The Guest Who Took His Name
by Donald Schroeder
He no longer answers knocks at the cabin door. Years have taught him doors don’t keep things out — they only mark the moment before they’re inside.
Tonight the woods press too close, the porch sags, the air heavy with moss.
“Martin?”
The voice slips in like water through the floorboards. Familiar. Wrong. He holds still. Names are invitations, and his is already too worn.
He once filled the cabin with lanterns, rugs, locks — defenses pretending to matter. But walls remember. Silence makes room.
“Martin.” Urgent this time.
The door groans. A figure crosses the threshold without sound, without weight. It settles into the chair near the fire. Its face is built of absence. Where eyes should be, memory pools. Where a mouth should be, he hears clapping — sharp, hollow, final.
“You invited me once,” it says. The voice is paper, brittle and cracking. His chest knots.
Regrets leave doors ajar long after they’re shut.
The guest leans forward. “You kept me alive every time you whispered my name in the dark. You kept the door open.”
His throat closes. He wants to deny it, but truth is a door too. The shape stands. Its coat touches the peg, but the dust does not move. Its shadow thins, like smoke remembering fire.
At the threshold it pauses. “Take your name back.”
Moonlight splits the cabin in two.
The latch clicks.
Silence floods in.
He presses his palms to the glass, forehead fogging the pane. The woods bend closer, branches arching like ribs. Somewhere past the tree line, a hand claps again — slow, patient, certain.
“No more guests,” he whispers.
But the echo doesn’t stop.
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You have some solid lines in here. Well done. I read it a few times and enjoyed each read. I am posting mine soon and I hope it lives up to yours.