Under the floorboards

We made it inside the house The door fell shut behind us Dust covers everything like no one's breathed here in years The windows barely hold the dark The air is cold and still But something under these old boards keeps moving room to room I keep taking deeper breaths and somehow getting less air Every little sound feels closer than before We came inside to hide from whatever followed us here Now every wall around me makes it harder to breathe Old photographs along the hall half-buried underneath the dust Smiling faces strange clothes beautiful in their own way There was Moria in their faces before the light went out The same kind of madness we just left behind But something emptied this place. I keep taking deeper breaths and somehow getting less air My heart is moving faster though nothing here has changed The hallway feels narrower the longer that we stay And something underneath us keeps learning where we are Ehva hasn't laughed in minutes Lilhit keeps counting the same four walls And thoughts arrive like memories of things I've never lived I remember a hallway I've never walked I remember this room before we came inside No footsteps. No broken branches. Nothing chasing us at all. She's getting closer. She's still moving. Nothing can stop her. We ran in here to hide from it whatever waited outside But maybe nothing followed us Maybe it was already inside. We can't stay here. We have to get out. Now.