Chapter Cover
A crumbling Victorian house under a crescent moon. A single light glows faintly in the upstairs window. A woman stands outside with her keys shaking in her hand, unaware that someone is already inside.
Tagline: Sometimes home is not where you're safe. It's where the danger waits.
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POV: Eliana
The storm hadn't ended when I got inside. It followed me.
The walls of my old house groaned against the wind, the kind of sound that made you feel like something alive was in the bones of the place. I'd lived here for three years, long enough to know every creak and hollow—but tonight, it all felt different.
Off. Wrong.
My boots squelched against the wooden floor. I peeled off my soaked coat, trying to convince myself that the chill that sank into my skin was only from the rain.
But then my eyes fell on the keyring.
The thread was still there.
A bright red string tied perfectly around the loop. It glistened in the dim light, as though the rain had never touched it.
I picked it up with trembling fingers. The knot was tight. Precise. Whoever tied it had wanted me to notice.
"Hello?" My voice cracked in the silence. "Is… someone there?"
The house groaned in reply.
I told myself to laugh, to roll my eyes, to call it ridiculous—but the laugh died in my throat.
Because I knew someone had been in here.
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POV: Adrian
She touched the thread. Good.
The curse would guide her now, make her feel the pull even if she didn't understand it.
I stood in the corner of the living room, cloaked in shadow, the storm outside hiding me better than any wall. Watching her like this was agony. Every detail—the way she bit her lip when she was nervous, the way she turned her head slightly as if she was listening for something that wasn't there—it was all the same.
Every life.
Every cursed cycle.
And every time, she was beautiful.
But beauty had a cost. And if I spoke too soon, touched her too soon, the curse would collect it in blood.
I clenched my fists until my knuckles burned. I wanted to protect her, but the shadows were already in this house. I could feel them crawling against the walls, pressing into the cracks.
If she went upstairs now, she wouldn't come back down.
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POV: Eliana
The radio in the kitchen flickered.
Static.
I froze. The house fell into a deeper silence than before, and in that silence, I swore I heard something. Not the storm. Not the creak of the wood.
Breathing.
Slow. Careful. Not mine.
My heart lurched into my throat. I grabbed the nearest thing I could find—a heavy glass from the counter—and held it like a weapon.
The sound came again, this time from upstairs.
I stared at the staircase, each step rising into darkness like a throat waiting to swallow me. My pulse screamed don't go. My curiosity whispered find out.
And then I heard it.
A voice.
"Eliana…"
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POV: The Shadow
She heard me.
They always did.
Her soul was a lock, and my voice was the key. I pressed closer to the rotting wood of the upstairs bedroom door, savoring the panic in her breath. She thought it was imagination. She thought it was madness.
But it was recognition.
Every life, she forgot me. Every life, I reminded her. And every life, she came closer.
The man thought the thread belonged to him. He was wrong.
The thread belonged to me.
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POV: Eliana
My name in the dark.
It made my skin crawl and yet… ache. Like I'd heard it before, long ago. Like someone had whispered it against my skin in a moment I should remember but couldn't.
My grip on the glass tightened.
"Who's there?" I demanded, though my voice broke halfway through.
The whisper came again, closer now. Almost against my ear.
"Eliana…"
I dropped the glass. It shattered, echoing through the empty house.
The lights flickered.
The silence deepened.
And in the upstairs hallway, something moved.
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POV: Adrian
No.
She was listening. Following the pull of the shadows instead of the thread.
My chest ached as I watched her feet climb the first step, then the second. Her hand trembled on the banister.
She wasn't ready. If she opened that door tonight, the curse would rip through her.
I wanted to shout, to run to her, to drag her away. But I couldn't. Not yet.
So instead I whispered, too soft for her ears but sharp enough for the shadows to hear:
You won't have her this time.