Morning never came.
Despite the ticking clock on the wall and the way the shadows shifted… outside the windows, it stayed night. A purgatory twilight, frozen in time.
Ryan limped beside Ethan as they moved cautiously through the corridors. "That wasn't Aria."
Ethan's voice was hollow. "I know."
"She smiled while I screamed," Ryan said, voice cracking. "She watched. She liked it."
"She's still in here. The real one," Ethan said. "We left her behind."
A long silence followed.
Then Ryan whispered, "We're going to get her back."
They found the stairs to the second floor—or what looked like stairs. Everything in the Hollow twisted, changed when you blinked. Doors became walls. Halls looped back on themselves.
But this time, the house wanted them to find the room.
The door was half open.
Inside was a bedroom untouched by rot.
It looked… lived in.
A twin bed with blue sheets. A dresser with a cracked mirror. A music box still playing a broken lullaby. Drawings on the wall—stick figures holding hands, smiling under a sun.
In the center of the room stood Aria.
The real one.
Her eyes were sunken, lips dry, clothes torn.
But it was her.
She looked up slowly, and when she saw them, she collapsed.
Ryan rushed to her, pulling her into his arms. "You're okay. You're okay now."
Ethan knelt beside her. "Tell me something only you'd know."
Aria blinked through her tears. "You keep three notebooks under your bed. One for poetry. One for dreams. One for things you wish you had said to me."
Ethan's breath caught.
It was her.
"Where's the other one?" Ryan asked. "The thing that came out pretending to be you?"
Aria looked up, eyes hard. "She's still in the house. And she knows we're all together again."
The music box clicked.
Stopped.
The air grew cold.
And then the walls peeled open.
Not broke. Not cracked. Peeled. Like skin.
A face began to press through the wallpaper—slow, horrible, mouth open in a soundless wail.
Not Aria's.
Not quite.
Ryan pulled her behind him. "We run."
But the door slammed shut.
The lights exploded.
And in the dark, the whisper returned.
"Only one leaves."
They screamed as hands—hundreds of them—burst from the walls, grabbing, pulling, clawing.
Ethan shoved Aria and Ryan toward the closet. "Inside!"
They slammed the door just as the room went still.
Silence again.
Then… a voice.
From just beyond the closet door.
"You took what was mine."
"Now I'll take him."
And when Ethan turned around, Ryan was gone.
To be continued...