⚫️ Part Five: "A Call from the Void"
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"Are we dead?"
The darkness was absolute.
Ella couldn't feel her body, as if she were trapped in an endless void—no air, no sound, just a strange sensation of falling… slowly.
Then, suddenly, feeling returned to her limbs.
She hit the ground.
She gasped, lifting her head, her body trembling from the shock. The place was dark, but it wasn't the basement.
It looked more like a tunnel—long, narrow, its walls made of old stone, damp with moisture and something else… something rotten.
The air smelled of decay and death.
She looked around frantically.
"Ethan?!"
No response.
But something else was there…
Whispers.
Faint voices slipping through the cracks in the walls, speaking a language she couldn't understand. But their tone… it was cold, laced with an invitation.
"Ethan?!" she called again, louder this time.
A low groan came from behind her.
She spun around and saw him lying on the ground, his body twitching in pain.
"Ethan!" She crawled to him, shaking him. "Wake up! Where are we?!"
His eyes fluttered open, but they were glassy, distant—like he was seeing something she couldn't.
Then, in a hoarse whisper, he said:
"She's… inside me."
Ella recoiled, her heartbeat thundering in her chest.
"What? What do you mean?!"
Before he could answer, the ground trembled—like something massive was shifting in the dark.
Then, from the end of the tunnel…
Blackened feet began to emerge.
"Don't look into her eyes!"
Ella's breath caught as the figure approached.
It wasn't human.
It was tall, unnaturally thin, its body more shadow than flesh. Its face was unclear, shifting, like smoke twisting in the wind.
But its eyes…
Its eyes were familiar.
Burning red flames. Just like Mariana Black.
"Ethan, get up! We have to get out of here!"
But Ethan didn't move.
When she turned back to him, his face was different.
His eyes…
They were turning red.
Just like the creature approaching them.
Then, before she could react, he opened his mouth and whispered cursed words:
"I am Mariana Black..."
"Escape is not an option."
Ella froze.
Everything slowed.
Ethan was changing.
The entity was getting closer.
And the whispers—oh, the whispers—grew louder, as if the walls themselves were singing her death song.
But then…
Amidst the chaos, she heard another voice.
A voice that didn't belong here.
"Ella! Wake up!"
Her eyes snapped open.
She was lying on the floor… in her bedroom.
Morning light streamed through the window.
Her father stood over her, his face filled with worry.
"Are you okay? You were screaming in your sleep!"
She stared at him, then jumped out of bed and ran to her brother's room.
His bed…
Was empty.
"Ethan?"
Her father frowned. "Ethan left early this morning. Were you dreaming about him?"
But Ella felt something cold rush through her veins.
It wasn't a dream.
Her hands were still smeared with dirt from the tunnel.
And beside her bed, something else had returned with her.
The rusty key.
It was back.