The darkness was alive.
Not just the absence of light—but something that pressed close. Breathing. Waiting.
Ace pulled Sarah behind him, flashlight in one hand, knife in the other. The beam swept over walls now wet with condensation, as if the house itself had started to sweat.
"Sarai," Sarah whispered.
The name still tasted wrong. Like blood and rust. Like something she'd once gagged on but swallowed anyway.
She gripped the photo tighter, but the ink on the back had started to bleed—letters dissolving into black streaks. The name didn't want to be held. It wanted to be used.
Something moved upstairs.
A dragging sound.
Like bare feet across old wood.
Sarah turned to Ace. "The attic."
He nodded once.
Together, they climbed the stairs.
Each step creaked like it was warning them.
At the top, the door to the attic hung open—though Sarah was sure she'd shut it.
A draft poured from it, bitter cold.
They stepped inside.
And the house changed.
The attic wasn't the attic anymore.
The walls were wrong. Too wide. Too tall. The floor stretched into a hallway that hadn't existed. The ceiling arched like a chapel, dark wood beams etched with more of the symbols they'd seen on the basement mirror.
Ace whispered, "What the hell…"
Sarah swallowed. "We're not in the house anymore."
Ace turned to her.
She was right.
They were inside Sarai's memory.
The house she had built.
From pain. From survival. From rage.
And down the hallway, at the far end, a door waited.
A mirror leaned against it, cracked straight through.
Their reflections stood on the other side.
But they weren't moving.
Sarah's reflection just stared, mouth slightly open.
Ace's was smiling.
Not kindly.
Sarah took a step forward.
The mirror pulsed.
The crack widened.
And from the other side, Sarai stepped out.
No longer just a shadow.
No longer just a whisper.
She looked like Sarah—but wrong.
She stood taller. Her skin pale and smooth like wax. Her eyes black at the center, ringed in bruised violet. Her voice echoed in the attic-that-wasn't:
"I wore your hurt like a crown. And you gave me up for comfort."
Sarah stepped between her and Ace.
"You are not me," she said.
"No," Sarai replied, smiling. "I'm what you needed to be. And now, I'm what you owe."
Ace raised the knife.
But Sarai didn't flinch.
Instead, she held out her hand—to Sarah.
"Let me back in," she whispered, soft as a lullaby. "And I'll never let you be weak again."
Sarah's breath caught.
And for one terrible second…
She wanted to.