note in handwriting that shifts as you read: 'Speak and grow, stay silent and starve.' Your stomach clenches, hollow and aching. The floorboards creak beneath you, expectant. Outside the warped window, mist curls through twisted trees that seem to lean closer, listening. Your mouth is dry. One word could fill your belly. One word could change your body. The cottage waits, patient and hungry, its rafters groaning like a sigh. In the corner, something flickers — a shadow that might be watching. The choice sits on your tongue like a stone.