"House Moravec"

Illustration by Sabu

**"House Moravec"** is the second tale in the twenty-fourth episode of the fifth season of the Nolseep podcast. In it, a student tries to solve the mystery of a house. Written by Matt Dymerski, it has a runtime of 27:30 and was performed by Nikolle Doolin, Erika Sanderson, and David Cummings. It is the 616th tale overall on the podcast.

## Summary

Morgan travels to Prauge to spend a semester studying aboard after a messy breakup with a girl she liked. She books a room at House Moravec, a large mansion owned by a noblewoman named Aneta. Aneta shows the student up to her room, which is at the end of the upstairs hallway. Along the way, she notes the particularly cold atmosphere in the house. Going back downstairs, Morgan passes a striking photograph of Aneta with her husband, Rosta, who was a notorious womanizer and drinker. In the dining room, she meets her fellow students who she'll be sharing the mansion with.

Over the next few weeks, Morgan occasionally hears low sighs coming from somewhere deep in the house but can't locate the source. Aneta proves herself to be quite a cleaner, tidying up even the smallest messes as soon as they happen. On a walk around the mansion one afternoon, Morgan comes upon a library filled with medical textbooks. Flipping through them, she finds notes from Rosta commenting on the content inside and notes from Aneta calling him a bastard and saying she'll find all the women he's slept with.

At dinner one night, Morgan asks a classmate, Wright, about Rosta. Wright says that he disappeared without a trace ten years previously. Determined to discover the truth of what happened, Morgan devises a plan. She gives a drunken Wright a potted plant, which he drops. When Aneta leaves her room to clean up the mess, Morgan enters and finds her journal saying how much she loves her husband. A sigh comes again, and she realizes Aneta must still be keeping Rosta prisoner somewhere in the house. Opening a secret panel in the wall, she finds a cube of space with a single blood splatter inside.

Morgan spends the next few months searching and mapping the house when Aneta isn't looking. Peeking behind numerous hidden panels in the walls, she discovers an intricate tubing system that runs through the entire mansion. Behind a secret door in a small closet, she finds what appears to be a large set of artificial lungs. She becomes more desperate to solve the mystery so she can take her mind off her ex-girlfriend.

After spending almost the entire semester on the project, Morgan slowly loses hope that Rosta is somewhere in the house, as there is no possible extra space where Aneta could be keeping him. Finally finishing her diagrams, she realizes the piping system resembles a human's internal veins.

Now realizing the truth, she runs to Aneta's room and demands that she comes clean. Aneta opens a secret panel in her wall, revealing a small, cube-shaped space containing a glass jar with Rosta's head inside. Morgan realizes with horror that he's still alive. Aneta carefully placed Rosta's arteries and veins in glass tubes and spread them all through the house, so he could never leave her again. The sighs she had been hearing were Rosta's groans of pain and agony.

Morgan threatens to call the police. Aneta says that she knows about her messy breakup and says that her ex-girlfriend is coming to the house next semester. She offers to teach the student about her methods and even says she'll let her keep the mansion after she dies. Depressed and insane over the breakup and the revelation, Morgan accepts.

## Cast

Nikolle Doolin as Morgan

Erika Sanderson as Aneta

David Cummings as Wright