Mara didn't move from the attic floor. The ash lay scattered before her, a gray shroud dusted with that single red stitch, the last remnant of the masked figure.
Her knife rested beside her, its rusty blade streaked with her own blood from the shoulder wound, now a dull ache beneath her torn jacket.
The house was still—too still—the groans and shudders silenced, the windows downstairs a jagged chorus of broken glass.
Dawn crept through the cracked roof, pale and cold, painting the attic in a fragile light.
Her breath steadied, slow and shallow, but her mind raced, picking through the wreckage of the fight.
He'd come back—twice—each time stronger, each time more real, only to dissolve under her blade.
Ellie's voice—He's us, he's you—looped in her head, a truth she'd felt in the weight of his grip, the hollow stare behind the mask.
She pressed her hands to her face, ash gritty against her skin, and let the pieces fall into place.
Ellie wasn't a ghost, not a sister, not some lost girl trapped in '99. Ellie was her—sixteen, terrified, the part of herself she'd severed when the world broke.
Mara saw it now, clear as the scar on her arm: her father's descent after her mother's death, his quiet rage turning on her, the nights he'd stood in her doorway, burlap in hand, muttering her name.
She'd run, hidden, locked him out—but not before he'd chased her, knife gleaming, his grief twisted into something monstrous.
She'd survived that summer, somehow. Her grandmother had found her, trembling in the crawlspace, and her father had left—disappeared into the night, dead a year later in a crash she barely mourned.
But the terror hadn't left. She'd buried it, split it off, locked Ellie—the girl who'd faced him—in a corner of her mind, rewriting her past into something bearable.
The diaries, the phone, the scar—they were Ellie breaking free, screaming for her to remember.
Mara's hands dropped, her gaze falling to the ash. The masked figure wasn't her father—not really.
He was her creation, her guilt stitched together with his memory, fueled by the trauma she'd abandoned.
Every call from Ellie, every change she'd made—locking the window, hiding the knife—had fed him, pulled him closer, blurring the lines between then and now.
He was her shadow, her mirror, and she'd been fighting herself all along. The trunk creaked, its lid lifting an inch, then settling.
Mara flinched, her hand twitching toward the knife, but nothing emerged—just a faint whiff of mildew and old cloth.
She crawled to it, her shoulder protesting, and pried it open. Inside, beneath the quilts, was the wooden box—M.K. carved into the lid.
She tipped it out, spilling its contents: the locket, the photo of her father by the shed, and something new—a folded note, yellowed and brittle.
She unfolded it, her breath catching. Her own handwriting, shaky and small: July 25, 1999. He's gone. Gran says he won't come back. I can't stop shaking. I keep hearing him— Mara, Mara. I want to forget.
The ink smudged at the edges, tears long dried, and a memory surged—her, curled in the attic, scribbling this after he'd left, her mind already cracking to bury it.
The phone buzzed, a single hum, and she turned. It sat silent now, its cord limp, but Ellie's voice echoed in her skull—Do it right. Killing him wasn't enough—he'd reform, fed by her refusal to face the split.
Ellie wasn't just her past; she was her strength, her fight, the piece she'd locked away to survive. To end this, she had to take her back.
Mara stood, wincing as her shoulder throbbed, and picked up the knife. The ash stirred faintly, a whisper of movement, but she ignored it, her resolve hardening.
He wasn't the enemy—her denial was. She'd made him, and she could unmake him, but it meant letting Ellie go—letting that scared girl die to become whole again.
The shed door creaked outside, softer now, a call she couldn't ignore. She glanced at the hatch, the broken house below, and tightened her grip on the knife.
The fight wasn't over—not yet. But now she knew what she was fighting for.
The attic floor creaked behind her, a shadow flickering in the corner of her eye. She didn't turn. She knew who it was.