MONSTER HOUSE: MY MONSTROUSITY FAMILY

It started with a whimper.

Elian was still in the hallway, trying to decide if he should burn his pillow or give it a name, when the sound reached him. Soft at first, like someone sobbing into fabric.

Then, the air changed. A ripple. Like the house exhaled- And didn't inhale again.

He turned and ran toward the noise.

Lunir's door was ajar. Light spilled from underneath it, flickering- Not warm lamplight, but the pale, shifting shimmer of dreamstuff escaping containment.

He burst inside.

Lunir was on the bed, curled up and shaking. Around her, the room had rewritten itself. Her posters were replaced by static-gray landscapes. Her books floated in mid-air, whispering in unreadable tongues.

At the center of the floor> A shape forming.

It began like smoke, thick, slow, and black. But it congealed too quickly. Limbs sprouted. Joints bent the wrong way. Eyes opened in places eyes shouldn't be. It crawled up from under the bed like a secret that had waited too long to be remembered.

"Lunir!" Elian rushed forward.

Her eyes were wide. "I didn't mean to," she whispered. "I had a dream. He was smiling. I tried to stop thinking about him."

"Who?"

"The one who called Mama a monster."

Elian froze.

The creature uncoiled itself fully now- Tall, bony, wrapped in rags of broken glass and letters carved into its skin. It had no mouth, but it breathed.

Elian stepped between it and Lunir.

"I summoned it by mistake," Lunir whispered. "But it wants you."

The creature lunged.

Elian barely had time to raise his arm when the door shattered inward.

Arken, Vecca, and Lira stormed in, their battle auras blooming like storms.

"Fall back!" Arken barked.

Vecca vanished into shadow and reappeared behind the nightmare, plunging a dagger of folded space into its spine. It shrieked- Not with sound, but with light, a burst of images that flashed through the room> Burning palaces, Yrmeta weeping, a throne shattering under claw.

Elian gasped. "It's a memory."

"It's a weapon," Arken growled, bone-sword already drawn. "Kill it first. Study it later."

The fight began> Chaotic, fast, surreal.

But as the nightmare flailed, it locked eyes with Elian.

And in that gaze, he saw something worse than violence.

He saw recognition.