I would have let the house turn its lights back on.
Not all at once. Not like a miracle. Slowly, the way a body remembers warmth after years of mistaking the cold for home. One room first. Then another. A purple glow at the ceiling. A small lamp in the corner. A ghost watching over the walls, no longer hungry, no longer waiting to swallow the people who live here.
Because I am color returning.
And this is not a house that eats its inhabitants.
This is a house that learned pain and decided not to become it. A house that remembers every slammed door, every silence, every shadow that stretched too long across the floor — and still chooses shelter. Still chooses softness. Still says, come inside, I will not hurt you here.
When the rest is violent confetti, this house gathers what is left of me and does not call it mess. It does not sweep me away. It does not ask me to become smaller, quieter, easier to keep. It lets every torn piece land. It makes a floor of them. It makes a sky.
The haunting is still here, but it has changed its work. It does not trap me. It guards me. It does not drag me backward. It keeps watch while I sleep. It holds the old grief in the walls so I do not have to carry all of it in my hands.
I am not leaving the haunted house.
I am teaching it how to love me.
And one by one, the lights come back on.
