Chapter 7 - When the darkness lifted, Silly was gone.I was alone.
The candles were extinguished.
The broken mirror was gone.
And the tree was silent.
I stood there for what felt like hours.
Then my phone vibrated.
A message.
From Dad.
“Come inside.”
The screen displayed an address.
Our childhood home.
I almost dropped the phone.
The house had been sold years ago.
Nobody lived there anymore.
Yet the message included a photograph.
The front door.
Open.
I started walking.
I don't know why.
Something inside me wanted answers more than it wanted safety.
The road changed as I walked.
The trees disappeared.
The forest became a neighborhood.
Streetlights appeared.
Cars.
Houses.
People.
But none of them moved.
Everyone was frozen.
A woman standing on a sidewalk.
A cyclist.
A child holding a red balloon.
All motionless.
I reached our old house.
The front door was open.
Inside, everything looked exactly as it had when I was seven.
The sofa.
The curtains.
The television.
My father's shoes near the entrance.
I stopped breathing.
Dad stepped into the hallway.
He looked at me.
“Come in.”
I couldn't move.
“You're not real.”
He smiled.
“Neither are you.”
I stepped backward.
The door slammed shut behind me.
Dad walked closer.
“Do you remember the night I died?”
“No.”
“That's because they removed it.”
“Who?”
He pointed upstairs.
“Your sister.”
My heart sank.
“No.”
“She lied to you.”
“Why?”
“Because she was scared.”
“Scared of what?”
He looked toward the staircase.
“Of what happened to Mai.”
I heard footsteps upstairs.
Slow.
Heavy.
Someone dragging something.
Dad whispered:
“She wasn't the first.”
“Who wasn't?”
“Mai.”
A woman's voice called from upstairs.
My mother's voice.
“Come upstairs, sweetheart.”
Dad grabbed my shoulder.
“Do not go.”
The footsteps stopped.
Silence.
Then the bedroom door upstairs opened.
A woman appeared at the top of the stairs.
My mother.
She looked exactly as she had before she died.
She smiled.
“I've been waiting for you.”
Dad disappeared.
I was alone again.
Mom descended the stairs.
I backed away.
“You made a deal with the tree.”
She nodded.
“For you.”
“You promised one child.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I loved you.”
“That isn't love.”
Her face changed.
“Then why did you survive?”
I froze.
She whispered:
“You were supposed to die before your first birthday.”
“What?”
“The tree rejected you.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
She smiled.
“But it did not reject your brother.”
I stared at her.
“My brother?”
“We had two sons.”
The room spun.
“I only have one brother?”
Mom's eyes filled with tears.
“No.”
“You had a twin.”
I couldn't speak.
“What happened to him?”
“The tree took him.”
I touched my face.
“No.”
“He was born first.”
“He had your father's eyes.”
“He was alive for six hours.”
“And then?”
“He disappeared.”
My mother stepped closer.
“When you were six, the tree returned him.”
I whispered:
“That's the fourth child.”
Mom nodded.
“He looked exactly like you.”
Then the ceiling creaked.
Something crawled above us.
Mom whispered:
“He's been waiting for you.”
A hand broke through the ceiling.
Then another.
Something pulled itself into the room.
It was my face.
My body.
My childhood clothes.
But older.
Much older.
It looked like me after twenty years of suffering.
It pointed at me.
May you like
And said:
“I've been pretending to be your reflection for fourteen years.”
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