A Familiar Stranger
The house was exactly as he remembered it.
The door creaked open, a whisper of dust swirling through the golden light of sunset.
He stepped inside, pausing just past the threshold. The scent of old wood and something faintly metallic curled into his nose, stirring an unease he couldn’t name.
The house was exactly as he remembered it.
That was the problem.
He had no memory of being here before.
The framed photographs on the wall displayed faces he should recognize—smiling, frozen in time—but their names slithered from his grasp like minnows in a stream. The furniture, the worn rug beneath his boots, the chipped mug sitting beside an open book on the coffee table... It was all intimately arranged, as if expecting him.
As if he had never left.
A shiver crawled along his spine. His hand traced over the back of the couch, fingers pressing into grooves where nails had once dug deep. An argument? A fight? He could see flashes—something about rain, someone standing in the doorway, the weight of an unread letter in his hand—but the details faded like breath on glass.
“What else is left?” The whisper slipped past his lips before he even realized he had spoken.
His voice was hoarse, dry as parchment. Had he spoken at all before this moment?
A creak sounded upstairs.
His pulse stuttered.
He wasn’t alone.
His own name flared in his mind, a spark in the dark—except it wasn’t his name. Not the one he thought he had.
The steps above groaned under slow, deliberate weight.
And then—
A woman’s voice. Soft. Gentle. Familiar in a way that made his skin prickle.
“You finally came home.”
His breath caught, a thousand questions clamoring for space. His feet refused to move, caught between running and reaching forward.
The stairs remained empty. The voice had come from the wall.
From one of the photographs.
The man in the picture was him.
A version of him he could not remember being.
And yet, he was home.
Wasn’t he?
Authors Note:
I’m enjoying this. Perhaps too much..
Scoots 'Flash Fiction Friday' event for March 14th 2025 dropped today, and I couldn’t wait to jump right in! If you haven’t tried writing flash fiction, it has turned out to be a complete delight =).
Prompts
Write about returning home
uncanny familiarity
“What else is left?”
A character who can’t remember
Let me know if this was interesting enough. I thought to go to the Horror side of things, but Jaime said ‘no’. Something about his childhood…so I didn’t want to push.
That was incredible!! It pulled me right in, but I, instead of imagining a horror story, pictured a happy ending, and a bran new beginning of something great.
I look forward to a positive, uplifting, and enthralling story of hope, and challenge, and victory, which you are so good at telling.
Thanks Jaime.
Jaime, this was so damn good. Wow. You had all the ingredients for a horror story, but instead of going for the obvious, you took a different route—one that messes with the mind way more. That eerie, creeping familiarity? The way memory and identity start slipping through his fingers? That hit so perfectly.
And the details! The grooves in the couch, the weight of an unread letter—so subtle but packed with tension. Then that final moment? The voice not coming from the stairs but from a photograph? ‘chacho. That was next-level.
This is the kind of story that sits with you, making you wonder how much of yourself lingers in the places you’ve left behind. And whether “home” is a place, a memory, or something waiting to pull you back in. I surely thought of all my “homes” in the past and wondered if the energy left behind has brought darkness to the new inhabitants or love and light.
Absolutely brilliant.