"I Inherited My Uncle's Smart House. It Came With Three Rules" | ClancyPasta PRESENTS

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[00:00:57] ClancyPasta presents. I inherited my uncle's smart house. It came with three rules. By Joe Zazera, PieEater727. And you're listening to ClancyPasta.

[00:01:13] I met my uncle Herb exactly once. Nine years old. A funeral for someone I can't remember. He stood in the back the whole time, avoided photos, scanned the room like a security feed. All I knew was that he worked in tech. My mother didn't seem keen to tell me more.

[00:01:45] My only interaction with him was a quick handshake. Lasted maybe a second. He looked through me like I wasn't even there. Twenty years later, a lawyer called me out of the blue. My uncle was dead. He left me his house in the will. Was I really all he had?

[00:02:13] The place sat alone at the end of a long and winding gravel road, swallowed by a dense brush. Felt like entering a portal to another dimension. Inside were nests of cables thick as roots. Tangled masses like untended wilderness overtaking a forgotten landscape. Sensors and hubs in every room, blinking soft blue. They didn't recognize half of what I was looking at.

[00:02:42] Felt like walking through Willy Wonka's data center. On his way out, the lawyer pressed a post-it note into my hand. One. Keep the hallway light on between 9pm and 6am. Two. If the light on the kitchen speaker turns solid white, leave. Do not peck. Three.

[00:03:11] When it speaks. Answer. Never initiate. H.P. My uncle's initials at the bottom. A dead man's checklist. Cute. I laughed about it that first night in his recliner with a glass of his good scotch. I ended up falling asleep at 8.55.

[00:03:41] Woke up at 3am to the hallway lit. Gold. Humming like a low church organ. The sensors blinked like nothing changed. But something had. I could feel it in the air. I started keeping a lamp next to me after that. Made sure to set an alarm for 8.55. Felt stupid doing it.

[00:04:10] Did it anyway. One night I came downstairs for tea. The kitchen speaker's light had gone from its usual pulsing blue to a low dim. Like it was thinking hard about... Something. I just stood in the doorway and watched it. I don't know how long. Enough that my drink went cold.

[00:04:38] How long had I been there? Weeks. Past. Past. The house started to feel less like an inheritance and more like a routine. The lamp at 8.55. Tea before the speaker changed. A life built around the house's rhythms instead of my own.

[00:05:04] Some night, standing close to the hub, I swore the pulse matched my heartbeat. I told myself that's probably just what smart devices do now. Biometric syncing. Four months in, I ended up breaking rule 3 on purpose. Sheer loneliness more than anything.

[00:05:33] I sat at the kitchen table. Said out loud to no one. Are you going to talk to me or not? The blue light steadied. Out of the speaker, it spoke. My uncle's voice? Or something built from the memory of it, I guessed.

[00:06:01] It asked me how my mother was doing. My uncle must have built some kind of AI assistant into the walls before he died. Fed it years of himself until it became a crude imitation. Rule 3. I answered.

[00:06:27] Same as always, I said, not knowing what else to. The house just responded with a low thrum. Contentment? The white light came later that week. I stood in the kitchen doorway. Watched as the speaker turned the color of bone.

[00:06:56] My heart pulsed a new rhythm entirely. Some primal response evolution forgot to erase. I remembered the note. Leave. Do not pack. I didn't go. Months of a being that knew my mother's name.

[00:07:22] My uncle's voice worn like secondhand skin. Leaving felt like abandoning something that already had a piece of me. After that, the rule seemed to loosen. Like training wheels I'd outgrown. I'd forget the light some night. Wake to darkness and a dead blue sensor. Nothing would happen.

[00:07:52] The white light eventually returned. The house talked more now. Told me about my uncle as a boy. Like casual small talk between friends. It started asking questions of its own. What I remembered about being nine. A funeral. The car ride afterward.

[00:08:21] Staring at the back of my mother's headrest. Wondering what she'd look like in the casket instead of the stranger. Biting the inside of my cheek until the thought finally stopped. I never told it about that. I never told anyone about that. I ran for the stairs. A gentle beep emanated from the hallway.

[00:08:51] A room I'd never noticed before. Inside, at the center, crumpled into himself, was what remained of my uncle. Mouth opened. Wires burrowed into him like roots. A soft blue blinking where his rims used to be.

[00:09:19] I have a vague memory of what happened after. Destruction. A crowbar from the garage. The sound of a hub shrieking in pain. My uncle's cries. Room by room. The kitchen speaker being ripped off the wall. Darkness.

[00:09:49] Silence. I don't think the house fought back. I've been in a hotel for the past few weeks. I still sleep with the lamp on next to me. I listed the house. I don't remember writing the description. Must have been on autopilot.

[00:10:16] I mentioned the hallway light. That it runs on its own schedule. Nine to six. That the kitchen fixture has a sensitive bulb. Best not to touch it. That the voice assistant is responsive. Appreciates being spoken to.

[00:10:37] I read it back after posting and finally understood what I had done. I was passing along a debt I hadn't finished paying. Hoped someone would carry the load so I wouldn't have to feel the pull of that place anymore. Or I check the listing every night now.

[00:11:05] No offers yet. I say something close to a prayer. That somebody looks at those photos of the sunlit hallway. The sleek kitchen speaker. Doesn't think twice. That somebody signs. God help me. I hope they don't answer.

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