Chased By Shadows

Chapter Ten: The Photograph That Lied

Maren locked her door that night. She didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t want them to know that the girl in her dreams had started talking back. Or that she’d woken up with soil under her pillow. And hair that wasn’t hers on the floor.

Kaia sat with the photo Simon brought—four shadows, blurred faces. Her hand traced the shape of the fourth girl. No matter how long she stared, the shape never clarified.

“She was there,” Simon whispered. They were alone in the attic. “Someone removed her from every record. Every story. Even memory.” Kaia scoffed. “That sounds impossible.” Simon’s voice was steady. “You ever wake up missing pieces of your life? Like someone edited it?” Kaia didn’t respond. Because she had. More than once.

Lana watched them from the bottom of the stairs. She could hear every word. She smiled without smiling. Then disappeared into the dark.

Elise was silent the entire morning. She walked the halls like a ghost. She paused in front of the mirror near the bathroom, just watching herself. And whispered, “You’re not real.” Her reflection smiled back. Even though she didn’t.

Mallory paced the yard. The bracelet from the woods jingled in her coat. Three letters. Three names. E. K. S. Elise. Kaia. Sera. But no Lana. No Maren. No fourth. She opened her notebook and flipped back. Weeks ago, she found a letter. Anonymous. It had said: “The girl you trust the most was made to lie. She doesn’t even know she’s doing it.”

Back then, she thought it meant Elise. Now… she wasn’t so sure.

At dusk, the doorbell rang again. Kaia opened it. An older woman stood there, face wrinkled with memories too heavy to forget. “I’m looking for Lana Crowe,” she said. Kaia tensed. “She’s not here.” The woman raised an envelope. “She sent this to me. Twenty years ago.” Kaia blinked. “That’s not possible.” The woman smiled sadly. “Isn’t it?”

Inside the envelope: a photograph and a letter. The photo was older than any of them. Three little girls. One with Kaia’s eyes. One with Elise’s smile. And one in the middle, face torn out. The letter was worse.

Written in a messy, uneven hand: “If they ask, I was never here. If they remember, they’ll all die.” “She doesn’t sleep. She waits.”

The old woman stared at Kaia. “She was dangerous. Even as a child. They said she never cried. Just watched.” Kaia whispered, “Who?” The woman hesitated. Then pointed to the girl with no face in the photo. “Her.”

That night, Lana stood by Elise’s bed. Silent. Watching. Elise stirred, whispering. “Don’t let her in.” Lana didn’t speak. Just walked away. But her hand was shaking.

Maren found a box in the basement. Old, covered in dust. Inside are tapes. Dozens of them. Dates scribbled on each one. Only one had a name. Tape 7: Elise - October 2017

She slipped it into the dusty player on the shelf. Static. Then a voice. Elise’s. “I don’t remember what happened.” A pause. “I just know she bled… and I liked it.” Then silence.

And something else. A different voice deep, slow, almost a whisper: “She was never alone.”

Simon caught Lana in the hallway. “You remember me now, don’t you?” Lana blinked. “No.” He stepped closer. “You were there when Sera vanished.” Lana didn’t flinch. “Everyone was.” He leaned in, voice shaking. “You watched her drown.” Lana looked him in the eye. “I watched you run.” Simon’s breath caught. “Liar.” Lana smiled. “Then prove it.”

Kaia opened her drawer and found a new note. No handwriting. Just block letters. “ASK ELENA.” She stared at it. That name hadn’t been spoken in years. Not since the hospital. Not since the night she woke up screaming and no one believed her. She ran to her old box of journals.

Flipped back. Found a ripped page she’d forgotten existed. One word written again and again: Elena. Elena. Elena. But no memory of who that was.

Mallory dug deeper. She found an article from 2006. Headline: “Local Girl Drowns in Hollow Creek Body Never Found.” Photo blurred. Name: Elena Raye. Age: 8. Sister: Lana Crowe. Mallory dropped the paper.

Lana never said she had a sister. Never mentioned a drowning. And in the margin, scribbled in fading pencil: "One dies. One forgets. One becomes.”

That night, Elise woke to find someone sitting at the foot of her bed. Lana. Holding a photograph. “Elena wasn’t supposed to come back,” Lana whispered. Elise sat up, heart racing. “Who’s Elena?” Lana didn’t answer.

She just showed Elise the photo. Three girls. A forest. A knife. One girl had her eyes scratched out. The others were smiling. Elise looked closer. And realized her own face had been taped over someone else’s. Underneath, another face. Blurry. But not unfamiliar.

In the attic, Kaia flipped through a yearbook. She stopped on a page with her own picture. Next to it, someone had written: “She remembers too much.”

Below, someone else added: “No—she’s the reason they forget.”

The storm outside cracked through the silence. Thunder shook the house. Maren screamed from her room. They all ran in. She pointed to the wall. Fresh words carved into the paint: “I AM THE ONE YOU FORGOT.”

No one had a knife. No one heard anything. But the wall bled anyway. Simon sat outside, staring into the trees. He whispered to no one. “She’s waking up again.” And the woods whispered back.