Sarah's POV
My lungs felt like they were fighting against an invisible weight pressing down from every direction. I looked around, trying to make sense of the world I was back in. This wasn't the rift. It wasn't the twisted, formless expanse that had sought to tear us apart. But it wasn't the world we had left behind either. Something had changed.
Axel's hand was steady on my shoulder, his presence grounding me in a way that I desperately needed. We had fought through hell—literal hell—and now we were here, somewhere between reality and something else entirely. The horizon stretched before us, but it felt wrong. It felt... unfamiliar.
"Sarah," Axel's voice was low, laced with a mixture of exhaustion and something deeper, something he wasn't saying. His eyes flicked nervously from side to side. "Where are we?"
I swallowed hard, trying to push back the flood of emotions that threatened to spill over. "I... I don't know. But it feels like we're back. We're out. We're..." I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. The words didn't fit. They didn't feel real.
The familiar, jagged edges of trees lined the horizon, their branches twisted and leafless, casting long, twisted shadows in the dim, strange light. The air had an eerie stillness, as though the very earth beneath us had held its breath for far too long. The quiet stretched on, stretching deeper into something that felt suffocating and alive at the same time.
And then I saw it.
At the end of the dirt path before us, standing against the sky, was the Blackwood mansion. It was back. Erected in its full, dark grandeur, standing tall and proud where it had once stood before we had plunged into the rift. It loomed over us like a broken memory, its stone walls glistening in the eerie half-light. But it wasn't the mansion I remembered. The stone had been replaced by an unnatural sheen, the windows gleaming with an almost otherworldly light. The vines that had once clung to its walls now writhed like snakes, crawling up the facade, as if they were alive.
The mansion felt like a giant anchor, pulling us in.
Axel's grip tightened on my shoulder as he stepped forward, eyes narrowing as he scanned the building. His voice was tight. "This isn't possible. It was destroyed. I watched it burn. We both did."
I nodded, shaking my head in disbelief. "It doesn't make sense. How could it be here again?"
We stood there for a moment, neither of us moving, both of us lost in the confusion that churned inside us. The rift had done something to the fabric of reality—this place, this world, was a reflection of the one we had left, but it was twisted, fractured. The mansion was here, but it wasn't supposed to be. We had escaped the rift, yes. But now we were here, back in the real world—or at least, what was supposed to be the real world.
I took a tentative step forward, Axel following close behind, his gaze fixed on the mansion, as if it were a puzzle he couldn't quite solve. My mind raced. I knew that whatever had brought us back here—whatever this was—wasn't over. The rift hadn't just pulled us out. It had spit us out. And now it was playing with us again.
"Maybe... maybe we should go inside," Axel said, his voice quieter now, as if he was testing the idea aloud. He reached for my hand, his fingers cool and steady as they clasped around mine. "If there's something we need to finish... it's probably in there."
I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell him that everything had changed, that this wasn't the time to confront the mansion again. But something in me urged me forward. Some part of me knew we couldn't turn away from it. The mansion had been the heart of everything—the curse, the darkness, the twisted fate we had been running from. I felt that same pull, the same gravity dragging me closer.
Together, we moved toward the mansion, the air growing heavier with each step, the ground beneath us softer, almost like the earth was absorbing our every move.
When we reached the front steps, I stopped, feeling a surge of cold seep into my bones. The door was ajar, inviting us in. It was as though it had been waiting for us. My heart pounded in my chest as I glanced at Axel. He met my gaze, his expression unreadable.
"This place is alive," I whispered, more to myself than to him. The house—it was breathing, shifting, watching. It knew we were here. I could feel it in the air, a dark pulse beneath the stillness.
Axel's jaw tightened. "I don't like this," he muttered, but then he stepped forward, pushing the door open wider with a soft creak.
We entered.
The foyer was just as I remembered it. The grand staircase spiraled upward, its railings dark and polished. The walls were lined with paintings, most of which had been destroyed in the fire—yet here they were, untouched. In fact, everything was untouched. The air smelled stale, but there was a faint hint of decay, of something that had been locked away for far too long.
As we stepped further into the house, the temperature seemed to drop. The air felt thick, like something was moving just beyond the corner of my vision. But when I looked, nothing was there.
I reached out, touching the bannister, and shivered. "It's too quiet," I murmured.
Axel glanced around, his gaze flicking toward the shadows that seemed to shift at the edges of the room. "Yeah, it is. This place... It doesn't feel like it's supposed to be here."
"No." I swallowed, the words sticking in my throat. "This isn't the world we came back to. I can feel it."
We continued into the house, slowly, cautiously. The deeper we went, the more familiar the feeling became. The grand dining room loomed ahead, its once-splendid table now covered with a thick layer of dust, the chairs pushed back as if the last dinner had been abandoned in the middle. The windows were covered with heavy drapes, blocking out what little light filtered through the clouds.
Axel stopped at the far end of the room, his gaze fixed on the far wall. The painting of a man and woman—who I knew to be the original Blackwoods—had been replaced by something new, something disturbing. It was a portrait of Axel and me, our faces pale, eyes wide with terror, trapped in a frozen moment of anguish.
I stepped forward, my breath catching in my throat. This wasn't possible. This couldn't be real. But there it was, staring back at us.
Axel stepped beside me, his face grim. "We're not just back, Sarah. We've stepped into a different version of this place. A version where the rules don't make sense. And I don't think we're alone."
I glanced around the room, my pulse quickening. Shadows seemed to flicker in the corners of my vision, moving like they were alive, waiting. The temperature dropped further, the air growing oppressive.
Then I heard it. A faint whisper.
"Sarah... Axel..."
I froze. That voice—it sounded like Axel's, but distorted, hollow, like it had been torn apart and stitched back together.
"Did you hear that?" I asked, my voice shaky.
Axel's eyes narrowed, his hand tightening around mine. "I heard it."
"Axel," the voice came again, and this time it was clearer—closer. It was unmistakably Axel's voice. But it was wrong. It echoed through the empty halls like a tortured cry. "Please... come....."
I didn't need to be told twice. I knew what we had to do. We had to finish it, once and for all. Whatever this version of the Blackwood mansion was, it was built on the fragments of the rift. And the only way out—was to destroy it completely.
Axel's grip on my hand tightened as we stepped toward the source of the voice. We weren't just facing the remnants of the Blackwood curse anymore—we were facing something far darker.