Chapter 19: The Shattered Past
The crack in the shard spread.
Thin as a hairline fracture but pulsing.
Evelyn's hands shook as she reached toward it.
"Don't touch it!" Nathaniel's voice was sharp. Urgent.
But she couldn't stop herself.
Her fingers brushed the jagged glass.
And the world fell apart.
Fifteen Years Ago The Night Lillian Vanished
Evelyn wasn't running anymore.
She was standing still.
The woods surrounded her tangled and endless.
Lillian was ahead of her, face twisted with fear.
"Evelyn, please!" she screamed.
She wasn't tripping. She wasn't falling.
She was being pulled.
Something had wrapped around her ankles.
Dark tendrils like living shadows were dragging her backward.
Lillian clawed at the dirt, leaving bloody streaks in the frozen earth.
"Help me!"
Evelyn moved.
She grabbed Lillian's hands.
Held on tight.
But the shadow it was stronger.
It coiled around Lillian's wrists, pulling harder.
The forest whispered.
Low, guttural voices dozens of them.
And then
A face formed in the darkness.
Not Lillian's.
Something else.
Something ancient.
A hollow grin stretched across a face too smooth to be human.
Eyes black voids.
And in that moment
Evelyn knew.
This wasn't just a disappearance.
Lillian had been taken.
And Evelyn
She had let go.
Back in the Motel Room
Evelyn's body lurched back.
Nathaniel caught her before she hit the floor. "Evelyn! What did you see?!"
Her breath came in ragged gulps.
Her hands burning.
She looked down.
Black marks had appeared on her skin.
Like fingerprints.
Like something had touched her from the past.
She stared at the shard.
At Lillian's reflection.
"You remember now."
A slow, twisted smile spread across Lillian's face.
"You let me go, Evelyn."
"And now… it's your turn."
The lights died.
The shadows swallowed the room.
And the door
Burst open.
Into the Dark
The door burst open.
Wind howled through the room, scattering loose papers, knocking over the lamp. The light flickered violently before plunging into darkness.
Evelyn couldn't see.
She couldn't move.
A force cold, suffocating wrapped around her throat, pressing her back against the wall.
Nathaniel's voice rang out, but it was distant, warped.
Something heavy crawled through the threshold.
Not footsteps scraping.
Like nails dragging across the floor.
The motel room twisted, shadows stretching unnaturally. The air was thick, wrong like something alive was breathing in the walls.
Evelyn gasped for air.
And then
The whisper returned.
"You let me go."
Lillian's voice.
But it wasn't just a whisper anymore.
It was inside her head.
A dozen echoes, all speaking at once, twisting, distorting mocking.
"You let me go. You let me die. And now it's your turn."
Nathaniel Fights Back
Nathaniel moved fast.
He lunged toward the open door, swinging the knife blindly, desperately.
The blade met resistance.
A sound not quite a scream.
More like a shriek, something inhuman, grating against Evelyn's skull.
The pressure on her throat vanished.
She collapsed, gasping.
Nathaniel grabbed her, pulling her up. "We need to"
He didn't get to finish.
The door slammed shut on its own.
Trapped in the Nightmare
The room was different now.
Bigger. Twisted.
The walls weren't the walls of the motel anymore.
They were wooden.
Rotting.
The smell of damp earth and something… foul filled the air.
Evelyn's pulse raced.
She knew this place.
The cabin.
The one Lillian disappeared from.
Somehow, they weren't in the motel anymore.
They had been dragged back.
Back to the nightmare.
The Black Markings
Evelyn's hands burned.
The black fingerprints the marks from the shadow were spreading.
Veins of darkness crawling up her arms.
Nathaniel saw them and swore under his breath.
"We need to stop this," he said, voice sharp. "Whatever is happening to you it's getting worse."
Evelyn clenched her fists.
"I know."
A sound echoed through the cabin.
A slow creaking.
Like someone shifting their weight on old wood.
But the room was empty.
Or
It should have been.
Then, the whispers started again.
Only now, they weren't just in Evelyn's head.
They were all around them.
"She never left."
"She's still here."
"She's waiting for you, Evelyn."
Evelyn's breath caught.
Nathaniel took a step forward, blade still gripped tight.
A single candle flickered to life at the center of the room.
And then they saw it.
A figure in the corner.
Motionless.
Face hidden in shadows.
Watching them.
And when the candlelight flashed, for just a second
It was Lillian.
The Figure in the Dark
The candle's weak flame flickered.
The figure stood still.
Motionless.
But Evelyn felt it staring.
Her pulse hammered in her ears as she took a step forward. "Lillian?"
Nathaniel tensed beside her.
His fingers curled around the knife ready.
But the figure didn't move.
The whispers didn't stop.
"She's waiting, Evelyn."
"She never left."
"She remembers."
The figure's head tilted.
The candlelight flashed.
And Evelyn saw.
A face half-rotted away.
Skin stretched thin over bone.
Eyes black voids.
And then—
It rushed at her.
The Attack
Evelyn screamed.
Nathaniel lunged.
The knife slashed through empty air.
The figure vanished.
But the room shifted.
The candle snuffed out.
A force slammed into Evelyn's chest, knocking her backward.
The wooden floor collapsed beneath her.
She was falling.
Falling into the blackness below.
Nathaniel shouted her name, but his voice was distant.
The air was gone.
And then
Everything stopped.
The Chamber Below
Evelyn hit the ground, hard.
Pain exploded through her body, but she didn't have time to register it.
The air here was thick.
Rotten.
She wasn't in the cabin anymore.
She was somewhere else.
Somewhere below.
A deep, underground chamber.
The walls were lined with bones.
Human bones.
And in the center of the room
A stone slab.
A figure lay on it.
And when Evelyn stepped closer
Her breath caught in her throat.
It was Lillian.
But not as a corpse.
Not as a ghost.
Lillian's body was untouched.
As if she had been waiting.
Waiting for Evelyn.
Then
Lillian's eyes snapped open.