chapter 13

I reached the bottom of the stairs, the smell of damp earth and something far worse assaulting my senses. My father—no, the thing wearing his skin—was already in the center of the room, laying Mom's sleeping body on the cold concrete floor. He began to hum again, that eerie tune filling the air, making the walls seem to close in around me.

And then he began the ritual.

The room was dark, the only light coming from the circle drawn on the ground, glowing faintly with a sickly green hue. Symbols I didn't understand, symbols that hurt my eyes to look at, were scrawled all around, pulsing with a life of their own.

"No…" I choked out, my voice trembling as I watched him take out the knife, the same knife I had seen all those years ago. The knife that had taken her life.

"Just in time," he said, turning to me with that same horrible smile, his eyes glinting with a madness that wasn't his own. "Just in time to help me finish what I started."

I wanted to run, to fight, to do anything to stop this. But my feet were glued to the floor, my body betraying me. He reached out, his hand cold and firm as it clasped around mine, pulling me toward the circle.

"No! No, I won't do it!" I screamed, thrashing against his grip, but it was no use. He was too strong, too determined. He dragged me to the center of the circle, the symbols flaring brighter as he began to chant.

"O great one," he muttered feverishly, his voice rising and falling in a sickening rhythm. "O Dweller in darkness, accept this foolish one's offering and share your blessings!"

He raised the knife, his eyes wild with fervor as he brought it down. But it wasn't for her this time. It was for him.

The blade plunged into his own chest, his blood spilling out onto the floor, mingling with the dark, ancient symbols. "Accept this sacrifice," he gasped, his voice breaking as he collapsed, his body falling onto Mom's, his eyes still locked on mine.

For a moment, I stood there frozen, the horror of what I was witnessing numbing my mind. But then, a flicker of confusion cut through the haze. 'Wait… this isn't how it happened.'

I blinked, my heart skipping a beat as a memory surfaced, one that contradicted what I was seeing. The night this really happened, my father didn't try to kill himself first. No, he… he had killed her first. The realization hit me like a jolt of electricity, snapping me out of the trance that had been holding me in place.

'This isn't real. This is… wrong.'

My father, or whatever this thing was pretending to be him, began to twitch, his eyes wide and filled with something other than the madness that had consumed him moments ago. A momentary flicker of confusion—almost as if the thing that had orchestrated this nightmare was startled by its own error.

I stared down at the blood pooling around my father's body, a creeping sense of dread crawling up my spine. This memory wasn't just flawed; it was breaking apart. Reality itself seemed to glitch, small inconsistencies that I hadn't noticed before becoming glaringly obvious now.

The walls around me rippled, and the symbols on the floor began to flicker, like an image on a screen struggling to stay intact.

My father's body jerked, his hand reaching out towards the knife buried in his chest. But this time, his movement was unnatural, like a puppet being yanked back onto its strings. His head turned slowly toward me, the wide smile returning to his face, though now it seemed forced, grotesque.

"No," he whispered, his voice distorting again, that unnatural edge creeping back in. "No… this isn't how it ends."

And then, with a sickening lurch, he wrenched the knife from his chest, blood spurting out as he staggered to his feet. His eyes, those dark, empty voids, locked onto Mom's lifeless form.

'I need to wake up. I need to get out of here!'

But I couldn't move. My feet felt glued to the floor, the weight of the nightmare pulling me down, making it impossible to act. The room began to shift around me, the walls warping, the symbols on the floor twisting and merging into each other. And yet, through the chaos, my father—no, the thing that was pretending to be my father—moved with purpose. It reached down, grabbing Mom by the neck.

"Not yet," the thing rasped, its voice more mechanical now, almost metallic. "We're not done yet."

I watched in horror as it raised the knife again, this time over her body, ready to repeat the ritual, to kill her first like it was supposed to. Like it had.

'No… I can't… I won't let this happen. Not again.'

A surge of anger and desperation surged through me, snapping me out of my paralysis. If this wasn't real, if this was just a broken memory, then maybe… just maybe, I could change it. I couldn't save her back then, but maybe I could stop this thing from replaying the nightmare over and over again in my mind, haunting my dreams endlessly.

With a scream that ripped through the suffocating air, I lunged at my father, at the monster that wore his face. My hands grasped the wrist holding the knife, feeling the cold, slick skin beneath my fingers as I fought to wrest the blade from his grip.

The thing snarled, a guttural sound that didn't belong to any human throat, and it twisted, trying to throw me off. But I held on, my grip tightening as I forced all my strength into this one act. I had to stop him. I had to end this, even if it was only in my mind.

"Let go!" the thing hissed, its voice splintering into a chorus of distorted tones, none of which belonged to my father.

"No!" I shouted back, my voice raw with determination. "I won't let you hurt her!"

I could feel the knife slipping from its grasp, the weight of it shifting as I fought to wrest control. And then, with a sudden, violent twist, I ripped the blade free. For a split second, the thing that had been my father seemed to falter, its eyes flickering as if it was trying to recalibrate, to understand what had just happened.

And in that moment, I plunged the knife into its skull, driving it deep into the thing's forehead with all the force I could muster.

There was a sickening crunch, a sound that reverberated through the warped room, and the thing's body went rigid. Its smile, that twisted, unnatural grin, remained frozen on its face, but its eyes… its eyes flickered with something almost like relief, before they rolled back, and the thing crumpled to the ground, lifeless.

For a moment, everything was still. The room around me seemed to hold its breath, as if the entire world was waiting, watching to see what would happen next. And then, the ground beneath me began to crack, the symbols on the floor shattering like glass.

The world itself seemed to disintegrate, falling away in chunks, revealing an endless void of darkness beneath. But instead of being swallowed by it, I was suddenly surrounded by a brilliant, blinding light. It consumed everything, erasing the nightmare, the fear, the blood, and the horror.

As the light washed over me, I could see pillars of black numbers and symbols weaving through the air, like streams of code running through the very fabric of reality. The world around me dissolved into a web of system-like designs, intricate patterns that stretched out into infinity, reminding me of the matrix of a digital world.

Then, in the center of this void, a screen materialized before my eyes, floating in the air. The glowing text on it was sharp and clear, standing out against the shifting patterns around it:

[Evolution Complete!]

And just beneath that, another line appeared, the letters burning bright with finality:

[Limit Trial Passed!]

I stared at the words, the reality of what had just happened slowly sinking in. The nightmare was over, but more than that, I had taken control. I had changed the memory, stopped the horror, even if it was just in my mind.

For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt a sense of peace, a small flicker of solace in the depths of my soul. I couldn't change the past, but I could at least take control of how it played out in my head. I could fight back, even if only in my dreams.