Three Knocks

 

  

Prologue: Three Knocks

  

The woods don't echo the way they should.

 

Tyler Jensen figured that out right about the time he realized he was lost.

 

The trail markers were gone, his flashlight was dying, and the cold felt wrong—not like autumn, but like the air itself was holding its breath.

 

His friends were back at the bonfire, laughing, drinking, and daring each other to knock.

 

They thought it was funny.
They thought the story was just that—a story.

 

He didn't.

 

Not after what happened to Logan Wren last year. They found Logan in his own backyard, barefoot and muttering, eyes like cracked glass, saying the same words over and over:

 

"Don’t knock. Don’t knock. Don’t knock…”

 

Tyler should have listened.

 

But he wanted to prove something. That he wasn’t scared. That he could stand where Logan stood and laugh into the void.

 

Instead, he found The Tomb.

 

The trees thinned, and there it was—black stone, gaping like a mouth in the hillside, jagged and too wide. The air that poured from it reeked of rot and iron. Something in him screamed to turn back.

 

But the dare was three knocks.

 

So he raised his fist and tapped the stone altar beside the entrance.

 

One.
Two.
Three.

 

The silence that followed was immediate and complete—as if the world exhaled all at once.

 

And then came the scraping.
Heavy boots dragging through ash.
A low hum, rising like a hymn.
The smell of sulfur.

 

Tyler backed away, tripped, scrambled to his feet.

 

Something was coming.

 

His last thought, before the darkness swallowed him, was of the three knocks—

 

—and how they weren’t just part of the ritual…

 

They were the lock.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1: Hollow Ground

 

 

 

The coffin was too small.

 

That was Avery Knox’s first thought as they lowered it into the earth.

 

Noah was fifteen. Bright-eyed. Laughed too loud. Always running somewhere barefoot. The box should’ve been bigger. It felt wrong, like trying to fit a story into a sentence.

 

Rain drizzled over the small group gathered at the hilltop cemetery. No thunder. No lightning. Just gray and wet and quiet.

 

Too quiet.

 

He looked at the preacher droning over the grave. Not their regular guy—just someone from the next county over, someone who didn’t know Noah, didn’t care.

 

No mention of his laugh. No mention of the notebook Noah carried everywhere. No mention of how he’d gone missing for two days before they found his body near the edge of the woods.

 

Avery clenched his fists in his coat pockets, jaw locked.
Something didn’t make sense.
Noah hadn’t just gotten lost.

 

They ruled it an accident—hypothermia.
But Noah wasn’t dumb. He knew the woods.
And Avery had seen something… off… in the way his brother’s eyes stared blankly toward the trees even in death.

 

Like they were still watching something.

 

After the service, he stayed behind while others left. The grass squished beneath his boots, soft from the rain. The sky hung low, pressing down like a weight.

 

He reached into his jacket, pulling out Noah’s notebook.

 

It had been found stuffed under the body, miraculously dry, almost like someone had placed it there for Avery to find.

 

Most of it was sketches—trees, symbols, fire.

 

But the last page was different.

 

Only one line, written in black ink:

 

“Three knocks. He answered.”

 

Avery stared at the words until the rain began to smear the ink.

 

He didn’t know who he was.
But he was going to find out.

 

And if this Tomb was real, he was going to knock back.

 

 

   

Chapter 2: The Whisper Path

  

 

The map was drawn in pencil, lines jagged and erratic, like Noah had been shaking while he sketched it. Avery laid it out under the fluorescent light of his garage, wiping grease-stained fingers on his jeans as he traced the route again.

 

It wasn’t much of a map—more like a scrawl of trees and symbols. But he recognized the landmarks: the creek that dried up years ago, the broken fence along Miller’s Ridge, and the hollow tree with the split trunk.

 

All roads led past Black Hollow.
And from there… to the cave.

 

The one Noah had written about in shaky lines and nightmares.

 

The Tomb.

 

He shoved the notebook into his backpack, zipped his jacket, and slung it over his shoulder just as headlights washed over the driveway.

 

Tess.

 

She climbed out of her old Jeep, hoodie drawn tight, cigarette dangling from her lips. “You look like hell.”

 

“I feel like it,” Avery muttered, yanking the garage door shut behind him.

 

She took a drag, then flicked the half-burnt cigarette into a puddle. “You really gonna do this? Follow some haunted Blair Witch map your dead brother drew in a manic episode?”

 

“He wasn’t manic.”

 

“He was something,” she said, her voice softer now. “Avery… what if this is just you trying to cope?”

 

“I don’t need therapy,” he snapped. “I need answers.”

 

She didn’t argue. Tess had known Avery since sixth grade. She knew when to push and when to follow. And today, she followed.

 

They parked at the edge of the woods where the asphalt ended and the gravel gave up.

 

The trail was just visible in the fading light—overgrown and narrow, choked with vines and thorns like it hadn’t been walked in years. Trees hunched close together, bark dark and slick, dripping from the mist.

 

“You sure this is the right way?” Tess asked.

 

Avery pulled out Noah’s notebook and pointed. “Split tree. Half a mile in.”

 

They walked in silence, the kind that gets louder the deeper you go.

 

Around them, the forest exhaled wet breath. Leaves whispered in patterns that didn’t match the wind. Somewhere far off, a crow screamed—and was instantly silenced, like something had clamped its beak shut.

 

Tess paused. “Do you hear that?”

 

Avery stopped too, heart ticking up.

 

It wasn’t a voice. Not exactly.

 

More like the idea of a voice. A presence that slithered just beneath hearing, threading through the branches like smoke. It didn’t speak words—it breathed them into your spine.

 

“Knock-knock…” “He sees you…”

 

He shook his head. “It’s nothing. Just wind.”

 

Tess gave him a look but said nothing.

 

They passed the split tree just as the sky turned from ash to coal. The path narrowed into a trench of stone and shadow. Moss grew thick along the roots, and bones—small ones, maybe animal—littered the sides.

 

Avery tried not to look too long at the way some of them were arranged.

 

And then, suddenly, they were there.

 

Black Hollow.

 

The trees opened to reveal a sunken basin, the earth dipped like something massive had crashed there centuries ago. Dead leaves circled the center like a vortex, and just beyond it, nestled between boulders and brush—

 

A dark mouth in the hillside.

 

Noah had drawn it perfectly.

 

The Tomb.

 

It didn’t look like a cave. It looked like a wound in the land. The entrance was too round, and too clean, like something carved it deliberately. Symbols were etched into the surrounding stones—some charred, others still faintly glowing.

 

Tess stopped cold. “This is where we turn back.”

 

“I can’t.”

 

“You’ve seen it. That’s enough. Let’s get out of here before—”

 

Knock.

 

She froze.

 

Avery turned toward the cave.

 

Knock.

 

It didn’t echo.

 

It didn’t need to.

 

Knock.

 

The sound came from inside. But not like wood or stone—like flesh striking bone.

 

Three knocks.

 

Avery stepped forward, as if pulled.

 

The Tomb was calling.

 

 

  

Chapter 3: Ash and Rope

  

 

Avery crossed the hollow like a sleepwalker.

 

Each step felt muffled, like he was sinking through the earth instead of walking on it. The cave loomed ahead, wide enough to swallow a man whole. No sound came from inside—not wind, not dripping water, not even the scurry of rats.

 

Just silence.

 

Behind him, Tess hissed, “Avery, stop!”

 

He didn’t.

 

He passed the stone threshold. The moment his foot crossed into the dark, the air changed—thicker, humid, warm like breath. He paused, hand resting against the rough wall.

 

And then he saw them.

 

The offerings.

 

Laid out in a line like a twisted altar:

 

• A shovel, old and rusted, handle wrapped in blackened rope.
• A leather mask, stitched with twine, shaped like a human face—but too long, too wide.
• A pair of black boots, caked in soot and blood, toes pointed outward as if they’d been stepped out of.
• A Bible. Burned halfway through. Still smoking.

 

Avery knelt.

 

The Bible crumbled at his touch. Ash stuck to his fingertips, oily and dark.

 

Inside the cave, the symbols on the walls pulsed faintly—some drawn in charcoal, others carved directly into the stone. Snakes writhed in one symbol. Eyes bled in another. A central sigil—three jagged marks inside a circle—was carved over and over, hundreds of times.

 

The same symbol Noah had drawn on the last page.

 

Avery whispered, “This is it.”

 

Tess stayed just outside the mouth of the cave, holding her flashlight like a crucifix. “This is insane. We need to go. Now.”

 

“Noah was here.”

 

“I don’t care—”

 

“There’s something in here,” Avery said, standing slowly. “Something… old.”

 

A hum filled the air, low and rhythmic. It didn’t vibrate through the ground—it thudded in the chest, like a heartbeat too deep to belong to anything human.

 

And then—

 

A voice.

 

From inside the dark.

 

“Child of the ash... do you bring your blood?”

 

Tess screamed. “NOPE.”

 

She turned to run, but something stopped her—something behind her.

 

Heavy breathing.

 

A flicker of movement.

 

And then—

 

“Wolves don’t leave the flock, girl.”

 

A figure stood just past the trees, draped in shadows. Hood drawn low, robe soaked in black and gray like smoke made solid. His face was hidden, but something beneath the hood grinned—wide and crooked, like skin stitched over teeth.

 

In one hand, he held an axe. The metal was old, etched with scripture… but melted, warped—like it had been dipped in fire too long.

 

Tess backed into the cave, trembling. “Avery… he’s real…”

 

Avery stepped between her and the entrance.

 

The hooded man didn’t move. He just raised a hand and slowly—deliberately—tapped the haft of the axe against a nearby tree.

 

Knock.

 

Then again.

 

Knock.

 

Then once more.

 

Knock.

 

The forest fell silent.

 

The sigils in the cave flared to life, bathing the inside in crimson glow. The burned Bible ignited suddenly, flames dancing without heat. Shadows twisted on the walls, forming shapes that moved even after the fire dimmed.

 

Avery turned to Tess.

 

“We’re in it now.”

 

 

 

Chapter 4: The Tomb

 

 

 

The cave sealed behind them.

 

Not with stone—not physically—but something shifted. A weight pressed against Avery’s chest, a pressure behind his eyes like he’d stepped underwater.

 

Tess clung to his arm. “There’s no way out, is there?”

 

“No,” Avery said quietly. “There never was.”

 

The crimson glow bled deeper into the cave, lighting a narrow passage that wound downward like a throat. The walls pulsed with warmth, slick with condensation—or was it sweat?

 

Avery’s boots sloshed through puddles that shimmered with oil, reflecting shapes that didn’t match the cave around them.

 

One was Noah.

 

He blinked—and it was gone.

 

Symbols flickered in and out of visibility as they descended—some moving, crawling beneath the stone like insects pressed under glass. Others stared at them. Eyes, hundreds of them, etched into the walls.

 

Watching.

 

Waiting.

 

“He sees you…”

 

The voice came from nowhere. Not the priest—this was something older, buried in the bones of the earth.

 

They emerged into a wide chamber. At the center stood a stone altar, cracked and blackened. Chains lay coiled beside it, wet with something Avery didn’t want to name.

 

And behind the altar, cloaked in shadow—

 

Father Grin.

 

He stood tall, his robe blending into the cave, more shadow than man. The mask was gone now. His face was not burned… but changed. His skin was pale, almost translucent, veins pulsing beneath like rivers of ink. His eyes were completely black.

 

And he was smiling.

 

Not with joy—but with certainty.

 

“Welcome, sinner,” he rasped, voice like gravel dragged across a coffin lid. “You heard the call. You knocked. And the Gloom… opened its eye.”

 

Avery took a shaky step forward. “You knew my brother.”

 

“I know them all,” the priest said. “Every sheep that strays. Every lamb that bleats. I offer them truth. I offer them freedom from the light.”

 

“What did you do to him?”

 

“I opened his eyes.” Grin raised a hand, long fingers twitching in prayer or spell. “He walked willingly into the womb of the earth. He left behind the lie you call life.”

 

“You killed him,” Avery growled.

 

“No,” Grin whispered. “I birthed him.”

 

The altar began to glow. Flames ignited in its cracks—blue, then white, then violet. The smoke that rose from it didn’t go up… it sank. It twisted around their feet, cold as dry ice.

 

Tess stepped back, eyes wide. “Avery…”

 

Grin turned to her, almost kindly. “The girl trembles. She fears the Gloom. As she should. It doesn’t want her yet.”

 

He stepped around the altar.

 

“It wants you.”

 

Avery’s mind screamed to run, to fight, to do something. But his legs felt frozen, his thoughts molasses-thick.

 

Grin held up a blackened Bible, its cover scorched but intact. “Your brother wrote his name in the Book of Ash. Will you do the same?”

 

Avery's hand twitched toward Noah’s notebook in his jacket.

 

Grin saw it—and laughed. A harsh, broken sound.

 

“You carry it. His gospel. The boy who looked beyond the veil.”

 

Suddenly, the altar cracked down the center. The cave shook.

 

And something moved inside it.

 

Flesh.

 

Muscle.

 

An eye—too large, too wet—opened within the stone and blinked once, slowly.

 

Tess screamed.

 

Father Grin raised the axe high.

 

Avery whispered, “No.”

 

And slammed his fist against the altar.

 

One.

 

Two.

 

Three.

 

The eye blinked again—faster now. The walls of the cave moaned, and the symbols burst into flame. The air warped. The shadows howled.

 

Father Grin stopped smiling.

 

“You don’t know what you’ve done.”

 

Avery stared into the eye.

 

“I knocked back.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5: Father Grin

 

 

 

The eye in the altar pulsed.

 

It wasn’t just looking—it was judging.

 

The walls twisted with shrieks that didn’t echo, as if the cave were swallowing the sound before it reached the surface. Stone oozed black tears, the sigils bleeding, dripping flame instead of ink.

 

Tess gripped Avery’s arm so tight her nails cut through his sleeve.

 

“Make it stop,” she whispered.

 

“I think I just started it.”

 

Father Grin stood unmoving, axe lowered. For the first time, he seemed… unsure.

 

“Three knocks,” he murmured. “Three were never meant to return.”

 

He stepped back as the eye in the altar blinked—slower now, thicker tears sliding down its massive lid. Then the stone cracked open, splitting like rotten fruit.

 

From inside crawled something.

 

A hand first—no, a claw. Fleshy, elongated, covered in a gray membrane like birthskin. Then a face: eyeless, noseless, a gaping mouth that opened sideways. It hissed, not from lungs, but from somewhere deeper, like wind escaping a tomb.

 

Tess screamed.

 

Avery didn’t move.

 

He was watching Grin.

 

Because the priest wasn’t backing away.

 

He was kneeling.

 

Arms outstretched, head bowed. A worshiper before his god.

 

“Show them your grace,” he whispered. “Show them the truth of the flame. Show them the face of the Gloom.”

 

The creature slithered out—impossibly long, impossibly silent—circling Grin like a pet snake returning to its master.

 

But then… it paused.

 

It turned toward Avery.

 

And stopped.

 

Grin raised his head. “What are you waiting for?”

 

The creature opened its mouth—too wide, too deep—and something spoke through it.

 

But it wasn’t a voice.

 

It was every voice Avery had ever heard. Noah. His mother. Himself. Whispering. Crying. Screaming.

 

And behind all those voices was the truth.

 

He saw it.

 

Grin, years ago, kneeling in the ashes of his burned church, Bible melted to his hand, mouth torn open by a scream too big for one man. He hadn’t survived the fire.

 

He’d been claimed by it.

 

The Gloom found him in that moment of faith and fury and fed. It gave him power—not to preach salvation, but to harvest souls. To open the gate.

 

Every knock. Every ritual. Every death.

 

They weren’t accidents.

 

They were offerings.

 

Grin's voice broke through the vision. “Why do you hesitate?” he shouted at the creature. “He knocked! He chose!”

 

But the creature turned its head slightly, as if… listening.

 

To Avery.

 

To something inside him.

 

Grin’s expression twisted. “No. No no no. He carries the boy’s gospel. The words that bled through the veil. He’s tainted.”

 

The cave trembled.

 

The Gloom didn’t want to consume Avery.

 

It wanted to use him.

 

Avery took a step forward, eyes burning. “What is this place?”

 

Grin’s voice cracked like splitting wood. “This is the tomb! This is the end of lies! This is where light goes to die!”

 

He raised the axe again and charged.

 

But the Gloom moved faster.

 

It wrapped around him in a blink—clawed limbs, tendrils, smoke, all folding Grin into itself like a serpent coiling around prey. He didn’t scream. He laughed.

 

A long, broken laugh.

 

Then he was gone.

 

Swallowed whole.

 

The eye blinked once more and began to close.

 

Tess grabbed Avery’s hand. “We have to go. Now.”

 

But Avery didn’t move.

 

He stared at the altar, the eye, the smoke.

 

Something had changed.

 

Something had opened.

 

And inside him, a voice—not his own—whispered:

 

“You knocked.
Now knock again.”

 

 

 

Chapter 6: Doom Sealed

 

 

 

The altar cracked one final time.

 

The eye split fully open, and behind it—another world.

 

Not fire. Not darkness. Something worse.

 

A shifting realm of ash and memory. Twisted trees made of bone. Skies that bled in reverse. Screams that looped like lullabies.

 

Tess tugged Avery’s arm. “We need to move!”

 

But Avery’s feet wouldn’t budge.

 

His heart beat in sync with the pulsing sigils now. He could feel the rhythm of The Tomb—the ancient thrum that echoed in blood and bone, in ritual and ruin. It wasn’t just a place.

 

It was a machine.

 

And he had just turned the final key.

 

You knocked again.

 

The voice filled his head. It was Noah’s voice. Only... older. Tired. Hollow.

 

You came to find me.

 

The smoke behind the altar began to twist, forming a figure. Not the Gloom. Not Grin.

 

Noah.

 

But not the way Avery remembered him.

 

His little brother was taller now, face pale, eyes like empty mirrors. Ash drifted from his skin like dandruff from a forgotten corpse. He looked at Avery—no malice, no pain. Just sorrow.

 

Avery stumbled forward. “Noah… is that you?”

 

“Some of me. Not all.”

 

Tess gasped. “Avery, look around—”

 

He turned.

 

The walls of the cave were breathing.

 

Literally, the stone expanded and contracted like lungs. Black veins ran through them, pulsing with some kind of ichor. Shapes began to drop from the ceiling—dripping shadows that hit the floor like meat and began to crawl upright.

 

Figures.

 

Congregants.

 

Dozens of them.

 

Faceless, robed, half-flesh, half-smoke. All kneeling toward the altar. Toward him.

 

Noah’s voice again:

 

“You opened the gate. You brought the gospel. The Tomb has a new priest.”

 

“No,” Avery whispered. “That’s not why I came.”

 

“You came to save me,” Noah said. “But there’s nothing left to save.”

 

A second voice joined—echoing over the first.

 

“Only to replace.”

 

The smoke behind Noah thickened—and from it stepped Grin.

 

Not entirely human anymore.

 

His limbs bent wrong. His jaw hung unhinged. The axe in his hand pulsed like a heartbeat, as though it craved flesh, not wood.

 

“You knocked, boy,” Grin grinned. “And now the room is sealed.”

 

He swung.

 

Avery ducked—barely. The axe smashed stone, sparks flying.

 

Tess screamed and ran to the wall, trying to find a way out, slamming her fists against the slick, pulsing surface.

 

Grin raised the axe again, but the altar flashed—blinding light—and Grin recoiled, shrieking as smoke hissed from his body.

 

Avery staggered back toward the altar.

 

The notebook.

 

Noah’s notebook.

 

He pulled it from his jacket and slammed it down.

 

Flames erupted—not red, not orange, but white-blue, searing like truth.

 

The congregants wailed, their forms unraveling in smoke.

 

Grin stumbled toward the eye. “NO! I AM THE TONGUE OF THE TOMB!”

 

“You were,” Avery growled. “But this is my knock now.”

 

He grabbed the rope, the shovel, the mask. Laid them on the altar.

 

One.
Two.
Three.

 

The cave screamed.

 

The eye snapped shut.

 

A wind like a thousand whispered confessions roared through the chamber, lifting Grin off the ground. He convulsed midair, limbs flailing, veins bursting with light.

 

And then—

 

Gone.

 

Just ash.

 

The eye sealed.

 

The glow faded.

 

The cave exhaled its final breath.

 

 

Avery collapsed to his knees, the notebook still burning beside him.

 

Tess rushed to him, shaking his shoulders. “Avery! Say something!”

 

He opened his mouth, but the only thing that came out was a whisper—not his own.

 

“Three knocks... seal the room...”

 

Tess backed away. “What was that?”

 

Avery slowly stood.

 

He looked toward the altar.

 

The mask.

 

The boots.

 

The rope.

 

Still there.

 

Waiting.

 

 

 

 

Epilogue: Gloom Sleeps Lightless

 

 

Autumn came late that year.

 

The leaves turned black before they turned red, curling like burned pages. Animals stopped crossing into Black Hollow. Trees stood too still. Even the crows stayed silent.

 

The Tomb was sealed.

 

Or so they thought.

 

Avery never returned home.

 

Tess did—barely.

 

She wandered out of the woods three days later, barefoot and blood-slicked, her eyes cracked like shattered glass. When they asked what happened, she just muttered the same four words.

 

“He knocked. It answered.”

 

They kept her in a psychiatric ward out in Waco. She doesn’t speak now—not to doctors, not to family.

 

But at night… she hums.

 

Three low notes. Always three.

 

Some folks tried to go looking. Local kids. Amateur ghost hunters. TikTokers.

 

None found the cave.

 

Not anymore.

 

But they found the altar.

 

Or what was left of it.

 

Charred stone. Burnt pages. A single black boot half-buried in the dirt, toes pointed toward nothing.

 

And carved into the face of the rock—so fresh it hadn’t weathered a day:

 

A new gospel begins.

 

Three knocks. A new priest.

 

Gloom sleeps… lightless.

 

 

Somewhere in the deep woods, far from roads and reason, a shadow moves.

 

Black boots step silently over moss and root. A leather mask is pulled down over a face that is no longer a boy’s. And in the crook of one hand…

 

An axe.

 

Etched with symbols.

 

Humming with hunger.

 

 

 

 

 

The Whisper Room

 

From the Journal of Tess Monroe (Unpublished Notes – Waco State Psychiatric Facility)

 

Day 11

 

They bring me food.
They bring me pills.
They bring me questions.

 

But no one brings him back.

 

I can still hear him knocking.

 

I don’t write for them. I write for me. I write to remember, because every day the dream chews a little deeper. The nurses say it’s trauma. Hallucination. But I know better.

 

I was there.

 

 

Day 13

 

There’s a mirror in the corner. They say it’s not a two-way glass, but I see them behind it. I see the men in the suits. One of them has eyes like Grin’s—too dark, too still.

 

At night, the mirror fogs up. And sometimes…

 

Sometimes it knocks.

 

Once.
Twice.
Three times.

 

Soft. Wet. Like knuckles wrapped in rope.

 

 

Day 14

 

They’ve stopped asking about Avery.
Stopped saying his name.
Because they know. They know he’s not dead.

 

Not really.

 

They can’t see the Gloom. But I do. Every time the light flickers, it slithers up the wall, slow and patient. It doesn’t want me.

 

Not yet.

 

But it’s watching.

 

 

Day 17

 

Last night, I heard voices in the vent.
Noah’s. Avery’s. My own.

 

All whispering the same phrase:

 

“Three knocks. Seal the room.”

 

There is no lock on my door.
But there is a seal.
A symbol scratched into the ceiling above my bed.

 

I didn’t put it there. But it glows when I close my eyes.

 

 

Day 20

 

They gave me art therapy.

 

I painted the altar.

 

The counselor called it “concerning.”
She doesn’t know the cave breathes.
She doesn’t know that light rots.

 

She said, “What’s the black eye supposed to mean?”

 

I told her, “It means we’re being watched.”

 

Then I smiled like Grin used to.

 

 

Day 22

 

A new patient checked in across the hall. Young kid. Maybe fifteen. Draws with charcoal. He hums to himself when no one’s listening.

 

Three notes. Low and slow.

 

I asked him what the song was.

 

He said:

 

“It’s what the man in the woods taught me. Before I woke up here.”

 

 

Day 25

 

They think I’m healing. I’m not.

 

I’m remembering.

 

I wasn’t supposed to leave the cave. That place doesn’t let people walk away. It feeds. Avery should’ve been the offering.

 

But he knocked back.

 

And now he writes the gospel.

 

I dream of him standing at the altar, mask on, axe in hand. I hear the choir of the hollow chanting.

 

“Gloom sleeps…
Lightless.”

 

 

Final Entry – Day 30

 

It knocked again.

 

This time from under the floor.

 

 

End of Journal

 

The nurses found Tess Monroe curled up beneath her bed, whispering symbols into the concrete.

 

Three days later, she vanished from her room without opening the door.

 

Only thing left behind was a page torn from her journal—smudged in ash. Three lines carved deep into the floorboards:

 

No light… in the Tomb…
Can’t run… from ya doom…
Three knocks… seal the room…

 

 

 

THE END