Oh sure. When I first moved into this house, every creak and groan of the ancient woodwork would set me on edge. I could never decide if it was ghosts, intruders, or some animal slinking through my house. These days, it’s all just background noise. I hardly notice it anymore. But this one… this one stood out. It didn’t help that it was preceded by the loud crash of the shelf I swore I was gonna fix finally giving way. I’d thankfully had the foresight to remove anything valuable from it. Once the books and knickknacks finished loudly tumbling across the hard floor, a long, slow creak cut through the silence. Like… hinges?

“H-h-hello?” I called out, only to be met with silence once again. I rose from my chair and slowly walked to the den. There, behind a pile of fallen debris, a section of the wall had swung outward. I froze, my mind slowly coming to terms with the reality of the situation. In the outline of sun-faded paint, marking where the now crumbled shelf once hung, was a rusted latch. It swung loosely, seemingly snapped by the force of the shelf pulling free from the wall. In the darkness of the now open doorway, through the cobwebs, I can make out a stone staircase heading down.

It took me three days to work up the courage to explore what lay down the stairs. In the meantime, I had propped a bookshelf against the door to hold it closed. I thought about telling someone, seeing if I could get some assistance in exploring. But what would I say? “Hey, I know I’ve lived in this house for a while now, but I just discovered a spooky door that leads under the house. Wanna explore it with me?” I know if someone asked me that, I’d laugh in their face. So here I stand, alone. Armed with a flashlight, a broom for the cobwebs, and an old hunting knife.

Crossing the threshold, the temperature immediately dropped significantly. I feel the goosebumps rise along my arms as I push onwards. Every few steps, the stairway makes a sharp turn, making it impossible to know what lays ahead. Eventually, the stairwell opens up into a wide room. “I suppose that explains why the cellar doesn’t extend the full length of the house” I bemuse to myself aloud, my voice cutting through the oppressive silence.

I shine my light around the room, finding the walls lined with stacks of crates. I walk over to the closest one, the rotting wood easily giving way as I pry the lid open. Inside, underneath some packing material, was a marble bust of… me? It is too heavy to lift out, so I break the wood on the side panel of the crate, letting the packing material spill out onto the ground. As I shine my light on the face of the bust, a shudder runs down my spine. “It must be an ancestor” I think to myself. If it is, then those must be some strong genetics. He looks exactly like me. I turn away from the statue, looking around at the other crates throughout the room. What lays in them? As I try to decide if I even want to know, I spy a bookshelf in the corner. I had missed it before because of the crates stacked in front of it, but I can see it clearly from this angle.

The tall shelf was filled with many ornate books, although none of them bore a title along the spine. I pull one out, reading the title. ‘Le Roi en Jaune’. French I think, not that I know the language. As I reach for another book off the shelf, I spy one that had fallen to the floor. This one was much simpler than the rest. It was bound in a soft brown leather, and was stained with… was that dried blood? On the ground next to it, was a pair of metal tools. A small hammer and what looked like an ice pick, also covered in the same brown stains. I pick up the book and flip though it. It looks like it was a journal of some kind, although all the original text has been written over. The overlapping words make it impossible to read what any of it says. Each page is more of the same. Text layered over text, written at different angles. I flip to the back of tue book, finally finding something different. In bold letters that take up both pages, is a single sentence.

“I MUST FORGET”