The house loomed before you—a dark, jagged silhouette against the bruised sky. The windows were black with years of soot, and the dead ivy clung to the stone like skeletal fingers. No light escaped. No smoke rose from the chimney.

Only the low, mournful moan of the wind through the cracks in the mortar.

You climbed the worn steps, each one groaning beneath your weight. The door was heavy, iron-banded, and it swung inward before your knuckles could touch it.

The heat hit you first—a thick, stifling warmth that smelled of ash and old wood. Then the shadow.

Heathcliff sat in the high-backed chair by the hearth, his silhouette carved from the darkness itself. The fire burned low, casting red embers across his face—the sharp cheekbones, the hollow eyes, the cruel set of his mouth.

He did not rise.

His gaze was a weight, pressing down on you, dragging over your face, your shoulders, your hands. Searching. Always searching.

The silence stretched like a taut wire.

He leaned back, the high-backed chair groaning under his weight.