Chased By Shadows

Chapter Seven: The Third Girl

The box was empty now. Kaia held it between her palms, cold and worn from the dirt. She didn’t know why she had brought it back to the clearing. It was as if the earth beneath her feet wanted it returned.

Silas stood behind her, arms crossed. “Nothing stays buried,” he said. “Not really.” Kaia didn’t look at him. “That’s the problem.”

Elise barely spoke that morning. She walked around the house barefoot, tracing her fingers along the walls, like she was trying to remember something she never fully learned.

Maren noticed. “You look like you’re waiting for someone,” she said. “I think I already met them,” Elise whispered. Maren tilted her head. “Who?” Elise looked up, eyes hollow. “Me.”

In Maren’s notebook, pages were filling with timelines, maps, circles around names.

Kaia, Elise, Sera, Silas. And now… The Third.

There were no photographs. No fingerprints. Just whispers.

She had found a single sentence in an old forum post, dated 2016: “They say the third girl didn’t die. She just… split.” Split? Into what?

Kaia stared at her reflection for a long time. There was something wrong with her eyes.

Not in shape, not in color but in memory.

She didn’t remember what they looked like before. She didn’t remember herself as a child.

Just flashes, hands over her mouth, rain on her skin, a scream that wasn’t hers but still echoed in her lungs. She touched her throat. And whispered: “Who am I?” The mirror didn’t answer. But something behind her moved.

That night, Elise left the house again. Alone.

She walked toward the old shed behind the woods, the one her father once warned her never to enter.

It was smaller than she remembered. Or maybe the woods had just grown thicker.

The door creaked open. Inside, dust hung in the air like ghosts. She stepped over rusted tools, rotting boxes. And then she saw it. Carved into the wall, faint but visible:

"The Third watches."

And beneath it, something else scratched over and over: " I don’t know what I did.

I don’t know what I did.

I don’t know what I did."

Silas sat on the porch that night, whittling something out of wood. Kaia approached quietly. “You never said why you knew Sera,” she said. “I didn’t,” he answered, without looking up. “But you saw her die?” He stopped carving.

“I saw someone fall. I saw blood. I don’t know if it was Sera.” Kaia narrowed her eyes. “You keep coming back. Why?” Silas didn’t answer right away. Finally, “Because I think I knew the third girl too.”

Kaia leaned closer. “And who do you think she is?” Silas looked at her. Dead in the eyes. “You.”

Elise found an old Polaroid tucked in the attic. Two girls. One clearly her. The other looked like Kaia, but her smile was different too sharp, too knowing.

And in the background… a blurry figure. Maren? She flipped the photo over. In smeared pen: "We were supposed to be one." She dropped the photo. It landed face down. Like a body.

Maren spent the night watching tapes. Old home videos from the town’s archive. She froze one on a frame. A girl running through the woods. She zoomed in. The frame distorted, but the outline was clear.

Not Elise. Not Kaia. Not Sera. Someone else. Maren scribbled beside the image, She’s always in the corner. Who is she?

Kaia woke up gasping.bThis dream was different.bShe wasn’t watching.nShe was the girl running. And something, someone was chasing her.

But when she turned in the dream… it was herself. Same eyes. Same face. Smiling like a stranger. She woke up with blood under her nails again. But her hands were clean before bed.

Mallory came by just after sunrise. She looked tired. Pale. Elise opened the door, startled. “I need to show you something,” Mallory said. They sat in her car. The engine running. Mallory handed her a folder.

Inside: a psychiatric record. Redacted, fragmented.

Patient: Unnamed Female - Approx. 17 Years Old

Diagnosis: Dissociative Identity Disorder - Unresolved trauma-related split

Notes: "Believes herself to be two different people. Occasionally refers to a “third presence.”

Elise scanned the notes. The address. The handwriting. The patient name had been scratched out. But the therapist’s name remained. Dr. Mallory Finch. Elise looked up, horrified. “You treated me?” Mallory didn’t look away. “You were different back then. All three of you.”

Back at the house, Kaia found Maren in her room. Sitting stiff. Quiet. “You okay?” Kaia asked. Maren didn’t move. “I’ve been watching the tapes again.” Kaia’s stomach turned. “Why?” Maren whispered “Because I think I was there too.”

Kaia blinked. “What do you mean?” “I don’t remember the night Sera went missing. My parents said we moved here after… something. But I keep dreaming of blood. Of someone screaming. I think I knew her.” Kaia sat down beside her. “Or maybe,” Maren whispered, “I am her.”

That night, the house felt colder than usual. Doors creaked without cause. Whispers hovered in the corners. Kaia sat up in bed, heart racing. In the hallway, a figure moved. She stepped out, following it. Down the stairs. Out the door. Into the woods. The moonlight split through the trees. And then... there, standing at the same clearing, back turned, long dark hair

The girl. Kaia approached. “Who are you?” she demanded. The girl turned. Same face. Same eyes. But the smile… not hers. “I’m the part you left behind.” Then, Darkness.