The Distance Between Truths
253 Words
Aria stood alone in her mother’s old bedroom, the air thick with perfume and memory. The journal trembled in her hands, pages fluttering like wings desperate to escape.
She found the letter tucked inside the lining of a drawer, sealed, yellowed, addressed to her.
“If you’re reading this, it means the entity has returned.”
Her mother’s words were soft, but heavy. The letter spoke of a ritual that Aria had never heard of. A binding, not a banishment. Her mother hadn’t tried to destroy the entity.
She’d tried to control it.
“I believed I could keep it close. That if I fed it slowly, it would spare you.”
Aria’s breath caught. Her mother had made offerings. People. Lives. All to protect her.
She felt sick.
Meanwhile, Damian knelt in the chapel ruins, the sigil burning against his skin. The visions came faster now, flashes of Aria’s mother, yes, but also of Aria herself. In one, she stood in the greenhouse, whispering the same incantation her mother had used.
He gasped. “No… that’s not her.”
But the sigil pulsed again, showing him more. Aria’s bloodline wasn’t just tied to the entity it was entwined. The curse didn’t follow her.
It recognized her.
When they met again in the hallway, the storm outside howled.
“I know what she did,” Aria said.
“I saw what you might become,” Damian replied.
Silence.
Then, together: “We need to talk.”
But the entity was already listening.
- Writer
