Sasha stood on the third floor of the old police station, her voice echoing in a room too large for two people. The General sat across from her, his fingers trembling against a chipped mug. They spoke not like soldiers—no, not anymore—but like survivors who had seen behind the curtain.
"I was a child," he began, eyes hazed in a distant war, "It was 1949. I walked into that store—El Fuego de Store—and asked the man behind the counter for cookies. He handed them to me... then grabbed me. Threw me like a rag into piles of dusty boxes."
His voice cracked as if he were still inside that maze.
"I wandered through darkness. Saw... something watching me. It had eyes like broken lanterns—too bright, too wide. Its smile stretched wrong. I ran. Found a staircase, climbed it, and found a man slumped at a desk. Weapons hung on the walls—rusted guns, knives shaped like letters. Machines hissed and dripped blood at the back of the room like they were feeding on memory."
Sasha leaned closer. "Was that room beside the boss's?"
"Yeah. Right beside it."
"We found bodies in there… inside it. It was a room within a room."
The General frowned. "Surviving officers said it was just a cabinet. No other doors."
"But it was the first thing we saw when we walked in. This isn't real…"
"Exactly. That shop… it warps you. Nothing inside it is yours. Not your senses, not your thoughts. You're theirs once you step in. You don't live in that store—you decay in it."
Sasha whispered, "It changed me."
"It changed me, too. Just like the 'You Only Live Once' incident in '42… or the 'Ingredients Case' of '49. All covered up. Everyone from those cases is dead now—except you and me."
His eyes grew steely, a flicker of rebellion reigniting in his chest.
"We can end it. Grab the knives. Load the guns. We're not running this time—we're burning that thing to the ground."
The police station was half-ruined, lined with dried blood and siren lights that no longer worked. On the ground floor, shadows clung beneath the staircase like they were breathing.
Sasha and the General moved in silence. The air was cold—too cold for a building still standing.
A sniff. Then another. Something alive, something below.
They stepped down and lifted their guns.
"Sasha!"
It was Dex. And Nico and Liz. McLaurel. Still breathing, but barely.
Sasha fell into them, hugging them as if she might drown in the moment.
"We cheated the system," McLaurel said. "Burning the shop? It's the only way to kill them. The entities. The man. All of it."
"You played the card well," Sasha murmured, eyes flickering.
But then—
Slice.
The General gasped. His chest split open in ribbons, carved by Lorie's jagged tentacles.
"GET THE GUNS!" McLaurel shouted.
The staircase turned black. Lorie's limbs stretched down, groping, gripping.
McLaurel screamed as one found her leg. They fired—shot after shot—until Lorie recoiled with a hiss, its form writhing back into shadow.
"AIM FOR THE HEAD!" Dex yelled.
They ran. Across bloodstained linoleum and down the station hall.
Corpses littered the ground like torn paper dolls. Some moaned. Some whispered. Most… were gone.
They arrived at the parking lot. Nico threw open the car doors. They piled in.
The man stood at the lot's exit. He held an axe.
"Go! Go now!" Sasha screamed.
Nico drove. Tires screeched like metal crying. The man raised the axe. Threw. It split Liz's head open like an eggshell. Sasha screamed. Nico cried behind the wheel, his tears thicker than the blood on the dash.
"Why Liz?" he sobbed.
"We can't escape Death," McLaurel whispered, holding back tears. "It never comes with a warning."
"I'll stop this. I will, even if it kills me," Nico growled.
It was midnight in Gallagher Street. The shop still stood.
'El Fuego de Shop' — faded letters on rotted wood. Dust clung to the glass. The curse clung harder.
Dex poured fuel in every aisle. On the walls. The floor. The register where it all started.
Nico struck the lighter and tossed it in.
BOOM.
The glass shattered as fire erupted. The store howled.
But before the fire could finish its sentence—the entities arrived.
Like dolls made of bone. Like mannequins sewn from breath. They circled the group.
Sasha gripped her gun. So did Dex. McLaurel. Nico.
But the monsters only turned to ash. And at the center… The Man. He removed his mask. Michael Harrington. The store's puppet master.
"The hell—how are you alive?" Dex snapped.
Michael smiled, teeth cracked with soot. "They revived me. With my son's diary. But you destroyed it. Now I am… nothing."
"You're evil," McLaurel hissed.
Michael tilted his head. "Death is always nearby. Watching. Waiting. And now… it's your turn."
A low rumble shook the street.
A TRUCK.
They turned. Headlights blazed like judgment day.
"NO—!" Sasha yelled.
It struck McLaurel, and Nico. Metal against flesh. Bone against glass. Screams.
Sasha leapt, just barely reaching the sidewalk—but slammed into a streetlamp.
Her blood trailed down the pole like melted wax.
The truck door opened. No driver. Only shadow. It stepped into the light. The Boy.
"You thought I wouldn't return?"
Sasha's mouth trembled. "No…"
"I'll let you live… for now."
He walked toward the flaming store, fearless. Entered.
He was never seen again.
Police from other towns arrived.
Bodies pulled from the station. From Gallagher Street. Sasha and McLaurel—alive, barely. Nico—gone.
In the hospital, Sasha turned on the television with trembling fingers.
"24 confirmed dead. Two survivors: Sasha Williams and Sam McLaurel.The cursed store is finally gone. For the first time in decades... it's over."
Doctor Steph entered.
"My head hurts," Sasha whispered.
"It'll pass in three days. Just rest," he assured her.
But the real pain wasn't physical.
Because Sasha remembered.
Dex had died months ago.
Then who was with them…?
Five months later, She moved to the city. Started over. Had a family. A book was published: "The Story of Sasha." Her face graced billboards. Talk shows. But some nights, she stared out the window and whispered to the dark:
"Who was that… with us?"
No one ever answered.
The end of Volume 7: Cards of Truth
Characters:
Sasha Williams
Sam McLaurel
Albert Smith
Seth McLaurey
Mina Sanchez
Eduard Morales
Dexter Martinez
Dr. Stephen Perez
Officer Bell Hernandez
Nico Madrigal
Liza Garcia
General Cord Vicente
Entities;
Michael Harrington
Lukas Harrington
Lorie
Sketch
The Glowing Eyes
Taste