The Blue Room

Julie Hayward arrived in Larkspur Bay with a single bag, a secondhand camera, and the kind of silence only survivors carry. The city was small, draped in mist and the scent of salt, as if the ocean itself was trying to forget something. That suited her just fine. She’d come here to disappear—to let the noise of the trial, the headlines, the whispers all rot in the soil of the past.

Fresh start.
Clean slate.
No more nightmares.

Her new apartment was above a florist's shop where roses bloomed even in winter. The place smelled of lavender and dust. Mrs. Avanti, the landlord, was a birdlike woman with sharp eyes and too many cats. As she handed Julie the brass key, she muttered, “The top floor’s always been... sensitive. If you hear strange things, ignore them. It’s just the house remembering.”

Julie blinked. “Remembering what?”

Mrs. Avanti didn’t answer.

The apartment was old, but it breathed. The wooden floors groaned like they had stories to tell. There was a room at the end of the hall—painted a faded blue, its door sealed shut. She assumed it was storage. Didn’t think twice about it. She was too busy building a life.

During the day, she worked at a sleepy bookstore on Alder Street, where the owner—an old hippie named Simon—let her read between customers. In the evenings, she roamed the coastline with her camera, snapping pictures of seagulls perched on rusted railings, graffiti scrawled across crumbling piers, and the endless gray sky that always seemed a little too close.

For a while, the quiet felt like healing. Until the blue room opened.

It was a Thursday night, full moon bleeding through her blinds. Julie was pouring tea when she heard the click. That door she hadn’t touched in weeks creaked open on its own. Something about the darkness inside it felt... wrong. Cold.

She stepped in.

The room was empty, except for a child’s drawing pinned to the wall. A stick figure girl in a burning house. Flames in red crayon, black Xs for eyes. Scribbled at the bottom in trembling handwriting: “JH.”

Her initials.

She backed out and closed the door. Locked it. Shoved a chair in front of it. Maybe it was some weird leftover from the last tenant, she told herself. A joke. A coincidence. Her mind playing tricks.

However, the drawings began to appear elsewhere.

One on her pillow.
One taped inside her closet.
One tucked into a library book she hadn’t even opened yet.

Every one was of her, standing in fire. Always signed the same way.

And then came the dreams. Not the usual flashbacks of courtrooms or headlines. No—these dreams smelled like burnt wood and gasoline. They echoed with her father’s voice, low and venomous:

“Even if you run, Julie... I’ll find you.”
When she was fifteen, she’d taken the stand, told the jury what he’d done to her mother, what he almost did to her. Her testimony sealed his fate. Twenty years behind bars. Case closed.

Except... her mother’s body was never found. Only ashes and smoke.

And now, this.

Julie tried to stay rational. She called the landlord. Asked if maybe someone had a spare key. Mrs. Avanti’s voice turned clipped: “No one’s lived up there in a decade. You’re the first who’s stayed longer than a month.”

That night, the fire alarm screamed.

She bolted upright, heart hammering. But there was no smoke. No heat. Just that scent again—like ash and stormwater. She grabbed a flashlight and ran to the blue room.

The walls had changed.

Every inch was covered in photographs—her photographs. Candid shots of her walking home, sleeping in bed, working the register at the bookstore. They weren’t hers. She never took them. They were taken of her.

Her knees buckled.

In the center of the wall, pinned with a jagged nail, was one photo that didn’t belong. A grainy image of a man outside the bookstore. Dark coat. Hood up. But the face... unmistakable.

Her father.

Alive. Watching.

Taken last week.

She tore the photos down with shaking hands, her breath ragged. The past hadn’t just followed her.

It had arrived.

One Week Later

Julie didn’t go to the police this time. She knew better. Paperwork and handcuffs weren’t enough to contain the kind of monster that wore a father’s face and a killer’s patience. He was watching her. Closer now. And he wanted her afraid.

But Julie wasn’t fifteen anymore.

And fear was something she’d already bled dry.

She made a plan.

She didn’t scream when she saw the shadow under her door. Didn’t cry when she found her kitchen drawer—where she kept the sharpest knives—empty. She just waited.

Camera on.
Phone hidden.
Gas line prepped.

That night, the blue room opened again.

And this time... he stepped out.

He looked older. Not the looming figure from her nightmares, but real. Human. Still cruel. His voice rasped:

“You look just like your mother in this light.”
Julie didn’t flinch. “And you look like a man who forgot I survived you once.”

He smiled. Took a step closer. “You think running made you safe? You think hiding in this seaside trash town makes you strong?”

“No,” Julie said, slowly lifting the lighter in her palm, “this does.”

She flicked it.

The room ignited with a low, hungry roar. Flames swallowed the peeling wallpaper, the photos, the lies. Her father screamed—real, not dreamt—and Julie didn’t look back.

She walked out the front door barefoot, smoke clinging to her skin, her heart finally silent.

Three Days Later

The fire was ruled an accident—faulty wiring in an old Victorian house. No one questioned it. No one missed the man in the blue room.

Julie moved again.

Not to run.
But to live.

She started fresh in a new city, under a new name. The camera still hung on her shoulder. But now, the photos she took were hers. Seagulls. Sunrise. Smiles.

Not ghosts.

Because some pasts don’t just follow you.
Some you have to burn to the ground.
And walk away from the ashes…
Alive.