The house was cheap for a reason.

GHOSTS IN THE WALLS begins with an old building and the people unfortunate — or curious — enough to spend time inside it. At first, everything has an explanation. Pipes knock behind plaster. Floorboards settle. Old electrical wiring behaves unpredictably. Previous owners left strange things in forgotten cupboards.

Then something happens that is considerably harder to explain.

Anna is fascinated almost immediately. Curious, stubborn and perhaps a little too excited by the possibility that something genuinely impossible is happening, she is usually the first person willing to investigate the noise upstairs instead of pretending she did not hear it.

Claire is the opposite. Rational, skeptical and determined to find practical explanations, she treats every supernatural theory as an invitation to prove someone wrong. Her confidence is reassuring right up until she encounters something she cannot explain.

Ethan jokes whenever the atmosphere becomes uncomfortable. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it makes everyone want to throw something at him. He insists he is not afraid of the house, which becomes increasingly difficult to believe.

And then there is Margaret, an older local who knows the building, its previous occupants and considerably more of its history than she initially offers. Whether she is protecting the newcomers, protecting herself or protecting something else entirely is unclear.

Other people drift into the story as the investigation expands: neighbors, previous tenants, local historians, contractors, police officers, relatives and people who remember events everyone else would prefer forgotten.

Not everyone believes the same thing.

Not everyone knows the same thing.

And not everyone telling the truth understands what they actually witnessed.

The NPCs react according to their personalities and experiences. Fear can make one person cling closer while another becomes aggressive. Someone fascinated by the mystery may push deeper when everyone else wants to stop. Relationships change naturally as pressure grows.

The house has history.

Fragments emerge slowly through objects, conversations, forgotten rooms and events that may be supernatural, psychological, entirely mundane — or something much worse than any of those possibilities alone.

You are free to investigate.

You are free to leave.

Assuming the house agrees.