Lily's breath caught in her throat as she stood frozen in the dimly lit warehouse, staring at the woman who looked like her mother. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt it in her temples.
"You…" Lily's voice cracked, and she fought for the words. "How—how are you here?
The woman's lips twitched into something between a smile and a grimace. "I never left, Lily. I've always been here. Waiting for you."
Lily took a cautious step back, her eyes darting around the room for an escape route. The door was still locked, and the oppressive atmosphere in the building made it feel as though the walls themselves were closing in.
"I don't understand," Lily whispered, her voice quivering. "You vanished. You abandoned me. Why are you—why are you—" She couldn't bring herself to complete the sentence. The concept of the return of her mother, in this guise, seemed absurd.
The woman's hollow eyes met Lily's, and something cold flickered in them. "What you're seeing isn't exactly me, Lily. Not anymore. It's the part of me that remains. The part that was pulled into this place." She looked around the warehouse with an unsettling familiarity, then back at her daughter. "This building. this place—it's where it all started."
Lily's mind was racing. Her mother had disappeared when Lily was just a little girl, but that disappearance had always been mysterious. There had been murmurs in the family, people saying she had left, but Lily knew there was something darker to the story. Her mother hadn't left-she had tried to find her, and they had never found her.
"What's going on?" Lily stammered, her voice quaking. "What is this happening here? What is this place?"
The woman stepped closer, her movements eerily fluid, as if a shadow slid across the floor. "This warehouse was once the heart of something much bigger, something that nobody wanted to remember. It is where the cult-the people who called themselves 'The Keepers'-assembled. Where they performed their rituals." She stopped, her gaze skipping around the room. "And now it is calling you. The shadows are awake, Lily. They want you to stay.
Lily recoiled, feeling a cold hand wrap around her heart. "A cult? What has that got to do with anything?
Her mother's ghostly face softened, and for a moment, there was a flicker of recognition. "Everything. You were always meant to return here, to this place. When I left. I was trying to stop it. But the shadows. they've been waiting for someone who could see them. Someone who could finish what was started.
Lily's stomach roiled. She clenched her fists tightly, fighting back sobs. "No. This is not real. You're not my mother."
The smile stretched wider, thin and cruel. "I am her. As far as this goes now. But I can't save you, Lily. Nobody can. The shadows are in you already."
Lily backed away, shaking her head. "No. this's just a trick. You can't be.
For an instant, her mother's figure seemed to flicker and fade, like a reality hiccup. The shadows around her seemed to deepen, swirl into that dark, liquid energy. "You can feel them, can't you?" she whispered. "The shadows. they've been inside you since you were born.
The room was freezing, and Lily's breath became visible in the air. The floor groaned beneath her feet, like the building itself was coming awake. She turned, desperately looking for another way out, but there was none. She was trapped.
"Lily," her mother's voice was an echo this time, softer almost pleading. "You must stop. It's too late for me, but it's not too late for you.