The clock struck midnight as Sam tightened his grip on the lantern. The old house groaned with the weight of decades, its corridors stretching endlessly. Whispers echoed through the halls, too soft to decipher but impossible to ignore. In the library, a single book lay open, its pages blank save for one word: Leave.   Sam hesitated, his breath visible in the frigid air. Footsteps sounded behind him, deliberate and slow. He spun, the lantern’s glow revealing nothing but shadows.   “You shouldn’t be here,” a voice murmured, close to his ear.   The lantern flickered out, plunging the room into suffocating darkness.

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