Mara didn't move for a long time. The diary lay at her feet, its final words—He's already here—staring up like an accusation, a jagged scrawl that seemed to pulse with a life of its own under the dim glow of the flashlight. The paper was creased where it had landed, the margins curling inward as if shrinking from the weight of what she'd written—or what something else had. She couldn't tear her eyes away, couldn't shake the feeling that the words weren't just ink but a warning etched into the fabric of the house itself, a message she'd missed until it was too late.
The thudding from the attic had stopped, but the silence was worse, thick and suffocating, pressing against her like a hand clamped over her mouth, stealing her breath. It wasn't the quiet of peace or rest—it was a predator's pause, the stillness before a strike, and it wrapped around her, tightening with every second that ticked by. She clutched the flashlight, its beam steady now but weaker, as if the house was draining it, siphoning the light into its shadows to leave her vulnerable. The plastic casing was warm from her grip, slick with the sweat that coated her palms, and she adjusted her hold, afraid it might slip from her trembling fingers.
Her mind churned, caught between the diaries she didn't remember writing and the phone calls she couldn't explain. The notebooks sprawled across the floor like fragments of a life she'd lost, their pages filled with her handwriting—messy, familiar, hers—but recounting a terror she'd buried or never known. Then there was Ellie, her voice crackling through the ancient rotary phone, pleading and panicked, a mirror to Mara's own growing dread. Ellie's words whispered at the edges of her thoughts, blending with her own voice in a way that pulled her apart, unraveling the seams of who she thought she was. Was it memory? Madness? Or something worse—something the house had kept hidden, waiting for her return?
She needed air. The dining room felt too small, the walls too close, their peeling paint and cracked plaster leaning in as if to trap her. The air was stale, heavy with dust and the faint tang of mildew, and it pressed against her chest, making every breath a struggle. She stood, legs stiff from sitting too long, the muscles cramped and protesting as she moved. Her jacket hung over the back of a chair, its fabric rumpled and cold, and she grabbed it, intending to step outside—just for a minute, just to breathe, to feel the night air cut through the fog in her head and remind her she was still here, still real.
But as she reached for the door, the phone rang again. The sound clawed through the house, sharp and urgent, a jagged edge that sliced through the silence and pinned her in place. It wasn't a gentle trill but a demand, relentless and piercing, echoing off the walls until it filled every corner. She cursed under her breath, the word a hiss between clenched teeth, torn between running out into the night and running up to face whatever waited. The attic won, its pull magnetic, dragging her back despite the fear coiling in her gut. The ladder creaked as she climbed, each rung groaning under her weight, the cold biting deeper into her skin through her jacket, sinking into her bones like frost on glass.
The phone sat there in its dusty corner, trembling with each ring, the receiver still on the hook—always on the hook, no matter how she left it, as if the house refused to let it rest. Its black plastic gleamed faintly under the flashlight's beam, a relic from decades past that shouldn't work but did, connecting her to something she couldn't see. She snatched it up mid-ring, her voice rough, scraped raw by exhaustion and dread. "Ellie, what now?"
"Mara," Ellie said, her tone ragged, like she'd been crying, the words thick with tears she hadn't shed. "He's back. I thought he left, but he's downstairs—I heard the door. He got in." Her voice cracked, each syllable trembling, and Mara could almost feel the girl's panic seeping through the line, cold and clammy against her own skin.
Mara's stomach dropped, a sick lurch that left her dizzy. "Where are you? Still in the attic?"
"Yeah," Ellie whispered, her voice so low it barely carried, a thread stretched to breaking. "Behind the trunk. But he knows I'm here. He's… he's coming up the stairs. I can hear him breathing." The sound of it came through faintly, a rasping wheeze that wasn't Ellie's, a rhythm too slow, too deliberate to be human—or wholly human.
Mara's flashlight darted to the hatch below her, the beam skittering across the attic floor, half-expecting the wood to swing open and reveal something she couldn't face. Nothing. Just the dark rectangle, bolted shut, its metal latch glinting dully in the light. "Ellie, stay quiet. Maybe he'll—" She stopped, grasping for reassurance she didn't feel, her words faltering.
A scream cut her off, high and sharp, muffled like it came through clenched teeth, a sound of pure terror that jolted Mara's nerves. "He's got a knife!" Ellie gasped, her voice breaking into fragments. "He's at the hatch—oh God, he cut me!" A sob tore through her, raw and guttural. "My arm—it's bleeding bad."
"Ellie, hold on!" Mara shouted, gripping the receiver so hard her knuckles ached, the plastic creaking under her fingers. "Press on it, stop the bleeding—tell me where he cut you!" Her voice rose, desperate, as if volume could bridge the gap between them, could pull Ellie back from the edge.
"My forearm," Ellie whimpered, her words slurring with pain or shock. "Left side. It's deep—he's still here, banging on the hatch. Mara, I can't—" The line crackled, static surging like a storm, then went dead, the dial tone buzzing like a swarm of flies, incessant and hollow.
Mara dropped the phone, her breath hitching, a ragged gasp that caught in her throat. The receiver clattered against the floor, spinning briefly before settling, its cord coiling like a snake. She stumbled back, nearly tripping over the trunk, her mind racing, replaying Ellie's scream in a loop that wouldn't stop. It had been so real—too real—piercing her skull with its urgency, but the attic was empty, just her standing there amid the dust and shadows, the air thick with the smell of mold and old wood. She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to steady herself, to slow the frantic thudding of her heart, when a sharp sting flared up her left arm, sudden and searing.
She yanked up her sleeve, the fabric snagging on her skin, flashlight trembling in her other hand as she angled it toward the pain. There, on her forearm, was a gash—fresh, red, welling with blood that glistened wetly in the light. It hadn't been there a minute ago. She hadn't felt it until now, hadn't brushed against anything sharp in the cluttered attic. The cut was long, jagged, slicing from her wrist halfway to her elbow, exactly where Ellie had said, a mirror to the wound she'd described in her panic. Mara choked on a gasp, the sound strangling in her throat, and dropped the flashlight. It rolled, casting wild arcs of light across the attic, shadows lunging and retreating as it spun.
"No, no, no," she muttered, fumbling for the light, her fingers clumsy with shock. She snatched it up, the beam shaking as she aimed it back at her arm. Her pulse roared, drowning out the silence, a thunderous rhythm that pulsed in her ears. Blood slicked her fingers as she pressed her hand to the wound, warm and sticky, spreading across her palm in a dark smear. She hadn't cut herself—there was nothing up here, no splintered wood or rusted nails she could've grazed. The trunk was solid, the floorboards smooth beneath the dust, yet the pain was real, throbbing in time with her heartbeat, undeniable and growing sharper with every second.
She staggered to the ladder, clutching her arm, the towel of her sleeve pressed tight against the gash as she climbed down. The rungs were slick under her boots, her bloodied hand slipping once, leaving a faint red smear on the wood. She hit the hallway floor hard, her knees buckling briefly before she caught herself, and stumbled to the bathroom, her breath coming in shallow bursts. The tap sputtered to life under her shaking fingers, cold water splashing over the gash, stinging like hell as it washed away the blood. She gritted her teeth against the pain, watching the red swirl down the drain, the cut clotting into an angry line that stood out starkly against her pale skin. She grabbed a towel from the rack, its fabric thin and frayed, and wrapped it tight around her forearm, the pressure grounding her even as her hands trembled.
She stumbled to the living room, half-collapsing onto the couch, the towel pressed tight against her arm, the dampness seeping through to her fingers. The photo album still lay open on the floor, its pages splayed where she'd left them, and her younger self stared up from the porch rail photo from '99. Mara's breath caught, a sharp hitch that burned her lungs. The smudge in the background was still there, a blurred shape she'd tried to dismiss as a trick of the light, but now, across her teenage arm—her left forearm—was a scar. The same jagged line, faded but unmistakable, carved into the girl she'd been, a mark she didn't remember carrying. She touched her own arm, the towel damp with blood, and the room tilted, the edges of her vision blurring as the impossible sank in.
The phone didn't ring again, but she didn't need it to. Something was happening—something impossible—tying her to Ellie, to 1999, to a past she didn't know, a thread of pain and fear stitching them together across time. Her arm throbbed, the cut a living link to Ellie's screams, to the diaries she couldn't reconcile with her memory. She sank deeper into the couch, the springs creaking beneath her, and stared at the photo. The girl's eyes seemed darker now, their edges shadowed in a way they hadn't been before, her crooked smile gone, replaced by a blank, hollow gaze that bore into Mara with an intensity she couldn't escape. It wasn't just a photo anymore—it was a window, a reflection of something she'd lost or never known, watching her as closely as she watched it.
Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the windows in their frames, a low howl that curled through the house like a voice calling her name. Mara didn't look. She didn't want to see what might be staring back—didn't want to catch another glimpse of those wide, screaming eyes in the glass, or the shadow man Ellie feared, the figure her diaries had summoned from a past she couldn't grasp. Her fingers tightened around the towel, the blood seeping through in dark patches, and she pressed her back against the couch, anchoring herself to its worn fabric as if it could keep her from slipping away.
The house creaked around her, a symphony of small sounds—the groan of settling beams, the sigh of the wind through the eaves, the faint drip of water from the bathroom tap she hadn't fully shut off. Each noise layered onto the last, building a chorus that felt alive, attentive, as if the walls themselves were listening, waiting for her next move. She tried to focus, to piece together the fragments—Ellie's voice, the diaries, the cut, the scar—but they spun out of reach, a kaleidoscope of terror that refused to settle into sense. Her arm ached, a steady pulse of pain that matched the rhythm of her fear, and she wondered if Ellie was still up there, bleeding behind the trunk, or if she'd already lost her to the thing with the knife.
The flashlight sat beside her on the couch, its beam angled toward the ceiling, casting a faint glow that did little to push back the dark. She picked it up, her movements slow, deliberate, and aimed it at the photo again, studying the scar on her younger self's arm. It was too precise, too perfect a match to the wound she now carried, a mirror across decades that defied everything she knew. She traced the line with her eyes, then her fingers, brushing the page as if she could feel the texture of that old injury, as if touching it might unlock the memory she'd lost—or the one she'd never had.
The wind gusted harder, a sharp whistle cutting through the night, and the windows shuddered, glass rattling like teeth in a skull. She kept her gaze on the photo, refusing to turn, refusing to give the darkness behind her the satisfaction of her fear. But the weight of it grew, a presence she couldn't ignore, pressing against her shoulders, her neck, her spine, until she felt it as surely as the couch beneath her. The house wasn't empty—not anymore, if it ever had been—and whatever was here with her, whatever had cut Ellie and marked her in turn, wasn't done. It was waiting, patient and inevitable, and Mara knew, deep in her bones, that the next move wasn't hers to make.