LIVE OR LEAVE - by The Silent Pen 🖊

Episode One — The House That Chooses The road to Ogbom Village stopped where the asphalt ended. Beyond it was nothing but red earth, thick forest, and silence. Not the normal kind. The kind that made your ears ring. David killed the engine of his Toyota Corolla and stared through the cracked windshield. “This place no get network?” Mide held his phone out the window. “No MTN.” Chioma laughed. “No Airtel.” “I even try Glo sef.” “Nothing.” Kelvin grinned, lifting his DSLR camera. “Perfect.” “This na exactly wetin we need.” Five friends. Fresh graduates. One dead YouTube channel. One final chance to blow. The video title had already been decided. WE SPENT THE NIGHT IN NIGERIA’S MOST HAUNTED HOUSE. Clickbait. At least, that’s what they believed. ⸻ The villagers watched them unload their bags without saying a word. No one waved. No one smiled. Old women stopped pounding yam. Children abandoned their football. Even the goats seemed strangely quiet. An elderly man sat beneath an udara tree, sharpening a cutlass. David approached him. “Good evening, Baba.” The old man didn’t answer. “We’re looking for the abandoned mansion.” The sharpening stopped. The old man’s eyes slowly lifted. “You people dey go there?” Kelvin chuckled. “Yes, sir.” “We wan make video.” The old man spat into the dust. “You fit still leave.” Chioma smiled politely. “We’ll be fine.” He looked at each of them for several seconds. Then asked softly, “Una come complete?” David frowned. “What do you mean?” The old man ignored the question. Instead he pointed into the forest. “Follow that road.” “When una reach the gate…” “…read wetin dey written.” He resumed sharpening his cutlass. Conversation over. ⸻ Twenty minutes later… They found it. The mansion stood alone like something the forest had failed to swallow. Its walls were stained black. The roof sagged. Windows stared back like empty eye sockets. A rusted iron gate leaned crookedly between two cracked pillars. Bolted to it was a faded wooden sign. Kelvin brushed years of dust away. The words underneath were still clear. LIVE OR LEAVE Below it… Someone had carved another sentence into the wood. THE HOUSE ALWAYS CHOOSES. David laughed. “Marketing.” “Person wey create this story sabi.” Mide wasn’t laughing. “You guys smell that?” They all paused. The air smelled… fresh. Like rain on concrete. Except… The ground around them was bone dry. ⸻ Inside the compound, weeds reached their waists. A broken swing moved gently. There was no wind. Chioma noticed first. “Who tied those?” Everyone looked. Dozens… No. Hundreds… Of small white pieces of cloth hung from the trees surrounding the house. Each one fluttered slowly. Kelvin zoomed in with his camera. The smile disappeared from his face. “They’re not cloth.” Everyone moved closer. They were handkerchiefs. Old ones. Children’s ones. Some embroidered with names. Some stained brown. One still had dried blood on it. David forced a laugh. “Village people and their superstitions.” Nobody replied. ⸻ The front door was already open. No creaking. No dramatic bang. Just… Open. Waiting. Inside, the mansion smelled strangely clean. There was no dust. No cobwebs. No signs that the building had been abandoned for decades. Someone had swept the floor recently. The dining table was polished. The curtains looked freshly washed. Even the framed family photographs on the wall had no dust. Except… Every face had been scratched away. ⸻ “Bro…” Kelvin whispered. “This is actually crazy.” Mide checked the windows. “They’re nailed shut.” David dropped his backpack. “We’ll film downstairs first.” “Then upstairs after midnight.” Chioma looked toward the staircase. For a brief second… She thought someone had walked across the landing. A little boy. Barefoot. Watching them. She blinked. Nothing. ⸻ The sun disappeared faster than it should have. By 6:30 p.m., the house was drowning in darkness. The forest outside became unnaturally silent. No crickets. No frogs. No birds. Nothing. David switched on a rechargeable lantern. Its light barely reached the opposite wall. “Power bank?” Kelvin asked. David pulled his from his bag. Dead. Impossible. He charged it before leaving Yenagoa. Mide checked his. Dead. Chioma’s flashlight. Dead. Five phones. Every battery had dropped to 1%. No warning. No explanation. ⸻ At exactly 8:00 p.m… There was a knock. Three slow taps. KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. Everyone froze. The sound came from the front door. David forced a grin. “One of the villagers.” He walked over and pulled it open. No one. Just darkness. He stepped outside. The compound was empty. When he turned back… The front door slammed shut. On its own. Hard enough to shake the entire house. The lantern went out. For one heartbeat, they stood in complete darkness. Then… A child’s voice echoed from somewhere upstairs. Soft. Almost playful. “You’re late.” Silence. Then another whisper. This time much closer. “So… who came into my house first?”

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