Lila's Journal – Entry #46
Date: October 14, Year Unknown (Time feels strange today)
I found the old ink again. Not the cursed kind.....the real kind. The earthy, almost metallic smell that clings to your skin like ghosts used to. Theo says I shouldn't keep writing about what was. That we have a new life now. A real one. One where the piano doesn't scream.
But memories don't just die, do they? They shift. They tuck themselves behind curtains and inside mirror frames. I swear, last night, I saw my reflection turn to look at me when I turned away.
Not frightening. Not yet. Just... watching.
Sometimes I wonder if the loop ever really ended. Or if this is just another dream we've convinced ourselves is real.
I don't draw the manor anymore. That feels like an invocation. But I did sketch a girl today. She had long hair, tangled and ash-colored. Her hands were bleeding ink, like mine used to. Only.....she wasn't me.
I think she's someone else. Maybe someone the house forgot. Or someone it's just now remembering.
Theo's Journal – Page torn, left on piano bench
The notes keep changing. Even when I write them down. I'll look away and a G becomes a B-flat. Whole measures shift like they're afraid of being heard the same way twice.
Music used to be my anchor. Now it feels like the tide.
I played our song yesterday....forward. And backward. Neither version felt right. Not wrong, just... incomplete.
Lila's dreaming again. Talking in her sleep about a garden with no seasons, and a door that only opens for blood.
I wonder if the Collector ever truly left. Or if it's simply sleeping inside the cracks we couldn't fix.
I would give anything for this peace to be permanent. But peace, I'm learning, is a song you have to keep playing. Every day.
"Some stories echo. Others evolve. But the ones we tell together... those are the ones that last."