Night fell early.
The fog never left. It just sank lower, rolling in thick through the trees like it had weight, like it was looking for a door left open. The power flickered twice before it gave out entirely. Ace lit candles. Sarah lit one in every room.
"Just a storm," he muttered.
But they both knew better.
Sarah didn't sleep.
Neither did Ace.
Instead, they stayed in the living room, backs to the fire, watching the windows like they expected someone to come tapping.
They didn't talk much, but when Sarah finally spoke, it was a whisper.
"Do you believe in... echoes?"
Ace didn't look away from the dark glass. "You mean ghosts?"
"No. I mean something worse. Not spirits of the dead. But of who we used to be. The parts we shed to survive."
That got his attention. He turned, eyes narrowed.
"You think that's what she is?"
Sarah didn't answer.
Because she wasn't sure the thing in the mirror was something foreign.
It felt like something familiar.
Like something she left behind on purpose.
"I think," she finally said, "I was meant to die with Hal."
"Don't," Ace said sharply. "Don't say that."
"I don't mean I wanted to. I mean—I don't think I walked away clean. What if a piece of me stayed with him? The part that loved him. The part that survived him by becoming... something else."
"Sarah," he said gently, "you are not her anymore."
She turned her eyes to his, and for a second, her voice didn't sound like hers.
"No," she said, "but she remembers me."
A sharp bang against the back door made them both jump.
Ace grabbed his knife from the table and moved in front of her, all soldier again. Protective. Focused.
The wind screamed once, high and sharp like something in pain.
They waited.
Then… silence.
Ace crept toward the door and opened it.
Nothing.
Just trees.
But something was nailed to the frame.
Sarah stepped forward and saw it: a single black feather, long and sharp, stuck to the wood with a splinter of bone.
Not bird bone.
Human.
She felt cold all the way to her bones.
Ace didn't speak, just stared at it.
But Sarah understood.
This wasn't just a message.
It was a calling card.
And whoever—or whatever—left it…
…was already inside the house.