Mara pressed her back to the bedroom door, her breath shallow, the mask's stitched grin seared into her mind like a brand she couldn't erase. Her chest heaved with each ragged inhale, the air catching in her throat as if it were laced with invisible barbs. The wood of the door felt cold against her spine, its grain pressing into her skin through the thin fabric of her shirt, grounding her for a fleeting moment in a world that seemed intent on slipping away. Her fingers, trembling and slick with sweat, fumbled against the doorknob behind her, though she didn't dare turn it—not yet. The memory of what she'd seen lingered, a venomous afterimage that refused to fade.
The reflection had lasted only a heartbeat, but it was enough—too much. In that fractured second, she'd glimpsed him in the mirror across the room: her father, or whatever he'd become, his face obscured by that grotesque burlap mask, the red threads stitching a smile that mocked every childhood memory she'd clung to. His presence was no longer a distant echo of grief; it was here, tangible, seeping through the cracks of time like water through fractured stone. She could feel him in the way the air thickened, in the subtle shift of shadows that didn't align with the dim light filtering through the curtains. Her father was dead—she'd watched his casket sink into the earth years ago—and yet he was here, a weight she couldn't shake, a specter stitched together from nightmares and regret.
The house trembled around her, a low groan rumbling through the walls as if the structure itself were alive and in pain. The vibrations traveled up through the floorboards, buzzing against her bare feet, and she pressed herself harder against the door, as though she could merge with it and disappear. The air grew dense, heavy with the scent of sawdust and the faint, metallic tang of rust—smells that didn't belong in this bedroom, smells that dragged her back to the workshop in the basement where her father had spent his evenings, hunched over tools she was never allowed to touch. The memory clawed at her, unbidden: his calloused hands guiding a saw, the rasp of metal on wood, the way he'd hum tunelessly under his breath. That man was gone. This thing wearing his shape was something else entirely.
She slid to the floor, knees drawn up tight against her chest, the scar on her arm pulsing like a beacon beneath her sleeve. It was an old wound, a jagged line from a fall she barely remembered, but now it throbbed with a life of its own, hot and insistent, as if it were calling out to him. Ellie's words—You're pulling him here—clawed at her, sharp and accusing, replaying in her mind like a broken record. Ellie had said it just yesterday, her voice trembling over the phone, her tone laced with fear and something darker—blame. Mara had dismissed it then, chalking it up to exhaustion, to the strain of everything they'd been through since the house started changing. But now, with the mask's grin burned into her vision, those words felt like a prophecy she couldn't escape.
Every move she'd made—locking the window, hiding the knife under her pillow, answering the phone when it rang at odd hours—had tightened the noose, drawing him closer. She'd thought she was protecting herself, building barriers against the creeping dread that had settled over the house like a fog. Instead, each action seemed to weave a thread in some invisible tapestry, pulling the edges of her reality taut until they frayed. The window latch clicked uselessly in her memory; the knife's handle felt slippery in her grip even now, though it lay untouched beneath the pillow; the phone calls—static-choked voices she couldn't place—had multiplied, each one a tether reeling her toward this moment. She pressed her palms against her temples, trying to silence the cacophony of her own thoughts, but they spiraled faster, tangling into knots she couldn't unravel.
But how? Why? Her father was dead, a memory etched in faded photographs and half-forgotten stories, not this thing with empty eyes and a red-thread smile that stretched too wide. She'd mourned him, hadn't she? She'd stood at his grave, the wind tugging at her coat, the preacher's words a dull hum in her ears. He'd been a quiet man, stern but kind, his hands rough from work but gentle when he'd tucked her in at night. That was the father she'd buried. This—this was a perversion, a shadow puppet stitched together from the scraps of her past, animated by something she couldn't name. Was it guilt? Fear? Or something older, something the house itself had harbored long before she'd returned to it?
She buried her face in her hands, trying to anchor herself against the vertigo that threatened to swallow her whole, but the room shifted beneath her, unsteady, alive with a rhythm she couldn't place. The floor seemed to tilt ever so slightly, a subtle lurch that made her stomach churn, and the walls creaked as if exhaling a long-held breath. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the world to still, but the darkness behind her lids offered no refuge—only the afterimage of that mask, its stitches glowing faintly, taunting her. Her breath hitched, a sob catching in her throat, and she pressed her fingers harder against her face, nails digging into her skin as if pain could tether her to reality.
The quilt on the bed was gone. She noticed it through the gaps between her fingers—the bare mattress now, springs poking through the worn fabric like skeletal fingers, no trace of the blue patchwork from '99 that her mother had sewn. She lifted her head slowly, her hands falling to her lap, and scanned the room with wide, darting eyes. The dresser was back to its chipped plastic handles, the kind she remembered from childhood, not the polished brass she'd installed last year. The rug was missing, leaving the floorboards bare and scratched, their grooves deeper than she recalled, as if time had clawed at them in her absence. She blinked, disoriented, her gaze snagging on every detail that didn't fit.
But the window—its frame was wooden now, not the aluminum she'd seen yesterday, its glass warped and streaked with age, distorting the moonlight into fractured slivers. She stared at it, her breath fogging faintly against the air, and a chill crawled up her spine. The house was unraveling, flipping between then and now, a kaleidoscope of her past and present that spun faster with each passing second. Objects flickered in and out of existence, timelines bleeding into one another like watercolors left too long in the rain. She pressed a hand to the floor, steadying herself, but the wood felt wrong—too soft, too warm, as if it were alive beneath her touch.
A thud echoed from downstairs, heavy and deliberate, like a door slamming shut with intent. Mara flinched, her hands curling into fists so tight her knuckles ached, the sound reverberating through her bones. It wasn't the wind, not this time. The house was too still, the air too thick for natural causes. She held her breath, straining to listen, and the radio's static flared again, louder now, spilling from the kitchen in a hiss that prickled her skin—Mara, Mara—a chant in her father's cracked voice, rough and distorted as if dragged through decades of dust. The sound wrapped around her, tightening like a vise, and she scrambled to her feet, legs trembling beneath her weight.
She cracked the bedroom door open, her fingers hesitant on the knob, and peered into the hall. The mirror at the far end was gone, its absence leaving a blank stretch of wall that felt wrong, disorienting. In its place hung a faded painting of a woman she didn't recognize, her eyes blank and unseeing, her expression frozen in a way that made Mara's skin crawl. The woman's features were soft, almost familiar, but the emptiness in her gaze was alien, a void that seemed to watch her back. Mara tore her eyes away, her pulse thudding in her ears, and noticed the footprints—muddy smears trailing down the stairs, fresh and wet, glistening faintly in the dim light. They hadn't been there an hour ago. She was sure of it.
She followed them, drawn by a pull she couldn't resist, the flashlight forgotten in her pocket as her feet moved of their own accord. The beam would've been useless anyway—the shadows here felt too dense, too alive to be pierced by something as frail as light. The stairs creaked under her weight, each step a groan that echoed through the house, and the air grew colder as she descended, her breath visible in faint puffs. The dining room was a mess when she reached it—the table overturned, its legs jutting upward like a wounded animal, the diary splayed open on the floor, pages torn and scattered like leaves in a storm. She knelt, her knees pressing into the hardwood, and gathered a handful of the pages, her hands shaking as she read.
Her name was scratched across every one, jagged and deep, the ink bleeding into the paper as if it had been carved with a blade rather than a pen. Mara, Mara, Mara—over and over, the letters uneven, frantic, a litany that filled her with dread. She dropped the pages, her fingers recoiling as if burned, and stood, her gaze darting around the room. The walls pulsed, a faint rhythm like breathing, subtle but undeniable, and the chandelier above flickered, its bulbs cracked but glowing with a sickly yellow light that cast jagged shadows across the floor. The house wasn't just alive—it was watching her, its pulse syncing with her own, a predator playing with its prey.
The phone rang, its chime distorted, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once, a sound that seemed to seep from the walls themselves. Mara spun, searching for it, her heart hammering against her ribs, but the attic hatch was shut tight, the ladder gone—replaced by a narrow staircase, steep and shadowed, leading up to a door she'd never seen before. The ringing grew louder, vibrating through her bones, a summons she couldn't ignore. She climbed, each step sinking slightly under her weight, the wood damp and splintered, smelling of earth and decay, a scent that clogged her throat and made her eyes water. Her hand brushed the railing, and it came away slick with something dark—mud, or worse.
At the top, the door creaked open on its own, revealing the attic—but not as she'd left it. The space was smaller, the ceiling lower, pressing down on her like a coffin lid. The trunk was shoved against the wall, its lid shut tight, the wood scarred and weathered. The phone sat in the center of the room, ringing ceaselessly, its cord coiled like a snake ready to strike. Muddy footprints circled it, overlapping, chaotic, a dance of filth that led nowhere and everywhere. Beside it lay a burlap scrap—frayed, stitched with red, reeking of rot, the same fabric she'd seen in her vision of him. Her initials, M.K., were scratched into it, crude and uneven, a mark that felt like a claim. Mara's stomach churned, bile rising in her throat, sharp and bitter.
She reached for the phone, her hand shaking so badly she nearly dropped it, and answered. "Ellie?" Her voice was a whisper, fragile against the weight of the silence that followed.
"Mara, help me!" Ellie's voice was faint, fading, swallowed by static that crackled like fire. "He's got me—he dragged me out, I can't—his mask, it's—" A scream broke through, raw and guttural, tearing through the line before it cut off abruptly, leaving only silence. Mara's breath caught, her grip tightening on the receiver until her knuckles whitened.
"Ellie!" she shouted, but the line was dead, the hum gone, leaving her voice to echo uselessly in the cramped space. The attic shuddered, dust raining from the ceiling in a fine mist, and the lights downstairs flared, casting long, jagged shadows through the open door. She turned, her heart lurching, and the staircase was gone—replaced by a gaping hole, black and endless, the muddy footprints trailing into it like a path to oblivion. The air grew colder, heavier, pressing against her lungs.
Something moved below. A shadow stretched up the wall, tall and warped, the burlap mask tilting into view as if summoned by her fear. The red stitches glowed, the grin wider now, stretching beyond the fabric's edge into something grotesque and impossible. His gloved hand gripped the knife—rusty, dripping with something dark and viscous—and his boots scraped the floor, slow and deliberate, as he climbed from the dark, each step a thud that matched the pounding in her chest. His presence filled the room, a weight that crushed the air from her lungs, and she stumbled back, slamming into the trunk, her hands scrabbling for anything—a weapon, a shield, a scrap of hope.
The figure paused at the threshold, his head cocking to one side, the empty eyes boring into her with an intensity that made her skin prickle. The house groaned louder, a crack splitting the ceiling overhead, and the walls buckled, plaster crumbling like dry skin, raining down in clumps. The timelines weren't just bleeding—they were collapsing, folding her into him, merging past and present into a single, suffocating moment. He stepped forward, the knife raised, its blade catching the flickering light, and the attic floor tilted sharply, sending her sliding toward the hole with a cry.
She clawed at the boards, nails splintering as she fought for purchase, but the shadow loomed closer, his stitched mouth parting as if to speak, though no sound came—only the rasp of his breath, ragged and wet. The air thickened with the stench of rot and rust, choking her, and her fingers slipped, scrabbling against the damp wood. The last thing she saw, before the dark swallowed her whole, was her own reflection in his blade—younger, screaming, her scar bleeding fresh, a vision of herself trapped in a moment she couldn't escape, falling endlessly into the void he'd carved for her.