Alena collapsed to the floor. Her legs finally gave up. With a sigh, she hugged her knees. Kostas was down there, in the basement, searching.
"Whatever Kostas finds down there… any news.... it has to be good."
It had to be good. She couldn't handle anymore of it.
Her eyes darted around the room, desperate for distraction. Eventually, they landed on a dark red curtain, draped across a narrow window."Had that curtain always been there?"
The more she stared, the more unfamiliar it seemed.
Her fingers began to scrape at the floor, a nervous habit that she didn't even realize she had, until she felt a sharp pain shoot through her nails....
Stop itShe told herself. But her mind spiraled, pulled back to the dream she saw earlier.The numbers... the piano... the hammer... the woman... the child.
And at last, that tall figure, the girl who smiled, who had 101 carved on her throat, who was standing in the distance, yeah that girl... her face.....
"I can't remember it. Who was she?"
Alena squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember, but the only thing she could grasp was how the dream had ended…The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a rusted chain, its heavy links clinking ominously. Alena could almost feel the weight of it. The woman swung the chain with brutal force. Alena screamed and clawed, but the woman's strength was overwhelming. The cold metal bit into her throat, burning her skin. Then came the crushing silence, and everything went black.Her eyes snapped open again, "Oh god…"
She looked at her nails. They were chipped and bleeding,
"I am so stupid", her hands trembling violently from where they had been scraping the floor. And she sighed, "Was that woman... who tried to kill me in my dream... my mother? It has to be. That woman is the f-"
She looked at the basement stairs, and for a split second, she saw her.
Her mother. Standing on the steps.
Cold eyes, that cruel smile.
Alena blinked. The vision vanished."Just my trauma," she muttered. "Just that old ghost." Hugging herself, she shivered, her eyes drifting back to the curtain, its presence heavy and wrong.In the meantime, at Sector 21, beside a bench outside a convenience store,
Sofia chatted with Kalli as the bus idled nearby. Initially quiet and reserved, Kalli's lips now curved into a faint smile at Sofia's playful teasing.
Sofia: "I've heard you've had it rough. Your mom… I'm guessing she can be a bit intense. Heard she gave you a few whacks. Bet that sucked."
Kalli's chuckle was low, tinged with bitterness. "Yeah, at this point, you could say I hate her."
Sofia raised an eyebrow, "Your mom? I get it, she's strict, but she loves you… even if she gave you some 'light beatings' along the way."
Kalli: "Light? In my memories, they were never light. She wasn't around for the big things, never. It was Grandma who raised me. She was there for everything. Always telling me stories about ghosts, kings, and mostly… about my mom."
Sofia's expression softened as Kalli's words sank in.
Kalli's eyes got unfocused as she continued, "Even though my mom always bad-mouthed Grandma, painted her as some kind of villain, Grandma never said a word against her. She was proud of her, you know? Always. Mom was everything Grandma dreamed of being. A great officer in the army. And that's why I wanted to be in her shoes so badly."
Back to Alena's house,
Kostas was in the basement, sweeping his flashlight across the room.
"Man, this place is so swampy."
His boots crunched on the damp, decaying floor as he moved deeper. The basement smelled of rot and neglect. It was then, he noticed something. A few smudges on the wall.
Bloodstains.
Kostas approached the stains, running his fingers over them. "Old" he muttered, "But just what the hell happened in this space?"
He started flickering his torch all over the room again, and this time, the light passed over an old desk shoved into the corner. And he saw something that was glowing from that desk. Kostas moved closer, the beam trembling as he focused on that shiny metal lying on the desk.
It was a gun, half-buried under dust, lying there alongside a few bullets.
"She was an army officer i heard. This thing here, not really unusual. But..."
He picked it up to inspect, "Goddamn… this thing's ancient."
He wiped the grime off with his sleeve, the cold metal feeling strange and heavy with untold history.
Setting the gun aside, Kostas' eyes wandered to a set of shelves behind the desk. The books lining them were nearly unrecognizable, contents half-devoured by rust and insects. Most of their covers warped, pages crumbling with age.
He reached for one, brushing the thick dust off its cover.
An old scrapbook.
"What the hell am I doing?" Kostas muttered, shaking his head as he eyed the album. He should be looking for Kate, not rifling through old photos. But something urged him to open it.
And, He was surprised when the first image came into view.
Alena. A young, innocent-looking Alena, her face full of wide-eyed wonder, stared back at him from the page.
Kostas chuckled softly. "She's gonna kill me if she finds out I'm snooping through her old photos. But how did this little cute girl turn into a witch like her?"
In the second image, Alena was clutching toys with her tiny little hands, smiling alongside her parents. The images stirred something in him. Curiosity.
"Wow… Kalli really got the looks from her mom," he muttered, flipping through more pages. Little Alena looked exactly like her mother.
He flipped through the pages, each one filled with more snapshots of Alena's childhood. There she was with her mom, smiling in every single photograph.
The further he flipped, the more uneasy he became.
There was something off about those smiles.
Kostas frowned as his fingers turned the pages faster. The smile on Alena's face... it was too perfect. Unchanging. Fixed. As if it was plastered across her lips like a mask.
"She doesn't look like a kid who had a rough childhood." he murmured. But then he tried to reason with himself. "Maybe I'm overthinking. Not every moment was bad, right? Of course, there had to be good times…"
Yet the thought nagged at him. Was she hiding something? Or worse... was someone else hiding the truth?
His train of thought was interrupted by a sound.
Haahhhh... Hahhhhhh
He knows this sound. It's the sound of a steady breathing. Faint but unmistakable.
The sound was close.... too close. His heart pounded in his chest as he swung the beam around, his hands trembling.
The inhales. It wasn't coming from behind him. It was coming from within the room.
He took a step forward, the wooden floor creaking beneath him as his torchlight flew over the barrels and an old wooden chest in the other corner.
That's where the breathing was coming from.
Time dragged on as Kostas remained in the dark basement. Upstairs,
Alena was sitting on the floor. Her mind raced with worst-case scenarios.
Finally, she heard it.... footsteps. Slow, deliberate. From the basement.
"Kostas? Did you find her?" Alena's voice wavered as she called out.
There was a pause before Kostas answered, "Yeah… just a moment."
His voice was rough, as if he was struggling with something. Moments later, Kostas emerged from the basement, dragging a huge chest behind him.
Alena: "Why are you-"
Kostas' face was pale, avoiding Alena's gaze. There was something in his expression.... a weight... that sent a shiver down her spine.
Alena's heart skipped a beat, her voice trembling. "Kostas, You are really making me worried now. What the fuck is in that chest? Did you find Kate?"
Kostas didn't respond right away. He just sighed. That silence thickened the air between them. With a grunt, he set the chest down on the floor. The thud echoed in the stillness of the house.
After placing it down, He reached out and gripped Alena's shoulders, his hands firm. His eyes, usually so steady, were clouded with something she couldn't decipher.... fear? Guilt?
"Alena…" His voice was barely above a whisper. "You might need to sit down for this."
Her blood ran cold. The ground seemed to shift beneath her feet, as if the world itself were slowly pulling away from her. "Why? What's going on? Huh? Are you fucking with me now? What's in that motherfucking box, Kostas?"
Kostas swallowed. "Yeah your Kate... she's here in this chest... and alive,"
The word lingered...alive... but there was something else in his tone. "But… her hand."
"What about her hand?" Alena asked, her heart pounding.
Kostas slowly lifted the lid of the chest. There, curled unnaturally, was Kate. Her small body twisted in a position no child should ever be in. But it was her arm that drew Alena's horrified gaze. Her heart thudded painfully against her ribs.
Kostas spoke in a low voice. "The world moves in the wrong cycle. I'm telling you."
Kate's sleeve was rolled up, exposing a grotesque injury.
Her left hand..... It was gone.