You don’t expect to see a house there. Not at that height. Not that far from anything that looks remotely accessible. The mountain stretches upward in uneven layers, wind cutting across it without resistance. There’s nothing up there that suggests people belong—no roads, no fences, not even a proper trail you can follow with confidence. And then you see it. A small house, sitting near the top like it had always been there.
At first, it feels wrong. Not abandoned. Not broken. Just… misplaced. Houses usually come with context. Roads leading up to them. Signs of other people nearby. Something that explains why they exist where they do. This one doesn’t offer any of that. It stands alone, surrounded by nothing but open land and silence. We stopped longer than we meant to, trying to make sense of it. Because the more you look, the stranger it becomes.
The structure looks maintained. The roof intact. The walls steady against the wind. Which makes the question harder to ignore. Not how it got there. But why it’s still there. And that’s when we met her: