*The creature standing in front of them takes on a clearer shape.
Her hair is styled exactly as Julia's mother wore it the day she disappeared.
The same length.
The same soft wave at the ends.
The same amber hair clip.
Julia feels her heart sink in her chest.
"Mom...?" she utters, barely audible.
Marek grips her hand tighter.
"Julia, she's not your mother. It's just..."
"I know," she says. But her voice is hollow.
The creature takes its first step.
The boards beneath her feet don't creak—they **groan**, as if something heavy was being dragged across the bare wood.
"Julia... and... aaah..." the voice is all too familiar. Too perfectly matched to memory.
"Mom..." Julia takes a step forward.
Marek pulls her back sharply.
"No! Julia, look at her hands."
Julia looks up.
And sees.
The creature's hands are... **evil**.
Too long.
Too thin.
With fingers like thin branches, tipped with sharp, black plates.
Like claws.
"I'm not meee..." the creature says in her motherly voice, but her face begins to twitch as if it can no longer maintain this form. "But I can be..."
Julia takes a step back.
"Marek... she..."
"I know," she replies. "I know."
The creature tilts its head to the side in an inhuman gesture.
Like a dog sniffing the air.
"I FEEL... YOU... JULIA."
The floor beneath them begins to pulsate rhythmically. "Like living tissue."
The light in the room goes out.
Only the pulsing, reddish glow of the symbol on Julia's skin remains.
And then Julia understands.
"She wants the light," she says, terrified. "She's responding to my signal. Marek, if I turn it off…"
But Marek is already acting.
He squeezes Julia's arm.
"Julia. Look at me. Only at me."
The creature hisses through gritted teeth.
"Nooooo… look… at… meeeee…"
Marek pushes Julia away and stands in front of her, as if trying to separate her from the horror before them with his own body.
"You want her? I'm sorry. You'll have to go through me," he says calmly, but his voice trembles.
The creature laughs.
The laughter is like the sound of branches snapping.
"I'm already doing it…"
And then the floor cracks.
Marek loses his balance.
Julia screams, grabbing his shirt, but a force from below pulls him down.
The floor beneath him crumbles like wet paper.
Arms emerge from the darkness—thin, long, as if made of black smoke.
They reach upward, wrapping themselves around his legs.
“JULIA!” Marek shouts, struggling against something invisible.
Julia lunges forward, but the creature in her mother’s form blocks her path.
It approaches slowly, a smile digging into her skin.
“STAY.”
“STAY.”
“STAY.”
Each word is spoken in a different voice—her mother’s, her own, and her child’s.
Julia steps back and grabs a chair, the only object within reach.
“Mom… I’m sorry.”
She strikes the creature with all her might.
The blow hits it square in the face.
The creature doesn’t bleed.
But something **chips** from her, like a piece of paint chipped from the surface.
She screams.
The scream is like an air raid siren piercing her skull.
—JULIAAAA!!!
Suddenly, the room loses its form.
The walls stretch as if someone had pulled them by the corners.
The door disappears.
The ceiling rises higher and higher.
The house loses patience.
The house decides to stop pretending.
Julia feels the symbol on her hand rip away… as if it were trying to burst from beneath her skin.
Her body trembles from within.
“Marek!” she screams, throwing herself at the ripped floor.
His fingers catch the edge at the last second.
“Hold on!” Julia tries to pull him up, but something pulls him further.
The creature behind her roars.
“GIVE ME YOUR LIGHTOOOO!!!”
Red light emanates from her hand so brightly that it blinds them both.
Marek screams.
The creature screams.
The house trembles.
Julia feels one thing:
This is only the **beginning**.
--
If you want **CHAPTER 14 — where the House reveals its true self**, write:
**Next**.
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