House of Firewalls

The mask sat on her desk like it belonged there.

Dominique hadn’t moved it since last night.

She hadn’t slept either.

It had become a ritual now—nightmares laced with static, flashes of porcelain faces, blood-red lipstick smeared across time. She could no longer tell what was memory and what was suggestion.

All she knew was this: the Fox wasn’t just watching anymore.

He was setting the stage.

And she refused to wait in the wings.

By noon, she was at Marco’s apartment.

He was still half-asleep, hair matted, shirtless beneath a loose hoodie. His gaming setup glowed faintly behind him in his studio—an obsessive tangle of monitors, cords, and LED strips. It smelled like Red Bull, burnt toast, and overpriced cologne.

“You look like hell,” he said, blinking at her.

Dominique dropped her backpack on the floor and stepped inside. “I need you to hack a ghost.”

Marco arched a brow. “Define ‘ghost.’”

She tossed him a USB drive. “Whoever Fox is… they’re not new to this. They scrub their digital footprints like a pro. But I found something. Old photos, documents, encoded initials. I want to trace the watermark. The symbol.”

He plugged it in without another word. “This’ll take a few hours. Go… stare dramatically into a mirror or something.”

She left him with the drive and her encrypted cloud access, heading back out with only one destination in mind.

The WREC Room.

The sleaze of it comforted her now—the flickering neon sign, the half-shattered window, the scent of sweat, latex, and disinfectant. But today, it felt… off. Too quiet. Too clean.

She stepped inside, her boots echoing on the worn floors.

The main chamber was empty.

No moaning. No muffled cries. No sirens or music. Just silence, and a blinking red light above the camera booth.

A light that shouldn’t be on.

She approached the booth cautiously and pushed the curtain aside.

Nothing.

But on the wall behind the leather bench… something was carved.

A single phrase, etched with brutal precision into the wood paneling:

THIS IS WHERE SHE DIED.

Dominique’s stomach clenched.

She backed away slowly, breathing quick and sharp. There was no “she” on file here. No incident reports. Nothing.

But the way it was written—it was a message. Not just to her. About her.

And then she saw it.

An envelope, taped neatly beneath the bench. Her name scrawled across the front.

She ripped it open with trembling fingers.

Inside: a photo.

Black and white. Grainy. Of her, last week, in this very room—straddling a masked figure. Her hand gripping a riding crop midair. But what stood out wasn’t her dominance. It was her face.

Behind her reflection in the mirror, another face watched.

The Fox mask.

Blurry, distant, but unmistakable. He had been in the room.

In the shadows. Watching. Close enough to touch.

By the time she returned to Marco’s, her hands were still shaking. He was at the desk, surrounded by empty energy drink cans and crumpled notes.

“You’re not gonna like this,” he said.

“What?”

He pointed to one of the monitors.

The watermark—the eye symbol—was linked to an underground server formerly used by an old European BDSM cabal known as The House of Eyes. Disbanded years ago, but with rumors of revival in the deep web. The names were redacted. But one kept surfacing.

A codename:

Domina_Noir.

Marco turned to her slowly. “That name started trending again. Guess who the IP links back to?”

She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.

The blood drained from her face.

He added, “And guess what? Someone just posted under it five minutes ago. From your house.”

She dropped her phone twice trying to unlock the screen.

The IP address Marco had traced… it came from inside the house. Not a neighbor. Not a hijacked signal.

Her house.

And not the attic either.

It was listed under a device name she didn’t recognize:

“Sparrow”

Marco’s voice was muffled behind her panic. “Are you sure no one else in your house could’ve posted it? Some hidden burner device? Router piggybacking?”

She didn’t answer. Her thoughts were already racing ahead of her footsteps. She bolted from his apartment without saying goodbye, without taking the flash drive, without a plan.

Her car was a blur of motion and nerves as she gripped the steering wheel with sweat-slick palms. The drive home was a series of red lights and broken thoughts.

Sparrow... why Sparrow?

The name itched at the back of her memory.

Like something from childhood. Something whispered, maybe a story or pet name.

By the time she pulled into the circular driveway, the sun had already begun to fall, casting long shadows across the estate’s white stone facade. The windows looked darker than usual.

Like eyes waiting to blink.

She entered through the side, careful not to alert anyone.

The silence in the house was wrong.

Not empty.

Hollow.

She stepped into the hallway, heart thudding in her chest, and began checking each room with meticulous precision. Her mother’s study: untouched. The parlor: too clean. The kitchen: empty.

Then, as she turned toward the east wing—a part of the house she almost never entered—her foot caught on a ridge in the carpet.

A ripple.

Like something beneath it.

She knelt, pulled back the edge, and uncovered a seam.

A hidden door.

Old. Dusty. With a latch so well concealed it looked decorative.

Her fingers hovered over it. Every rational part of her screamed to turn back. But the part of her that wore masks, that ran streams, that whispered “Alpha” to the world?

That part turned the latch.

The door opened with a creak, revealing a narrow staircase spiraling downward.

A basement?

No.

A cellar. Older than the rest of the house. Carved from stone. Lit only by narrow window slits that filtered moonlight like prison bars.

Each step she took down was like walking back into time.

At the bottom: a long hallway with three wooden doors.

She tried the first. Locked.

The second. Locked.

The third creaked open.

Inside, the air was thick with humidity and incense. The scent of sandalwood and something darker—decay, perhaps.

It was a room of relics.

Walls lined with leather-bound journals. Display cases of masks. A mannequin dressed in an antique corset and long silk gloves. A wooden throne-like chair, padded in red velvet.

And in the center of the room?

A shrine.

Not religious.

Personal.

Photos. Candles. A framed portrait of a woman who looked eerily like Dominique—posed in a chair, legs crossed, a riding crop in hand. Behind her, scribbled in gold foil on the black matte:

Domina Noir – 1988.

A date.

A title.

A legacy.

Dominique’s knees buckled. She gripped the wall, gasping for breath, as her entire life seemed to tilt sideways.

This wasn’t a game someone had roped her into.

This was a bloodline.

A legacy.

A lie.

And maybe a punishment.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, snapping her back.

Marco: “You need to get out of there. Now. The signal just went live again.”

She turned to the open door.

And behind it—barely visible in the shadows—

Was a mirror.

Her own reflection blinked back at her.

But her reflection…

Was still wearing the mask.