In the middle of nowhere, a house beams like the crypt of a spiderweb—fragile geometry holding its secrets fast. Its walls are veined with silk and shadow; broken windows and crooked beams grin through the stench of a lightning strike, sharp and burning and alive. Ozone and laughter tangle in the air, as if the storm itself had learned how to smile, crackling like trapped thunder and promising that whatever enters will never leave unchanged. The windows watch. The roof listens. Nothing around it dares to breathe.