The Third Door.
417 Words
The lantern’s glow bled into the room like a wound, trembling against the dark. The air was colder here, sharp in Lucas’s lungs, carrying a metallic tang that tasted of rust—or blood.
The room itself was small, its walls draped in heavy velvet curtains now moth-eaten and damp. The floor was littered with broken glass, as if a mirror had been shattered long ago. In the far corner stood a writing desk, its wood warped, its drawers half-open like gaping mouths.
But it was the chair before it that froze Lucas in place.
Someone had been sitting there. Recently.
A shawl hung over the backrest, damp with mildew but faintly carrying the scent of lavender. He knew that perfume—it matched the one listed in Anna Fletcher’s belongings in the file.
“Anna…” he muttered under his breath.
He lifted the lantern higher. The light struck the walls, revealing something worse than decay. Words. Scrawled in black ink—or perhaps something darker—covering every inch of the plaster. They bled over one another, frantic, desperate.
Some were prayers. Others warnings.
And again and again, one phrase repeated:
“She is not gone. She waits.”
Lucas stepped closer, boots crunching over glass. On the desk lay another page from Anna’s notebook. His gloved hand trembled slightly as he unfolded it.
The writing was erratic, smudged, but legible:
“I saw her. Eveline. She spoke to me. Not in words—inside my head. She knows my name. She said the fire never took her. The fire only freed her. I can’t leave. I—”
The line cut off, ink smeared as though the pen had been ripped from her grasp.
Lucas’s pulse quickened. He scanned the room, the lantern flickering as if in a sudden draft. His eyes caught something against the far wall—an outline, faint in the dust.
A handprint. Small. Feminine. Fresh.
And then—movement.
The curtains swayed though the air was still. A whisper curled around the room, brushing against his ear like breath.
“Lucas…”
He froze. The voice was not Anna’s. It was younger. Softer. A voice he hadn’t heard in years.
His sister’s.
The lantern shook in his grip. He spun toward the sound, but the room was empty.
The curtains stilled. The whisper died.
Only the words on the wall remained, gleaming faintly in the lantern’s glow, as if freshly written:
“You should not have come back.”
- Writer
