No Old Skin

Oregon, 1988.Dennis "e;Buzz"e; Harlan takes a job restoring an abandoned farmhouse along the McKenzie River, hoping for a clean slate and a quick profit.The house was left mid-renovation.Tools still in place. Work unfinished. No sign of where the owners went.At first, it's just another job.Then the walls start changing.Wallpaper peels overnight, revealing fresh paint beneath. Paint strips away to uncover newer wallpaper below it. Every layer looks more recent than the last, as if the house isn't aging—but renewing itself.Buzz works harder, sanding, painting, rebuilding.The house keeps shedding.Soon, it's not just the walls.The air smells of varnish and sap. Wood feels warm. The structure breathes. And pieces of the past Buzz ran from begin surfacing—memories he buried, a name he abandoned, a version of himself he swore was gone.Then he sees it.Inside the house, someone is still working.Wearing his old face.No Old Skin is a slow-burn horror novella about identity, reinvention, and the cost of trying to outrun who you were. Set against the isolation of rural Oregon, it explores what happens when a place refuses to let you change—and instead forces you to shed everything until only the original version remains.Some places don't age.They replace.