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An old brass key sat in a velvet box on the mantle. Twelve-year-old Leo noticed a coppery glint on its intricate head, a looping knot he’d never seen before.
He had searched for its lock, but the key fit nothing in the old house. Just as he was about to give up, it began pulsing with a faint red light.
Leo grabbed his map of the house. He held the key over the map, and the knot pulsed brighter, casting a glowing red line that moved on its own. It pointed to the long hallway outside his bedroom.
The hallway was bare, just faded wallpaper and old portraits. He pressed the key against the wall. Nothing. He tried again, tracing the glowing line. This time, he felt a hum, a vibration from within the wall.
The key grew hotter in his hand as he pushed it into the wallpaper.
It parted like a curtain, revealing another, identical hallway. Cold and silent, everything was the same, yet unsettlingly wrong.
The wall behind him sealed itself. He was trapped. The key pointed towards a heavy wooden door at the end of the hall. He noticed the portraits of children on the walls, their eyes following him.
The final portrait was of a girl, her face obscured by shadow. A whisper came from behind the door: “Don’t open it ... I’m lost.”
Leo’s heart hammered. The key was no longer warm and inviting, but cold and dark.
The children’s faces in the portraits flickered, their expressions contorting into silent screams.
He knew now. It wasn’t a secret room, but a cage. And he, like every child who had found the key before him, was about to become a new addition to the gallery of the lost.
