Chapter 13 - Everyone Who Was LostThe walls split open.
Faces emerged.
Hundreds.
They weren't monsters.
They were people.
Victims.
Children.
Parents.
Doctors.
Workers.
Everyone Evelyn had trapped.
Their voices filled the chamber.
“Remember us.”
Elliot closed his eyes.
And remembered.
One memory.
Then another.
Then another.
A woman named Helen.
A doctor named Marcus.
A little boy named Thomas.
A nurse named Rebecca.
Every life.
Every death.
Every stolen moment.
The house began collapsing.
Evelyn screamed.
“STOP!”
Elliot opened his eyes.
“No.”
He remembered his father.
Daniel.
He remembered the way Daniel laughed.
He remembered his mother's hands.
He remembered Noah.
His brother.
The red toy car.
The rain.
The day they found the house.
The night everything changed.
Evelyn staggered backward.
“You cannot contain them.”
“I don't have to.”
Elliot looked at the dead.
“I only have to let them go.”
The house screamed.
A thousand memories exploded outward.
Windows shattered.
Walls dissolved.
The floor cracked.
Evelyn's body began breaking apart into faces.
Claire grabbed Elliot.
“We have to leave!”
Noah stood beside Anna.
“You go.”
Elliot stared.
“No.”
Noah smiled.
“This is where I belong.”
“No.”
“You've spent your whole life carrying me.”
Elliot cried.
“I don't want to.”
“You don't have to anymore.”
Anna took Noah's hand.
The two children began fading.
Elliot stepped toward them.
Noah said:
“Take care of Mom.”
Elliot looked at Claire.
She was crying.
“I will.”
Noah smiled.
Then he disappeared.
Anna vanished with him.
The chamber collapsed.
Elliot and Claire ran.
Behind them Evelyn screamed.
“You can't kill memory!”
Elliot looked back.
“No.”
He shouted.
“But I can stop worshipping it.”
The entire house imploded.
Silence.
Then sunlight.
For the first time in eleven years, the rain stopped.
Elliot and Claire emerged from the ruins.
The old facility was gone.
The house was gone.
Only a field remained.
Claire collapsed onto the grass.
Elliot sat beside her.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then Claire whispered:
“I'm sorry.”
Elliot looked at her.
“I know.”
“I should have told you.”
“I know.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“You weren't.”
Claire's eyes filled with tears.
“I know.”
Elliot took her hand.
“But you came back for me.”
Claire nodded.
They sat beneath the morning sky.
It was over.
Or so they believed.
Three days later, police found no evidence of the facility.
No bodies.
No machines.
No photographs.
No records.
Nothing.
Elliot almost believed it had all been a nightmare.
Until one evening, he found the red toy car on his bedroom floor.
He stared at it.
He hadn't brought it home.
Slowly, the wheels began turning.
The toy rolled toward him.
Then stopped.
A child's voice whispered:
“Elliot?”
He froze.
It wasn't Noah.
It wasn't Evelyn.
It was his own voice.
A younger version of himself.
May you like
Then the voice whispered:
“Don't let Mom find me.”
