Time seemed to slow down as everything clicked into terrible focus. Kai—responsible, prepared, always-in-control Kai—was dead. His head was literally separate from his body. His blood was everywhere, soaking into the antique carpet, dripping down the walls, warm and wet on my face.
'This isn't real', I thought frantically. 'This can't be real. People don't just die like this. Not Kai. Not here. We were just hiking. We were just trying to get out of the rain.'
"Come the fuck on, Ethan!" A voice screamed behind me as hands grabbed my jacket, yanking me backward. It was Priya, her face pale, her usual composed expression shattered into raw terror. "MOVE!"
But I couldn't move. My legs wouldn't work. My whole body was frozen, locked in place by the sight of the woman—the thing—licking Kai's blood from her lips like it was the most delicious thing she'd ever tasted.
Her eyes met mine. They had been normal a moment ago—brown, warm, human. Now they were black from edge to edge, like looking into empty holes in the universe.
'I'm next, I realized. I'm standing closest. I'm next.'
The woman's fingers began to change, the nails stretching and sharpening before my eyes, morphing into claws that looked like they could slice through steel. She raised her hand, those impossible claws aimed straight for my throat, and I knew with absolute certainty that I was about to die.
'I haven't even graduated from college yet! I haven't done anything! I haven't even gotten laid! I can't die here!'
I threw my arm up instinctively, a desperate attempt to protect myself, and her claws caught my forearm instead of my neck.
Pain exploded through my arm like white-hot fire as her claws tore through my flesh like paper. I screamed, feeling warm blood pour down my arm and drip onto the marble floor, mixing with Kai's blood that was already pooling there. The pain was so intense I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but scream.
"Get the fuck away from him!" Zara's voice cut through my screaming.
A porcelain plate flew through the air—one from the tea service—shattering against the woman's head in an explosion of ceramic shards. The impact made her stumble backward, momentarily disoriented, her claws withdrawing from my arm with a wet sucking sound.
Priya was dragging me away, her grip iron-tight on my good arm. Her fingers were digging into my bicep hard enough to bruise, but I barely felt it through the agony radiating from my torn forearm. "Move, Ethan! MOVE!"
Diego grabbed what looked like a heavy brass candlestick from a side table and swung it at the woman like a baseball bat. His bandana had fallen off, and I'd never seen him look so terrified, but he still swung with all his strength. It connected with her shoulder with a sickening crunch, sending her sprawling across the antique furniture.
"GO! GO! GO!" he yelled, and we all ran.
Chaos. Pure fucking chaos. We were stumbling over each other, slipping on blood—Kai's blood, oh god, that's Kai's blood—and ceramic shards. My feet were sliding on the marble as we desperately tried to get back to the hallway.
My arm was screaming in pain with every movement, blood soaking through my shirt sleeve, dripping onto the floor as we ran. I pressed my good hand against the wound, trying to stop the bleeding, but it was pouring through my fingers.
'Don't think about it', I told myself. 'Don't look at it. Just run. Just survive.'
"Oh god, oh god, oh god," Amara was repeating over and over, her voice high and broken. She'd stopped trying to frame aesthetic shots; her phone was just a flashlight now, shaking wildly in her trembling hands. "Did you see Kai's head? Did you see his head just—oh god, oh god."
'Yes, I saw it', I thought hysterically. 'I can't stop seeing it. The way it rolled. The way his eyes were still open. The way his mouth was still moving like he was trying to say something—'
"The door!" Diego shouted from somewhere ahead of us. "We need to get to the fucking door!"
But something was wrong. I could hear it—the woman behind us. The souunds of multiple feet slapping against the floorboard like some kind of insect. Scratching, scuttling sounds that made my skin crawl and my stomach heave.
'She's not human', I realized with sick certainty. 'Of course she isn't. No human can open their mouth that wide and chomp of someone's neck like candy. What the fuck is she?'
My arm throbbed with each heartbeat, and I could feel myself getting light-headed from blood loss. My vision was starting to blur at the edges.
'No', I thought desperately. 'Not now. I can't pass out now. I have to keep moving.'
Levi was gasping for breath behind me, struggling to keep up. Even terrified and running for our lives, he was slow, weak, his breathing coming in ragged wheezes. I could hear him starting to fall behind.
"Here!" Zara called out, round around the corner we'd turned earlier. She wasn't bouncing on her heels anymore; her whole body was rigid with fear. "This way! The entrance is just—"
She stopped dead. We all did.
The corner led to another hallway. Not the entrance. Not the foyer where we'd first come in. Another identical hallway with the same dull yellow light, lined with the same paintings and covered furniture.
'This is completely wrong.' My mind screamed. 'We came from here. I know we came from here. I remember that painting—the one of Enoch. We passed it on the way in. But now it's... it's on the wrong side of the hall.'
"What the fuck?" Diego breathed, his voice barely a whisper.
"This is wrong," Priya said, her voice shaking, her bottom lip bleeding from where she'd been chewing it. "This is completely wrong. We came from here. I know we came from here."
"Where's the door?" Amara whispered, still clutching her hair with both hands. "Where's the fucking door? We just came in! We just walked through it! Where the fuck is it?"
The scratching sounds were getting closer. Much closer. I could hear her, following our every move like we were mice in a maze.
'The mansion is changing', I realized with growing horror. It's changing around us. 'Trapping us. We're not getting out. We're never getting out.'
"RUN!" someone screamed—might have been me—and we bolted down the new hallway.
But every turn led to more hallways. More paintings watching us with oil-painted eyes that seemed to track our movement. More covered furniture that looked like hunched figures in the darkness, any one of which could suddenly spring to life. The mansion had become a maze, reality twisting around us like we were trapped in some fucked up nightmare.
My arm was leaving a blood trail behind us. I could see it in the flashlight beams—drops of red on the marble floor, marking our path like breadcrumbs. 'She can follow us', I thought desperately. 'She can track us by the blood. I'm leaving fucking breadcrumbs for her.'
"This isn't possible," Diego kept saying as we ran, his voice getting higher with each repetition. "This isn't fucking possible. Buildings don't just change layout!"
"Split up," Zara said, her voice trembling but decisive. "We have to split up. It can't follow all of us."
"No! That's what they do in horror movies! We stay together!" Diego argued, his voice tight with fear.
"Look around, bro!" Zara gestured wildly at the impossible hallways surrounding us. "We're already IN a fucking horror movie! Kai's dead! That thing ate him! We need to—"
A door. There was a door up ahead, slightly ajar, light leaking from beneath it.
Without thinking, I grabbed the handle and yanked it open. "In here!"
We piled into the room like our lives depended on it—which they did. Diego and I immediately threw our shoulders against a massive wooden shelf that stood against the far wall.
"Help us!" I grunted, trying to push the thing toward the door. My injured arm was useless, screaming in pain with every movement, but I used my good shoulder and all my weight.
Levi stumbled over, putting his hands on the shelf, but he was shaking so badly he could barely apply any pressure. His face was pale, covered in sweat, and I could smell urine—he'd pissed himself. His whole body was trembling like he was having a seizure.
"Come on, Levi!" Diego snapped, his voice sharp with fear and frustration. "Put your fucking back into it!"
But Levi was useless. His weak, trembling attempts at helping were actually making it harder as the shelf caught and scraped on the floor. By the time we got it wedged against the door, Diego and I had done most of the work, and my vision was swimming from blood loss and pain.
The room we'd barricaded ourselves in looked like old servants' quarters. Simple wooden furniture, a narrow bed with faded sheets, and shelves lined with what looked like cleaning supplies and uniforms from another era. A single oil lamp on the bedside table provided weak, flickering light.
'We're going to die', I thought as I slid down the wall, pressing my good hand harder against my bleeding arm. 'We're going to die in this fucking room. Kai's already dead. We're next. This was supposed to be a hiking trip and now we're going to fucking die.'
Sharp, unnatural footsteps echoed in the hallway, getting closer. Closer.
Then a voice, smooth and cultured with an accent I couldn't place, spoke from the corner of the room:
"Looks like we have visitors today."