Years passed. Jonathan Sheidele's house fell into disrepair, its windows cracked, its roof sagging and crumbling from decay. The townsfolk avoided it, as more legends about it grew. Children whispered about the collector's curse, daring one another to venture inside.

  One summer night, three boys—Tommy, Sam, and Eric—decided to test their bravery. Armed with nothing but flashlights and nervous grins, they broke a window and climbed inside.

  The house was silent, its air stale and heavy. Cabinets lined the walls, their glass fogged with dust, now devoid of anything of value. The boys laughed nervously, nudging each other toward the Cicada's display.

  "Look at that thing," Tommy whispered, shining his flashlight on the grotesque insect. "It's huge."

  "Cursed my butt," Eric scoffed. "It's just a bug."

  But then their flashlights flickered, and the air immediately grew cold. A faint clicking sound echoed throughout the room.

  "Did you hear that?" Sam asked, his voice trembling.

  The clicking grew louder, joined by the soft hum of wings. The cabinets rattled, and the boys screamed as the glass shattered, releasing hundreds of preserved insects. The insects buzzed and fluttered, their sharp, frantic movements unnerving.

  The boys stumbled backward, panic gripping them as the sound of more clicking filled the air, like the skittering of legs and the rustling of many bodies. Their flashlights bounced across the walls, casting strange, twitching shadows. Then, suddenly, the door slammed shut with a deafening crash, trapping them inside.

  The temperature dropped in an instant, a biting chill seeping through their skin. Sam's voice cracked in terror. "We need to get out of here! Now!"

  But it was too late. The room seemed to pulse with an unnatural energy, as though the house itself were alive. The whispers began—soft at first, just a murmur at the edges of their hearing. But they grew louder, more insistent, their voices rising in a chorus of terrible, drawn-out phrases.

  "Join... "

  "Join... us..."

  "Join us..."

  The words came from every direction, echoing through the walls and the very air around them. The boys spun in circles, their eyes wide with dread, trying to find the source of the voices, but it was everywhere. The insects had begun to swarm more aggressively, their buzzing now a deafening cacophony. But they didn't attack.

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  They waited. And with every moment, the boys grew more desperate.

  Tommy's flashlight flickered endlessly and suddenly died out. The other spare torches also went out, plunging them into darkness. The only light now came from the soft glow of the moon through the broken windows, casting long shadows across the room.

  And then it happened. The clicking noise returned, louder this time, so close it felt as though the walls themselves were crawling with something vast and monstrous. Sam screamed, backing into the corner as something brushed against his leg—a cold, slick sensation. Something wet, slithering.

  "Sam!" Eric shouted, but his voice was choked with panic. "Run!"

  But it was too late. A mass of writhing limbs, of fleshy tendrils and slick, translucent skin, emerged from the shadows. It was like a living nightmare, a grotesque hybrid of insect and something far worse, far older. It moved with a sickening fluidity, dragging itself across the floor, its dark eyes fixed on the boys.

  The buzzing grew louder, almost deafening now, as if every insect in the room had begun to hum in unison, a song of death. The boys' frantic movements only stirred the thing further, and in the blink of an eye, it lunged at them.

  The room was filled with shrill cries, but they were quickly silenced, swallowed up by the dark, the whispers, and the hunger of the creature that now prowled the house.

  The next morning, when the townsfolk found the house, it was eerily quiet... yet they couldn't help but notice it. Welcoming them was a broken window that wasn't there before, its frames twisted and torn. They also noticed the door, which was once slammed shut, had been opened violently, as if something burst through it, but the inside of the house remained silent, untouched except for the strange markings on the walls—deep, claw-like gouges, as if something heavy had scraped across the surfaces in the dead of night. Later that day, the parents of the boys alarmed the town, having gone missing.

  The townsfolk called out for the boys, their voices filled with dread. They eventually came to search the house, room by room, their footsteps echoing through the musty halls. And then, in the corner of the display room, they found something strange—a large, translucent cocoon-like sack, pulsating with unnatural movement. A thick, sickly-smelling mucus oozed from its surface, and within, something enormous, something grotesque, was shifting.

  With trepidation, one of the men pried open the sack. Inside, curled up like a grotesque fetus, was a massive grub. Its body was bloated, its pale, segmented skin glistening in the dim light. Its mouth was wide and full of sharp, pointed teeth, gnawing hungrily at the walls of its prison.

  But there, within the wriggling mess, something else caught their eye—fingers, gnawed on and distorted, almost unrecognizable, pressed against the transparent walls of the cocoon.

  As the townsfolk stared in horror, the grub twitched, its massive form shifting and growing. A sickening sound filled the air, as though something had been released, something vast, something ancient—just beneath the surface of the house, waiting... for more....

  The whispers in the house, at first faint but growing louder, gained intensity as it echoed through the rafters.

  "Join us..."

  "Join us..."