The days blurred after the lake.
Lilith barely slept, barely ate. The face she'd seen in the woods haunted every mirror she passed. Her own , but not. Something deeper, older. It wore her like a mask.
She started noticing things.
Books falling off shelves on their own.
Lights flickering when she walked by.
A woman humming outside her door at 3:07 a.m.
It was like the universe was trying to warn her or unravel her.
But it was the book that changed everything.
It happened at the library, tucked between two history sections that didn't belong next to each other. She hadn't even planned to be there. She was just walking, chasing silence.
And then she saw it.
"THE BINDING OF THE FORGOTTEN"
No author.
No barcode.
No sign it had ever existed before this moment.
She reached for it instinctively, the air around the book colder than the rest of the aisle. When her fingers brushed the cover, a static jolt snapped through her arm, and for a split second she wasn't in the library anymore.
She was under the lake.
Sinking.
Drowning.
Something dragging her down.
Then it was gone.
She yanked the book off the shelf, breathless, heart thudding in her chest. She flipped it open.
Blank pages. All of them.
Until page 119.
Just one sentence, in messy, hand-scrawled ink:
"You must unwrite the story you were forced to forget."
Her hands trembled as she flipped further.
Page 120 had a photo. One she recognized.
A girl standing by the lake, looking directly at the camera.
It was her.
But younger.
Thirteen, maybe. Wearing the same pendant.
She had no memory of this photo. None.
How was that possible?
And then, scrawled beneath the image:
"She made the deal. She doesn't remember the price."
Lilith slammed the book shut, heart hammering, and stumbled backward. She needed to run. To leave. This wasn't just strange anymore it was personal. Someone had stolen parts of her life and buried them in pages only she could read.
She clutched the book to her chest and left the aisle in a daze.
But when she turned to go
The library was empty. Completely.
No librarian. No visitors.
Just rows of books and her own echo.
And the front doors?
Locked.
A voice whispered from behind a shelf.
"Chapter four ends with a key. But only if you choose to bleed for it."
Lilith didn't turn around. She couldn't.
Because that voice…
It was hers.
But not the one she heard in her own head.
It was the voice from the forest.
The one that smiled.