Reconnaissance (Microfiction)

Foreword

by Lyia Meta

Some time ago, I came across a film that left a lasting impression—Burnt Offerings, starring Karen Black. It wasn’t loud or overdone, but it crawled under the skin in a way few stories do. The unease wasn’t in what you saw, but in what the house was—sentient, patient, feeding on those who entered it.

What stayed with me was the subtle horror of it all. A house that doesn’t just contain memories, but collects them. A place that restores itself not with time or care, but with people. That idea never really let go of me.

This story, Reconnaissance, isn't a retelling—but it’s undoubtedly influenced by that same quiet dread. It’s about being sent to observe something only to realize you’ve been drawn into something far deeper. Something that studies you in return. Something that waits.

The fear isn’t always in what’s ahead.

Sometimes it’s in what already knows you’re there.

Reconnaissance

Field Notes: Final Entry

Recovered fragment—undated, unsigned

I have come to understand that the house does not trap you with walls. It listens. It learns. And then it mirrors.

Each room I entered… changed after I left. Subtle at first—a chair shifted, a window I was certain had been sealed now cracked open to the fog. But more than that: the house began to reflect me.

A coat I never wore hung by the door. A journal, identical to mine, rested on a table I had not approached. I flipped through its pages. Every word I had written—recorded, line for line. But it continued beyond my last entry. It knew what I hadn’t yet thought.

This was no longer reconnaissance. This was recognition.

The house does not keep prisoners.

It keeps portraits.

It lets you walk away, eventually.

But you do not leave alone.

I write this so that the next to come may know: you will leave with the house inside you. In dreams, in mirrors, in the space between your footsteps.

It learns your shape.

And it remembers.

Final Entry (continued)

I should have left on the second night. Perhaps even the first. But the house doesn’t ask you to stay. It simply rearranges itself so that leaving feels… premature. Like stepping out of a conversation mid-sentence.

I’ve come to understand that what I was sent to find was never structural.

It was me.

Layer by layer.

Unspooled in hallways I didn’t recognize but somehow remembered.

I don’t know if anyone will read this.

But if you do—don’t follow.

Some doors aren’t meant to be opened.

And some houses never forget a face.

By Lyia Meta