BENEATH THE ASHES
1677 Words
The night felt heavier than the last one.
Colder, even though the temperature hadn’t dropped.
Emberly’s breath fogged faintly in front of her face as she and Elias walked toward the burned house for the second time that day. The world around them was quiet — too quiet for the city outskirts.
Streetlights flickered in long, uneven intervals, casting sharp shadows across the cracked pavement.
Elias stopped at the property line.
He scanned the area, every muscle in his body coiled tight. “Stay behind me.”
Emberly hugged the charred box to her chest.
Her fingers pressed against the tape inside.
The silver key felt like ice.
The whisper she’d heard from Elias’s vent echoed in her skull.
Her name…
He had whispered her name.
Her knees almost buckled. She forced herself to steady.
“I’m okay,” she lied.
Elias didn’t believe her, but he nodded anyway.
They didn’t have the luxury of breaking down. Not now.
They crossed the overgrown yard, brittle weeds crunching beneath their steps. The moonlight illuminated the house’s remains — the beams blackened and jagged, like broken ribs of something once alive.
Elias turned on his flashlight.
The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating ash swirling like dead snow.
“We need the basement entrance,” he said.
Emberly swallowed hard. “If there even is one…”
“There is.”
He showed her the article again on his phone’s screen.
Her heart squeezed.
Her mother had carried her out of a basement.
Not her bedroom.
Not the hallway.
The basement.
A place Emberly had absolutely no memory of.
Elias crouched near what remained of the foundation walls. His flashlight swept across the debris, then stopped.
“Here.”
Emberly stepped closer.
A square outline was visible under layers of ash and collapsed timber — a trapdoor.
Half-buried.
Half-burned.
But real.
Emberly’s stomach twisted violently.
Her legs threatened to give out.
Elias brushed ash away with his sleeve.
He gripped the metal ring at the edge of the trapdoor — rusted, scorched.
“You sure?” he asked quietly.
No.
She wasn’t sure.
But she nodded anyway.
He pulled.
The trapdoor groaned — metal bending, wood cracking, dust exploding
upward in a choking cloud.
Then it opened.
Revealing a pitch-black stairway.
The stench of smoke and something else drifted out — something metallic and rotten, like the ghost of a long-dead memory.
Emberly’s breath hitched.
Elias took her hand.
“You don’t have to go first.”
She shook her head. “You shouldn’t either. We… we go together.”
Something flickered in Elias’s expression — admiration, fear, protectiveness — then he nodded and stepped to the top of the stairs.
They descended.
And with every step, Emberly felt her childhood slipping out of reach and her nightmares solidifying into reality.
---
The basement was untouched.
The fire hadn’t reached it.
The walls were concrete — dark, cracked, sweating moisture.
Her flashlight beam quivered across the surfaces as her hand shook.
Dozens of tiny scratches marked the walls.
Claw marks.
Her breath left her in a silent gasp.
“Emberly…” Elias murmured. “Look.”
He pointed to the far wall.
A metal door stood there.
Triangular.
Like the drawing.
Emberly’s heart lurched upward into her throat.
The silver key in the box — the one left for her — felt warm now.
Almost pulsing.
She pulled it out with trembling fingers.
Elias watched her closely. “You don’t have to be the one to open it.”
She shook her head.
“I think… it has to be me.”
Her voice cracked on the last word.
She approached the metal door.
Her flashlight beam danced wildly over the scratches engraved into the surface.
At first they looked random.
But as Emberly lifted her light—
She saw words.
Burned into the metal.
WELCOME BACK, EMBERLY.
Her throat closed.
Elias cursed under his breath. “This bastard planned everything.”
Emberly pressed the silver key into the lock.
It slid in too easily.
Like it belonged.
Her hand trembled uncontrollably.
Then—
Click.
The lock released.
The door creaked open with a long, low moan.
Cold air washed out, coating her skin with goosebumps so violent they stung.
Elias angled his flashlight inside.
The room was small.
Triangular, just as she’d drawn.
Metal walls, metal floor.
A narrow cot with strapped corners.
A single dangling lightbulb.
Emberly’s knees weakened. She grabbed the doorframe, her flashlight flickering wildly.
“I’ve been here,” she whispered. “I’ve been here before.”
Elias moved behind her. “Don’t force the memories. Just breathe—”
But she wasn’t listening.
The room pulled at her.
Pulled at a part of her mind that had been locked away for decades.
A part her mother tried desperately to bury.
She stepped inside.
The air felt thick.
Heavy.
Electric with memory.
Her flashlight beam washed across one wall—
And something made her freeze.
A set of tally marks dragged across the metal.
Hundreds.
Maybe thousands.
Marked by a child’s hand.
She approached slowly.
Voice trembling:
“These are mine.”
Elias’s breath caught. “Emberly—”
“These are my marks. I remember the metal scraping my nails.” Tears blurred her vision. “I remember counting… counting days… nights… I don’t know—”
Her hand hovered over the tallies as though touching them would break her skin.
She turned slowly.
Her eyes locked onto something in the corner.
A small wooden box.
Just like the one at her mother’s house.
She moved toward it, unable to stop even if she wanted to.
More memories surged up — sharp, jagged pieces:
A door locking.
Heavy footsteps.
A deep voice whispering her name.
A man sitting in the corner, watching.
Her mother crying.
Screaming her name.
Emberly gasped and staggered back.
Elias caught her.
“It’s okay— I’ve got you—”
“No,” Emberly choked out, shaking her head violently. “It’s not okay. Elias, I was here. He kept me here. My mother tried to get me out— but she couldn’t—”
Her words dissolved into trembling.
Elias tightened his arms around her.
“No one is going to hurt you again,” he whispered fiercely.
Something clattered outside the room.
Both froze.
A scuff of footsteps.
Soft.
Deliberate.
Elias grabbed Emberly’s arm and pulled her behind him.
“Stay behind me.”
The footsteps grew closer.
The basement air turned icy.
Emberly’s breath clouded the air.
Elias gripped his flashlight like a weapon.
The footsteps stopped directly outside the metal door.
Silence.
Then—
A slow, deliberate knock.
Three taps.
Elias’s jaw clenched. He whispered:
“He’s here.”
Emberly couldn’t breathe.
Her heart thrashed violently.
Her vision wavered.
The metal door rattled.
Something — someone — pressed against the other side.
Elias stepped forward, standing between Emberly and the door.
Breathing filled the room — not theirs.
Deep.
Slow.
Male.
Just like on the tape.
Emberly clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.
A voice followed.
Deep.
Familiar.
Wrong.
“…Emberly.”
Her blood iced.
Elias whispered, barely audible:
“Don’t answer him.”
The voice spoke again.
Closer.
As if his mouth was pressed right against the wall.
“You found the room,” he whispered. “Good girl.”
Emberly’s legs nearly collapsed.
Elias steadied her again, but even he was shaking now.
The metal door handle twisted slightly — not enough to open, just enough to show he could.
Then his voice dropped into something darker.
Something hungry.
“Are you ready to remember… everything?”
The lights flickered violently.
The metal walls vibrated.
The door began to open—
Elias lunged forward and slammed it shut with his whole body weight. “RUN!”
But Emberly was frozen in place.
Her lungs seized. Her legs felt like concrete.
The voice slipped through the cracks in the metal like poison.
“You’re just like you were as a child,” he whispered.
“Frozen.
Waiting.
Mine.”
That single word snapped something inside Emberly.
She screamed:
“STOP!”
Elias shouted her name.
The metal door pounded once — loud enough to shake dust from the ceiling.
Elias grabbed Emberly’s hand and pulled her toward the stairs.
She tripped, stumbled, but forced her legs to move.
Behind them —
The door handle began to turn again.
Slowly.
Methodically.
Elias dragged her up the stairs, two steps at a time.
Emberly could hear breathing below.
Smell the cold air rising.
Sense the presence that had haunted her for decades.
At the top, Elias shoved her through the trapdoor and pulled it shut.
But before slamming it closed, Emberly saw something.
Just for a moment.
A tall shadow climbing the stairs.
Two pale eyes staring upward.
Right at her.
Elias slammed the door.
He grabbed a broken beam from the ruins and wedged it across the trapdoor as a makeshift barricade.
Emberly backed away, trembling so hard her teeth chattered.
Elias grabbed her face gently.
“Look at me. Look at me, Emberly.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“He was in there with us,” she whispered. “He was right behind us.”
“I know,” Elias said, voice shaking. “But he didn’t get you.”
A loud bang slammed against the trapdoor.
Both flinched violently.
Elias grabbed Emberly’s hand. “We’re leaving. Now.”
They ran through the ruins, ash swirling around their legs as if the house itself were waking from the dead.
Another bang from below.
Emberly sobbed.
Elias pulled her into the night air.
They didn’t stop running until the house disappeared behind the trees.
Only then did Emberly collapse to her knees, gasping for breath, shaking uncontrollably.
Elias knelt in front of her, hands on her shoulders.
“You’re safe,” he whispered.
But Emberly knew better.
No matter how far they ran —
He would follow.
He always had.
And now…
He wanted her to remember why.
---
- Writer
