The old building stood at the edge of town, its windows boarded up like closed eyes. No one knew who had built it or why it had been abandoned so long ago. It was called "The Hollow House" by those who dared to speak of it, though most avoided the area entirely. The locals whispered that it had once been a school, but no records existed to confirm this. Only the wind and the creaking of the wooden beams seemed to remember. A group of teenagers, curious and reckless, decided to explore it one autumn evening. They brought flashlights, a notebook, and a sense of adventure that they didn’t fully understand. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying wood as they approached the rusted gate. It groaned open without a sound, as if the building itself had allowed them in. Inside, the silence was oppressive. Dust motes floated in the beams of their flashlights, moving as if disturbed by unseen hands. The floorboards creaked beneath their feet, and every step echoed in a way that felt too loud for such a small space. The walls were covered in faded murals—faces with hollow eyes, trees that twisted unnaturally, and symbols that looked more like warnings than art. They found a classroom, its desks still arranged in neat rows. A chalkboard stood at the front, covered in equations that made no sense. One boy reached out to touch it, only to find that the chalk had dried into something unnatural, almost crystalline. When he tried to erase it, the symbols rearranged themselves, forming words in a language none of them recognized. As they moved deeper into the building, the temperature dropped. Their breath formed clouds in the air, and the flashlight beams flickered. They stumbled upon a stairwell that led downward, the steps worn smooth by time. The air smelled of mildew and something older—like decayed paper and forgotten memories. At the bottom, they found a room with a single chair and a desk. On the desk sat a journal, its pages yellowed and brittle. The cover was embossed with the same strange symbols they had seen on the walls. One of the teens opened it, and the pages turned by themselves, revealing entries written in a trembling hand. *"They came for me because I saw too much. I tried to leave, but the door wouldn’t open. The others are gone now, but I hear them still. They whisper my name, and I can't tell if it's real or just the wind."* The journal stopped there, the final page missing. The teens exchanged uneasy glances. Something about the room felt wrong, like it was watching them. They left quickly, not wanting to stay another second. Outside, the sun had already set, and the sky was a deep violet. As they walked away, the building seemed to shrink, as if it had never been so large. The wind carried a low hum, almost like a voice calling their names. They didn’t look back. The next morning, the town was quiet. No one spoke of the visit, but the teens couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed inside them. The journal was gone, and the building had vanished from the map, as if it had never existed. Some said it had always been there, waiting for someone to find it. But the question lingered: Did the building choose them, or had they chosen the building? And if the voices in the walls were real, what had happened to the others who had come before? No one ever returned, but sometimes, on quiet nights, people claimed to hear laughter echoing from the empty lot where the house once stood. It wasn’t scary, just... strange. Like the building was still there, just out of reach, waiting for the next curious soul to stumble upon its secrets.