Mara didn't hit the floor. The fall should've ended in a crash, a jolt of pain, but instead she landed soft, sinking into a haze that smelled of damp earth and gasoline.
The attic was gone—the hole, the masked figure, the buckling walls—all dissolved into a gray void, thick and suffocating.
Her hands pressed against nothing, her boots found no purchase, yet she stood, suspended in the murk.
The scar on her arm burned, a tether pulling her forward, and the air pulsed with a faint rhythm—thump, thump—like a heartbeat buried deep.
Shapes flickered at the edges of her vision, blurry at first, then sharpening. The house rebuilt itself around her, piece by piece—walls rising, floorboards snapping into place, the attic hatch sealing shut above.
But it wasn't her house, not the one she'd walked into yesterday. The air was warmer, heavy with the scent of frying onions and lavender soap.
The kitchen materialized, its porcelain sink gleaming, the radio humming a tinny song she hadn't heard in years.
A woman stood at the stove, her back to Mara, stirring a pot with a wooden spoon.
"Mom?" The word slipped out, small and fragile, before Mara could stop it.
The woman turned, her face soft and worn, eyes crinkling with a smile. It was her mother—alive, real, her hair tied back with a faded scarf.
"Mara, honey," she said, her voice warm, untouched by time. "Dinner's almost ready. Go wash up—your father'll be in soon."
Mara's throat closed, tears blurring her vision. This couldn't be—she'd buried her mom, mourned her, carried the weight of her absence for decades.
But here she was, solid, breathing, the kitchen bright with late afternoon sun. "You're… you're not real," Mara whispered, stepping back. "You died. '98. The crash—"
Her mother's smile faltered, a shadow crossing her face. "Don't talk like that, sweetheart. Everything's fine. See?"
She gestured to the room, but it wavered, the edges fraying like old film. The radio skipped, the song warping into static, and the light dimmed, casting her mother's features in a sickly glow.
A door slammed somewhere in the house, heavy and sharp. Her mother flinched, glancing toward the hall.
"That's him," she murmured, her tone tightening. "He's been out there all day again."
Mara's pulse quickened, the scar flaring with pain. She followed her mother's gaze, and the hallway stretched before her, longer than it should've been, the walls lined with photos—her, younger, her parents, smiling, then blank frames, empty and dark.
Footsteps echoed, slow and deliberate, boots scraping the wood. A shadow loomed at the far end, tall and warped, the burlap mask tilting into view.
"Dad?" Mara choked, her voice breaking.
He didn't answer. He stepped closer, the knife glinting in his gloved hand, the red stitches stark against the burlap.
Her mother froze, the spoon slipping from her fingers with a clatter, and the kitchen flickered—now dark, now bright, now empty.
Mara stumbled back, her hands raised, but the figure stopped, his head cocking like he recognized her.
The void surged again, ripping the scene apart. The kitchen dissolved, her mother's scream fading into a wail, and Mara fell—hard this time—onto cold attic floorboards.
The trunk loomed beside her, the phone silent, the muddy footprints smeared around her like a cage.
Her head throbbed, her arm ached, and the truth hit her like a flood. It wasn't a dream. It was a memory—buried, locked away, clawing free.
She saw it now, clear and jagged: her father, after the crash, his grief twisting into something dark.
He'd blamed her—"You took her from me"—his voice a hiss in the night, his hands trembling as he stitched that sack in the shed.
She'd run, hidden, her mind splintering to cope, shoving it down where it couldn't touch her.
And Ellie—Ellie wasn't another girl, another sister. Ellie was her.
Mara pressed her hands to her skull, a sob tearing loose. She'd been sixteen, trapped in this house, her father unraveling, her mother already gone—dead in '98, not '99, despite Ellie's pleas.
The phone calls, the scar, the shifting rooms—they were her own terror, her own voice, screaming across time to save herself.
She'd split, buried the girl she'd been—Ellie—leaving her to face the shadow man alone.
The attic creaked, the air thickening with sawdust and rot.
She lifted her head, and there, in the corner, was the burlap scrap—her initials scratched into it, the red thread unraveling.
A memory flashed: her father, mask half-sewn, looming in her doorway, his knife raised.
She'd locked the hatch, crawled into the dark, but he'd kept coming—until she'd broken, shoving it all away, rewriting her past to survive.
The house shuddered, a crack splitting the wall, and the phone rang—one short, sharp chime before falling silent.
Mara stood, legs shaking, the truth a weight she couldn't drop. Ellie was her—her fear, her fight—and the masked man was her father's ghost, her guilt, her own creation, hunting the girl she'd abandoned.
Outside, the shed door banged open, the sound cutting through the dawn. He was waiting.