The hallway to her bedroom felt longer than it should've.
Each step echoed too loudly, like her feet were walking through a cathedral made of bones. The shadows clung to the corners. Whispering.
Whispers she once thought were memory now sounded more like… instructions.
She stepped inside her room.
Paused.
Everything was in place—the bed neatly made, the lamp still flickering with a bulb that needed changing. Her blanket, folded with obsessive precision, sat at the edge like a boundary.
Her body moved in two directions at once. One part of her wanted to rest. Close her eyes. Forget everything.
The other part?
It wanted to watch.
3:27 AM.
Lena sat at the edge of her bed, eyes fixed on the wall. The light flickered, then held steady. Her burned hand throbbed beneath the gauze she barely remembered wrapping.
She'd scratched something into the wooden nightstand.
Four letters.
STOP.
She didn't remember doing it.
But her fingers itched for the knife again.
She stood.
Walked to the bathroom.
Turned on the light.
Stared.
Her reflection stared back. But it wasn't a mirror anymore—it was a window. Into something else. Someone else.
"Why are you always watching me?" she whispered.
The reflection didn't answer.
It smiled.
She blinked—and the smile was gone.
Her breath hitched.
"I didn't mean to hurt anyone," she whispered.
"Didn't you?" a voice asked—her voice, but not her.
It echoed from behind her ribs.
Lena stumbled back, hand clutching her chest as though she could dig the voice out.
"I didn't. I—I wanted to stop him—"
—But you didn't.
"No—"
—You wanted it."
"Shut up!"
—You liked the power."
"NO!"
She slammed her fist against the sink. Porcelain cracked. Blood mixed with water, swirling down the drain.
Then silence.
Then—
A giggle.
She curled into a ball on the bathroom floor, hands shaking, lips trembling with a sob she couldn't release.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to sleep.
She wanted to kill.
She wanted to run.
She wanted someone to hold her.
No one came.
Only her own voice, rising from the dark:
"What if the fire never stopped? What if it's inside you now?"
By morning, she had torn every drawer open.
Clothes scattered. Furniture overturned. Her journal lay ripped into pieces across the living room like confetti.
She'd woken up in the kitchen cabinet—curled up, like a child hiding from monsters.
Except this time, she was the monster.
Or the child.
Or both.
She wasn't sure anymore.
Later. Therapy.
Dr. Rowe looked at her differently now.
Softer. Wary.
Like Lena was a glass about to shatter in her hands.
"I had a moment," Lena said.
Dr. Rowe said nothing.
"I've been hearing things. Seeing things. But they're not hallucinations. They're… memories. Scratched on the inside of my skull."
Dr. Rowe's pen moved slowly. "What kind of things?"
Lena grinned. "There's a version of me that never left the fire. She whispers sometimes. Gives me advice."
A pause.
"What does she say?"
Lena leaned forward, eyes wide.
"She says if I remember everything, I won't cry."
"Why?"
"Because I'll laugh."
That night, Lena opened her closet and stared into the dark.
Something was waiting.
Not behind the clothes.
Not under the bed.
Inside her.
She smiled at the emptiness.
And the emptiness smiled back.
The morning light came like a lie—pale, cold, and too clean. It filtered through the cracked blinds of her apartment, making everything look sterile and distant, like a museum exhibit of a life once lived.
Lena hadn't slept. Not really. Just closed her eyes long enough to see more things she didn't want to see. The fire again. The laughter. The hand—her hand—tightening around something sharp.
She sat at the kitchen table, rocking slightly. A cup of tea had gone cold in front of her. She hadn't touched it. She couldn't remember making it.
The clock ticked.
[Tick. Tick. Tick.]
Then stopped.
She looked at it. The hands were frozen at 3:33.
Of course.
"Why not," she muttered.
The air shifted. Heavy. Like the room exhaled something it had been holding back.
She turned her head slowly.
A shadow—just at the edge of the hallway.
A tall shape, darker than the rest.
Watching.
She didn't blink.
"Come closer," she whispered. "I dare you."
But it didn't move.
Later, she found herself standing in front of a name she hadn't thought of in years.
Miranda Hart.
The woman used to live two doors down from Lena's family. She'd been a quiet woman—watchful, but friendly in that polite, unbothered way most neighbors were. But that night—the night of the fire—Miranda had been the one to call emergency services.
The police had interviewed her. Lena remembered seeing her behind the yellow tape, her face pale, eyes wide.
And then she disappeared.
Moved away.
Vanished.
No one had spoken of her again.
But now, somehow, Lena had found her address written in her own handwriting. Folded in the back of a book she swore she hadn't touched in years.
What else have you forgotten, Lena?
The voice in her head was louder now.
Closer.
She stuffed the address into her coat pocket and left the apartment.
The house sat at the edge of the woods, shrouded in creeping ivy and rot. An old, slanted porch. Paint peeling. Windows sealed tight. Like the house was trying to hold its breath.
Lena stood at the edge of the path for a long moment.
Her instincts screamed at her to leave.
But something else—darker, deeper—pushed her forward.
"You came this far for a reason," the voice said. "Don't turn back now."
She knocked once.
Twice.
A shuffle inside.
Then the door cracked open.
And there she was.
Miranda.
Older. Thinner. Her hair now a dull gray, pulled back in a tight braid. Her eyes were sharp, intelligent—but terrified.
"Lena?" she asked, barely above a whisper.
"You remember me," Lena said. It wasn't a question.
Miranda didn't open the door any wider.
"What are you doing here?" Her voice trembled.
Lena tilted her head. "You used to bring us cookies."
"That was a long time ago."
"You saw what happened."
Miranda's breath hitched. "I don't know anything."
"Don't lie,"Lena said, her voice flat.
"You were there. You watched. You said something to the police. Then you vanished. Why?"
Miranda stepped back. "You shouldn't have come here."
Lena stepped forward.
The door slammed shut in her face.
From behind it, Miranda's voice came low and panicked.
"You don't understand. It wasn't supposed to happen. You weren't supposed to survive."
The world stopped.
Lena's breath turned to ice.
A heartbeat. Two.
Then her lips curled into a slow, almost tender smile.
"So that's the truth," she said softly. "You knew."
"I—Lena, please," Miranda's voice cracked.
"It was never personal. Your family—your father was involved in things. Bad things. You were just… collateral."
Lena pressed her forehead against the door. Closed her eyes.
"You tried to kill me?" she whispered.
"No!"Miranda cried.
"Not me. I only—He said—"
A beat.
Then silence.
Lena blinked.
"Who?" she asked, gently.
"Who's 'he'?"
No answer.
Just the sudden, sharp sound of a chair scraping inside the house. Footsteps retreating. A bolt being thrown.
Lena turned away.
But not before saying, softly—
"I'll be back."
The wind bit at her cheeks as she walked back down the road. The trees whispered.
Her mind was on fire.
Collateral.
You weren't supposed to survive.
The words echoed, bounced, twisted into something acidic.
Suddenly her laughter bubbled up again—loud, sharp, manic. People across the street turned to stare. She didn't care.
Let them look.
Let them see.
Back home, Lena tore open her journal.
Pages had filled themselves in.
You knew. You always knew.
He lives in the dark.
He wore your father's face.
You smiled when he burned.
Her hands shook.
"No," she whispered.
"That's not true."
But her fingers reached for the pen.
And wrote:
It was beautiful.
The lights flickered.
She looked up.
A shadow moved across her wall. Long. Thin. Too tall.
It didn't belong to her.
She stared.
Then the whispers began again—clearer this time.
Lena…
Come back.
You left us behind.
We're still burning.
She covered her ears.
Screamed.
Later, curled in the closet, she whispered to herself.
"She tried to kill me. She knows. They all know."
The mirror on the door flickered.
Her reflection stepped out of sync again.
And smiled.
"You'll have to kill her first," the reflection said.
Lena didn't argue.
She nodded.
"I will."