The Cabin

The door groaned the same way it always had, low and drawn out, like something being woken that preferred to stay sleeping. Elli stepped inside. The smell hit her first. Dry wood. Dust. A trace of damp pine needles. But beneath that, a sharper scent she hadn't remembered until just now, old smoke. Not from the hearth, but older, from the walls themselves. The kind of smoke that doesn't go out, it just sinks deeper into the grain.

Her boots creaked against the floorboards. The cabin was just as she remembered: the square table, the enamel sink, the tiny window that let in more cold than light. But there was something else, a feeling she couldn't name. Like something had shifted in the years since she'd last been here, just slightly off.

She set down her pack, but didn't move. Just stood there, staring at the kitchenette. And then it came. A memory, sharp and sudden. She was nine. Maybe ten. It was winter. She had woken in the dark and heard something, a scraping, rhythmic sound, like something dragging across the floor. She hadn't dared to move. Her parents had said it was the trees, or the ice settling. But it had been inside.