Welcome Home, Emily
806 Words
The envelope rested on the hood of the car.
It was perfectly dry.
As if someone had placed it there only seconds earlier.
Adrian scanned the tree line, his pistol raised.
“Stay behind me.”
The forest was silent.
No footsteps.
No engines.
No voices.
Whoever had left the envelope was already gone.
Nadia picked it up carefully.
On the front, written in elegant black ink, were the words:
Welcome home, Emily.
Her hands shook.
“I hate that name,” she whispered.
Adrian looked at her.
“You don’t hate the name.”
“You hate what it means.”
⸻
Inside the envelope was a single key.
Unlike the others, this one was made of gold.
Engraved on it were the words:
HART HOUSE
There was also a note.
If you want the truth, go where your first memories were stolen. Come alone. Trust no one—not even Adrian.
Nadia read the last sentence twice.
She slowly folded the note and slipped it into her pocket without showing Adrian.
For the first time, she was keeping a secret from him.
⸻
An hour later, they arrived at the address engraved on the key.
At the end of a long, overgrown driveway stood a large Victorian house.
Its windows were boarded up.
The garden had become a forest of weeds.
The mailbox still read:
HART FAMILY
Nadia stepped out of the car.
“I’ve… been here before.”
“You were five years old,” Adrian said quietly.
“The night your father died.”
As she walked toward the front door, fragments of memory flashed through her mind.
A swing in the garden.
A birthday party.
Her mother singing.
Then…
A scream.
She stumbled.
Adrian caught her before she fell.
“The memories are coming back.”
“I know.”
⸻
The golden key fit perfectly into the old front door.
The lock clicked open.
Dust danced through the sunlight as they stepped inside.
The house had been frozen in time.
Children’s drawings still hung on the refrigerator.
A teddy bear lay on the stairs.
A family portrait was crooked on the wall.
Nadia picked it up.
There she was.
A little girl with a butterfly necklace.
Beside her stood her father…
…and her mother.
Nadia stared at the woman’s face.
“I know her…”
Adrian looked at the portrait.
His expression changed.
“No…”
“What is it?”
“That’s impossible.”
“What?”
Adrian pointed to the smiling woman in the photograph.
“That’s not your mother.”
⸻
Nadia frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
Adrian’s voice became unsteady.
“That woman…”
“…is Vivian.”
The photograph slipped from Nadia’s hands and shattered on the floor.
“No.”
“It can’t be.”
“You said Vivian wasn’t born.”
“I did.”
“You said she had no past.”
“I believed she didn’t.”
Adrian knelt and picked up the broken photograph.
On the back was a handwritten message:
Our family. Summer, 2007.
If the date was genuine…
Then Vivian had been living as part of Nadia’s family years before anyone knew the name Vivian Cole.
⸻
Suddenly, a floorboard creaked upstairs.
Someone else was in the house.
Adrian motioned for silence.
They climbed the staircase slowly.
The bedroom door at the end of the hallway was slightly open.
A soft melody drifted from inside.
A lullaby.
The same one Nadia had heard in her childhood memories.
Adrian pushed the door open.
The room was empty.
Except for an old cassette player turning by itself.
The lullaby stopped.
A recorded voice replaced it.
“Hello, Emily.”
Nadia froze.
“If you’re listening to this…”
“…then I’m already dead.”
It was Vivian’s voice.
“I never wanted you to remember.”
“But they left me no choice.”
The tape crackled.
“I am not your mother.”
Nadia closed her eyes.
“I am your sister.”
The cassette stopped.
Silence.
⸻
Adrian stared at the recorder in disbelief.
“Sister?”
Nadia whispered.
“Then… who was the woman in the photograph?”
Before either of them could answer, a hidden panel in the wall slid open with a mechanical click.
Inside was a small metal box.
On top of it sat a birth certificate.
It bore only one mother’s name.
But beneath it were two names under Children:
• Vivian Hart
• Emily Hart
Nadia’s pulse raced.
She and Vivian had shared the same family.
The same home.
The same past.
And someone had erased it.
End of Episode 9.
Cliffhanger
As Nadia reaches for the birth certificate, she hears a g*n being c****d behind her.
A calm voice says:
“Don’t touch what’s mine… little sister.”
- Writer
