The HOUSE on Neibolt Street

by aibari

Summary:

AU. At sixteen, the Losers are growing apart. In a last-ditch effort to get back to how things used to be, they decide to go check out one of the abandoned houses on Neibolt Street.

Unfortunately, there's something they've forgotten.

[NOW WITH EPILOGUE!]

Notes:

• For LeleDraws.

This work is part of the Loser's Club Reverse Big Bang 2022. It was inspired by LeleDraws's incredible piece of fanart - I'm so happy I got to write something based on it!
Inspirations include: The Haunting of Hill House, House of Leaves, Dionaea House, and the smau Unbroken Line, all of which have fully rewired my brain. Above all, this is a fic about that weird age where you and your friends are growing up at different speeds and sometimes in different directions - but also. It's a fic about a big spooky house that wants to gaslight and eat you 😘
Thanks also to princess_aleera for looking at bits and pieces of this and using the big eyes emoji a lot!

Chapter 1: HOUSE

There is a HOUSE on Neibolt Street.

It sits there, hunched and listing, plank on plank on crumbling brick and mortar. The weeds in the garden are wilting; the gravel path stretches out like a tongue from an open maw. Every window is dust-caked and grimy. All of it is holding its breath.

No-one has lived in the HOUSE for a very long time.

Perhaps it looked more like a home once. Perhaps the paint had been more white than gray, more plain than peeling; perhaps the doorbell had chimed bright and cheerful. Perhaps people have lived in it, carving out their little spaces as if by a knife. Perhaps someone had once walked its halls, laughing.

The HOUSE was hungry even then.

Now it is starving.