Mavis Heartfellia was seven years old when her mother died—and ten when love stopped pretending.
After her mother's funeral, the house never felt warm again. It echoed—not loudly, but in a way that made even silence feel heavy. The walls felt farther apart, the nights longer. Her father, Erik Heartfellia, tried to fill the emptiness with kindness—with bedtime stories, gentle laughter, and promises whispered like prayers that everything would be okay.
When he married Miss Lara, Mavis believed him.
At first, Lara smiled often. She brushed Mavis's hair, praised her drawings, and called her *sweet child*. Mavis clung to those words like fragile glass, afraid they would shatter if she held them too tightly. She wanted a mother again. She needed one.
Then Erik died.
The day her father passed away, the house changed its breath. Lara's smiles disappeared, replaced by cold eyes that watched Mavis as if she were something unwanted—something left behind by mistake. The warmth drained from every room, and love slowly learned to hide its face.
On Mavis's tenth birthday, the truth finally revealed itself.
There was no cake.
No candles.
No wishes.
Only anger.
That night marked the beginning of something Mavis did not yet have a name for. Bruises were explained away as clumsiness. Tears were swallowed before they reached her eyes. Pain became routine—so common that she stopped questioning it. There was no one to tell. No one who would listen.
So Mavis stood in front of the mirror.
Every night.
She whispered her pain to her reflection. She spoke of fear and loneliness, of how much it hurt to exist in a house where love had turned its back on her. The mirror never answered—but it never looked away either.
Somewhere far beyond the human world, something listened.
Something ancient.
Something forbidden.
Her tears were not wasted. They were a calling—and the darkness answered.
Strangely, Mavis never believed she was alone. She heard whispers that comforted her, voices that soothed her when the nights became unbearable. They urged her to let them come out, promising they would never allow those who hurt her to die peacefully. The whispers grew with her, becoming quiet companions stitched into her childhood.
Then came the dream.
She saw blurred faces and ancient places she had never visited—places she did not recognize, yet somehow knew. And among those shifting images, the whispers changed.
They became a voice.
Clear. Steady.
**"Mavis, don't worry,"** it said.
**"I am coming back."**
She woke suffocating, breath tearing from her chest as if the dream had followed her into the room. Fear clung to her skin. Trembling, she did the only thing she knew how to do.
She went to the mirror.
It would become the greatest mistake of her life.
As Mavis sat before the glass and shared her fear, midnight crept through the house. Lara slept peacefully—until she didn't.
She dreamed of a blurred-faced man. His presence cracked the air. His voice rolled like thunder, carrying a cruel smirk.
**"Lara,"** the voice said softly.
**"Run for your life. I am here. Run, Lara—run."**
Lara woke drenched in sweat, breath ragged, eyes burning with tears she did not understand. Her body shook with a fear so sudden it stole her reason.
"No… no… no," she muttered. "It can't happen. He can't come into existence. No… it's impossible."
Without another thought, she ran.
Down the hallway.
Toward Mavis's room.
Repeating the same words like a failing spell:
*It's impossible. It can't be. It's impossible.*
And somewhere in the dark someone smiled.