A reader that learns
to read your book.

Chapter 1: The Basement Door

Four breaths. Four heartbeats. Four walls in my room.

I counted them every morning before getting out of bed. Not because it fixed anything. It just made the world feel organized, like I could stack the day into neat little boxes before the chaos began.

The morning that pattern broke, everything seemed normal. October sunlight streamed through my bedroom window, dust motes turning in the beams like tiny planets. The smell of bacon drifted up from downstairs.

I swung my feet out of bed and onto the carpet. Cool fibers pressed between my toes. The walls, the ceiling, the dusty morning light. Everything looked exactly the way it should on a lazy Saturday morning.

Except the hum was already there. Low and constant, so steady I almost mistook it for the house settling. It came from beneath the floorboards, more felt than heard.

Our house was usually warm. That day the cold bit deep. It felt like it was rising out of the floor vent, carrying scorched lint, the way a dryer smells when something gets trapped and starts to cook.

And then it was gone. Warmth slid back into place. Bacon again. Like nothing had happened.

"Ryan! Breakfast!" Mom's voice floated up the stairs.

As I passed the bathroom, I felt it: a faint prickle at the base of my skull; the static charge of an approaching storm. My skin tightened, raising a cold ripple that chased itself down both arms.

Jessie was already awake, parked in front of the TV with her stuffed animals arranged in a precise semicircle around her. She was six and had recently started arranging things in patterns, lining up her crayons by color, sorting her cereal pieces into groups before eating them.

I stopped at the top of the stairs. My hand found the banister and gripped hard.

The vibration hit my teeth, like chewing on aluminum foil.

At the bottom of the stairs, to the right, sat the basement door. Mom checked it four times a day. It was a detail I had not failed to notice.

Today, it stood open. Just a crack. The gap tugged at my eyes, a sliver of darkness swallowing the kitchen light rather than reflecting it.

We never left the basement door open. Mom was paranoid about it, always reminding us about the thirteen steep steps, the concrete floor at the bottom, the danger of falling.

Thirteen steps. I tried not to think about that number. It didn't fit into fours.

"Ryan?" Mom appeared at the bottom of the stairs, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "You okay up there? Your bacon's getting cold."

Something flickered behind her eyes. Her head tilted slightly, and for just a second, she stared at a blank spot on the wall beside the door. Stared at nothing. Her lips moved but no words came out.

One. Two. Three. Four. I counted without thinking, gripping the banister until my knuckles went white. The numbers anchored me. Something was wrong with Mom.

"Mom?"

She blinked. The fog lifted. She wiped the same spot on her hands and repeated, "Ryan? You okay up there? Your bacon's getting cold." This time it sounded more like a recording playing back.

"You just said that."

"Did I?" She pressed two fingers against her temple. "Headache, I think."

She turned and walked back toward the kitchen. As she passed the basement door, her hand shot out and pulled it closed in one sharp motion, like swatting away something that had gotten too close. The click of the latch echoed in the stairwell.

Jessie was already seated in her usual spot, methodically separating her scrambled eggs from her bacon, creating neat zones on her plate. Her stuffed panda sat in the chair next to her, a tiny napkin tucked into its collar like a bib.

"Mr. Barnaby wants bacon too," she announced as I sat down.

"Mr. Barnaby is a panda. Pandas eat bamboo."

"He's an adventurous panda."