Episode 10: The Mark
966 Words
Dawn broke fully while Aria sat in the diner booth, staring at the napkin-wrapped hand that still seeped blood. The sky outside turned from gray to pale gold, the city slowly waking. Delivery trucks rumbled past. Early commuters hurried by with coffee cups.
Doris refilled her mug one last time without asking. “You sure you don’t want something to eat, hon? On the house.”
Aria shook her head. “I’m good. Thanks.”
She paid when the breakfast crowd started trickling in, left a big tip, and stepped back into the morning light.
The sunlight felt different—almost protective. The shadows were short and sharp, no place for anything to hide. She walked with purpose now, flashlight tucked in her bag but ready.
She needed answers. Real ones.
Elias Crowe had said her mother fought it. Lost. Burned everything.
But mothers always keep something.
She went back to the suburban house.
The shadowy figures were gone in daylight. The lawn was just wet grass and overgrown roses. Inside, the air was stale but familiar. She locked the door behind her, drew all the curtains except the kitchen—where the windows faced the backyard and she could see anyone approaching.
She started in the attic.
Boxes of holiday decorations, old taxes, her dad’s tools from before he disappeared. Nothing.
Then the basement.
Concrete floor, washer-dryer, shelves of canned goods her mom had stockpiled “just in case.” A metal filing cabinet in the corner—locked.
She remembered the key. Her mom had kept it on a hook inside the pantry, labeled “important.”
She found it still there.
The cabinet opened with a rusty creak.
Inside: birth certificates, insurance papers, her parents’ marriage license.
And at the bottom, a small fireproof box.
Locked too, but the key was taped inside the cabinet door.
She opened it with shaking fingers.
Inside: a leather-bound journal, edges burned like it had been pulled from flames. A flash drive in a plastic case. And a folded piece of paper with her name on it in her mother’s handwriting.
She started with the letter.
My dearest Aria,
If you’re reading this, I failed. I’m so sorry. I thought if I never told you, it couldn’t find you again. It started when you were little—you drew it, talked to it. I made it go away once. But it came back for your father first. Then for me when I was weakest.
There’s a man—Elias Crowe. He helped me. He knows more than I ever did. Find him if you can.
The journal has everything I learned. Burn it after you read. Don’t let it use knowledge against you.
I love you more than anything. Be stronger than I was.
Mom
Tears blurred the words.
She opened the journal.
Pages and pages in her mother’s neat handwriting.
Dates going back twenty years.
Descriptions of the same things: reflections moving wrong. Writing on glass. Missing time. Photos appearing.
Entries about her father—how he’d changed slowly, become colder, until one day he walked out and never came back.
Then about Aria as a child—innocent drawings, imaginary friend that wasn’t imaginary.
Her mother had performed some kind of ritual when Aria was seven. Something with salt and mirrors and fire. It worked—for a while.
The last entries were frantic.
It’s back. Stronger. Because I’m sick. Because I’m alone.
I won’t let it get her.
If I can’t stop it, I’ll make sure she never knows.
The final page: a charcoal drawing of a symbol—a circle with jagged lines radiating outward like broken glass. Below it:
This binds it temporarily. Blood and light. But it always comes back hungry.
Aria closed the journal.
Her palm throbbed.
She unwrapped it.
The cut had scabbed, but in the center, the skin was darkening—black lines spreading from the wound like infection, but too neat. Too deliberate.
A mark.
Shaped exactly like the symbol in the journal.
She stared at it.
The flash drive was still in the box.
She took everything upstairs, plugged the drive into her laptop.
Password protected.
She tried her birthday. No.
Her mom’s birthday. No.
Then the date her father disappeared.
It opened.
Files: scanned documents, photos, audio recordings.
One folder labeled “Proof.”
She opened it.
Photos of her father—smiling in some, then later ones where his eyes looked wrong. Too dark.
Photos of mirrors with writing: HELP ME. I’M STILL HERE.
Audio files dated over years.
She clicked the most recent—six months ago, the week before her mom died.
Her mother’s voice, weak but determined.
“If you’re listening, Aria, it’s started again. I thought I protected you. I was wrong. The mark will come. When it does, you’ll know you’re chosen. Don’t run. Fight. Elias has the real ritual. Find him. Tell him I said ‘the light remembers.’ He’ll help.”
The recording ended.
Aria sat back.
The mark on her palm itched.
She looked at it again.
The black lines had spread further—thin veins reaching toward her wrist.
Like roots.
Taking hold.
Her phone—still off—sat on the table.
She powered it on.
One new notification.
A contact added automatically.
Name: Echo
Message preview:
Welcome home.
We have so much to catch up on.
She stared at the screen.
Then at the mark.
Something shifted inside her—fear still there, but colder now.
Harder.
She wrapped the journal in a towel, put the drive in her pocket.
Stood.
The shadows in the room were growing longer as afternoon slid toward evening.
She picked up the flashlight.
Next time it came, she’d be ready.
And this time, she’d make it bleed.
- Writer
