“I tried to warn you,” the reflection murmurs. “But you didn’t listen.”
Janelle’s pulse thunders in her ears. Pounding like a drum beat out of an African jungle, or a native war camp in the late 1800s.
“No. This isn’t right,” Janelle can hear herself say.
She squares her shoulders, forcing her breath into something steady, controlled.
“This is a trick,” she spits, her voice sharp enough to cut through the thick air pressing around her.
“You’re not me.”
The reflection—if that’s what it is—tilts its head, the gesture eerily familiar yet off, as though some unseen force is distorting the movements.
“I never said I was,” it murmurs.
Janelle clenches her fists.
“Then what are you?”
Silence, eerie silence, gripped Janelle.
Then, the mansion exhales. The walls ripple, the ground beneath her flexing, shifting its weight like a great beast settling into its haunches.
The reflection does not blink.
“You left something behind.”
Janelle swallows hard.
“The key,” the house whispers, the unraveling fragments of herself.
She steps closer, defiant.
“Then give it back.”
A slow smile spreads across the reflection’s lips—her lips.
“Come and take it.”
With that, the light sputters once and then vanishes. The darkness does not wait. It moves.
Janelle doesn’t hesitate. She plunges forward, into the shifting dark—into whatever waits beyond knowing. The air thickens, dragging against her skin like unseen fingers grasping at the edges of her resolve. The floor beneath her feet doesn’t hold still—it shudders, rolling like waves and bending like breath. The mansion itself exhales, a slow, deliberate pull, as though welcoming her home.
“But this is not home,” is the overriding thought racing throughout Janelle’s mind.
She stumbles—then steadies. She won’t be thrown off. She won’t let this place decide her steps. Something moves in the darkness—a whisper—not a voice, but a feeling. Janelle’s pulse hammers. The reflection says she left something behind. The thought digs into her, deep and unrelenting.
“But what?”
She presses forward. The shadows shift—but they are no longer merely shadows. Figures. Shapes. Glimpses of memories she never wanted to revisit. A doorway emerges ahead—tall, weathered, aching with age. Beyond it, something waits. She lifts a shaking hand, then pushes. The door swings open, and everything changes.