Paper Walls

Max lifted his phone on a gimbal.

“Temple challenge,” he whispered. “No edits.”

Lena clicked on a flashlight. “And no screaming, Max.”

Ivy tugged her neon green sneaker free from a vine. Her ivy-leaf hair clip snagged, then popped loose with a tiny snap. Plants crawled over the old stone like it was trying to hide.

A loose fence board groaned as the three kids slipped through.

Inside the entry hall, the air smelled like wet pennies. Ivy’s bright green eyes stung. She knew that smell. She knew the shape of the hallway, too—the bend to the left, the low ceiling, the bowls carved into the floor.

Max aimed the camera at a cracked bowl with a dark stain. “Ketchup?”

“Don’t touch it,” Ivy said, too fast.

The temple door thumped shut behind them.

Lena froze. “Did you…?”

From deeper inside, something scraped, slow as a dragged shoe.

Ivy’s fingers found the tiny glass vial in her pocket, and she held it like a secret

The Wrong Echo

The scrape came again, closer, like someone dragging a chair leg.

Max swallowed and lifted the gimbal.

“Okay, haunted furniture. Cool,” he said, but his voice shook.

Lena held the mic out.

“Quiet. Let it mess up Max’s audio, not mine.”

Ivy’s fingers squeezed the tiny glass vial in her pocket. She pointed to a side doorway.

“Not straight. This way.”

Max aimed the camera at her.

“Since when are you the temple tour guide?”

Ivy reached for her ivy-leaf hair clip—gone. Her scalp prickled.

A vine hung from the doorway like a curtain. Ivy’s clip was stuck in its thorns, neat as a pin.

Lena leaned in.

“That wasn’t there—”

Ivy stepped forward, and a floor stone tipped under her neon green sneaker. The ground opened with a dry crunch.

Max grabbed Ivy’s elbow.

His phone slid off the gimbal mount and clattered into the thin gap.

From below, something pulled it farther, fast.

Lena’s mic crackled.

A low voice rolled up, then two more over it, like a bad chorus.

“Little poison,” it said.