*Chapter 11: The shifting fate*
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Eliza's breath came in shallow gasps as she stared at the smoldering ruins of the house. The fire had been fierce, but not enough to cleanse it completely. The house, the entity—*it was never really gone.*
But now, as the ash settled and the smoke cleared, something had changed. The house no longer pressed on her chest, suffocating her with its dark presence. The air was *quiet*. For the first time in what felt like centuries, she could breathe.
And yet, something gnawed at the back of her mind.
"Eliza," Sean whispered, his voice distant and strange, as though he were speaking from a place she couldn't reach. His silhouette flickered like a shadow as he stepped toward her, his eyes dark but oddly serene.
He was *different*.
"Are we free?" Eliza asked, her voice cracking as she turned to face him.
Sean didn't respond immediately. Instead, his eyes, those once warm, loving eyes, seemed to burn with something darker. "Free? We're not free, Eliza. Not really."
His words were laced with something she couldn't quite place—regret, maybe. But there was something else, something *darker*, simmering under the surface.
The two of them had emerged from the wreckage of the house, but they had not emerged the same. Eliza felt it first. A shift within herself—a power that surged through her veins. It was ancient and cold, like the whispers that had once filled the house, but now it pulsed through her, making her feel alive in a way she had never experienced before. Sean had felt it too, she could tell. He moved with a strange grace now, his posture almost unnatural, as if he were no longer entirely human. The world around them had grown quieter, more muted, but their senses had sharpened. The mundane became *vibrant*, almost painfully so. Every rustle of the wind, every blade of grass, every breath of air felt amplified.
They were no longer the people they had been. They were something more.
"I think," Sean said slowly, his voice low, "we were cursed to live, Eliza. The house *changed* us, made us something else entirely, I feel I now have a so much knowledge about the underworld that I can now tell that we are no more humans, but...
"I *felt* it," she whispered, holding her head in her hands. "It's like… we're no longer human. But _"
"Not entirely," he finished for her. "The power we have, it's not just a gift. It's a *curse*, Eliza. We can never die. We're IMMORTAL now. Forever."
Eliza's heart thudded in her chest as she tried to wrap her mind around it. "Immortal??" "They would live on?" *forever*. No longer bound to a single place, they could wander the earth, experiencing everything in an endless loop of existence. But something in her soul screamed that it wasn't freedom—*not truly.*
"Do you think we're the only ones?" she asked, almost to herself. "That we're the only ones who have this… power?"
Sean looked away, his jaw tightening. "No. We're not. But we're different. The rules… they're set. We must *live* among humans, become part of their world. We can't interfere with them, Eliza, not too much. We can't break the rules,one important part of the rule is we must never be evil, no matter what situation we are in, we must always follow the rule. Though I don't know who laid down this rules or where it's from, I just had this strong Feeling that there's a price we pay if we ever break any of them."
Eliza's mind reeled. The price was clear now—living forever, blending in with humans, and hiding from them. They couldn't escape their curse.
As Sean turned his gaze toward the horizon, a glimmer of unease flickered across his face. "But I wonder," he muttered under his breath, "how long before we begin to change again? How long before we forget what it means to be human?"
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