She’d always believed home was a sealed border between safety and everything else. That belief died the moment she saw the nest—an oozing architecture of silk and shadow, humming with unseen legs. Her husband tried to joke, but his voice broke on the second word. The exterminator muttered something about “unusual activity,” eyes lingering too long on the walls, as if listening for more.

Days later, the chemicals faded, the webbing scraped away, the wound in the garage painted over. Yet she still feels it: a phantom rustle under the drywall, a tickle on her skin when the house settles at night. She now walks her own rooms like a guest, aware of the thinness of plaster and certainty. Horror, she realizes, isn’t the sudden scream in the dark. It’s the whisper you almost miss, the quiet proof that you were never alone.