Julia takes a step back, but the floor doesn't creak beneath her feet.
She doesn't make a sound.
It's as if the house itself is holding its breath, waiting for what will happen next.
The creature sitting on the bed—the one who looks like Natalia but isn't—lowers its head and slowly, unnaturally slowly, stands up.
Her body folds, then straightens, as if it had no joints, as if her bones were too soft, too flexible.
When she lifts her head, Julia sees those eyes even more clearly.
Empty.
As if someone had gouged them out and then replaced them with black, sticky night.
The creature's voice changes. It still sounds like Natalia, but it's a version devoid of warmth—washed out, like an echo of a memory.
—*You're coming back here after years…*
—What… are you?—Julia barely manages to choke out the words.
The creature tilts its head—too much, to the point where it should break its neck.
“*I am what remains within her.*”
“Where is Natalia?!” Julia shouts, though she’s out of breath.
The creature takes a step.
Her feet are inaudible.
She moves like a shadow detached from the person.
“*Don’t ask where she is, just why she’s no longer here.*”
The fog thickens, creeping like smoke up Julia’s calves.
Her skin begins to sting—as if the fog were painfully cold.
Julia backs away, but instinct tells her one thing:
**If you turn and run—something will follow you. And catch up.**
The creature comes closer.
Now Julia can see her features—they’re almost perfect, but in places… cracked.
As if they were a porcelain mask.
Beneath the cracks, something moves.
Something black.
Something alive.
"Tell me what you did to her," Julia says, though her voice trembles like a frozen candle flame.
The creature smiles wider.
Too wide.
Its mouth spreads almost to its ears.
"*She went where she shouldn't have."
The voice is quiet, as if speaking to the center of her chest.
Julia feels a chill that burrows deep beneath her skin.
Into her throat.
Into her lungs.
"*She went too far. She screamed too weakly. And I like it when someone screams for a long time."
Julia freezes.
In her head, something begins to connect—memories, dreams, fragments of Natalia's journals she found among her belongings.
Lines written in tremors:
"The house speaks. The house wants her back."
"Someone calls to me at night."
"I saw her. She looked at me through the mirror."
Julia swallows.
"Natalia... is she alive?"
The creature frowns.
"*Depends on what you call life."
And then it touches Julia for the first time.
Lightly.
With the tip of a finger.
The touch is cold, as if she'd pressed a piece of ice against her skin.
And yet Julia feels it throughout her body—in her bones, in her spine, in her heart.
This isn't just any ordinary touch.
This thing is trying to... read her.
Dismantle her.
Recognize her.
As if it were searching for a place in her where it could break her.
Julia does something she didn't expect herself to do—
strikes it.
With all her strength.
The creature steps back half a step, but doesn't react like a human.
It doesn't recoil in pain.
It doesn't hiss.
It just stares.
And then its smile widens even more.
— *That's how she started, too.*
The room begins to shake.
Not as if there were an earthquake.
More as if the house could hear their conversation
and was laughing beneath the floors.
The flashlight flickers.
One.
Two.
Three.
And fades.
Darkness covers everything.
Julia hears only one thing:
Footsteps.
Not hers.
Approaching.
Fast.
Too fast.
Julia runs.
She sees nothing—only the cold wind, wrapping itself around her like hands trying to hold her back.
Behind her, she hears:
—*Don't run. You ran once. Don't do this to me again…*
The voice sounds like Natalia.
Like the real Natalia.
And that breaks Julia more than anything.
She crashes into the hallway, stumbling over the uneven floor.
She passes doors that close by themselves—one by one.
She runs to the stairs.
She runs up them, taking the steps two at a time.
She doesn't look back.
She doesn't want to see what's behind her.
But she feels it anyway.
She feels close.
She feels breathing.
She feels something trying to grab her ankle.
Julia rushes downstairs.
The front door is locked—of course it is—though she left it open.
She rushes to it and yanks on the handle.
Nothing.
The door won't budge.
Behind her, a whisper can be heard:
**—The house didn't let her out.
It won't let you out either.**
Julia, wiping away tears and pounding on the door, bites her lip until it bleeds.
—*We'll see.*
The house responds with a soft click.
And then…
…something breaks.
But not the door.
Something in the walls.
Something *behind* them.
Julia turns slowly, trembling.
Because she knows that if she sees this, she might never get that image out of her mind.
And she's not wrong.
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