“I’m coming,” Noah said firmly. “I’m at the airport. I’ll rent a car. I can be there in an hour, maybe forty-five minutes if I push it. Ella, listen to me. You have to stay calm. Do not let them know you know. If they are… whoever they are… you can’t antagonize them.”
“I’m scared they’re going to come in,” I whispered. “They keep trying to feed me. The soup… it tasted wrong.”
“Don’t eat anything else. Don’t drink anything,” Noah commanded. “Lock the door if you can, but if they try to force it, you have to play the part. Tell them you’re sick. Tell them you’re sleeping. Just buy time. I’m on my way. I’m running to the rental desk right now.”
“Please hurry,” I begged. “Noah, I don’t know where my real parents are. I haven’t seen them. If these people are here… what did they do to Mom and Dad?”
“We’ll find them,” Noah promised. “I swear to you, we will fix this. Just stay alive until I get there. Keep your phone with you but keep it hidden. I’ll text you when I’m close.”
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you too. Stay strong.”
The call ended, and the silence of the room crashed back down on me. I stared at the phone screen for a moment, the digital clock reading 2:15 PM. Forty-five minutes. It felt like a lifetime.
I sat on the edge of the bed, my senses dialed up to eleven. The house, which had always felt like a sanctuary of healing, now felt like a cage. The creaking of the floorboards in the hallway made me jump.
*Thump. Thump. Thump.*
Footsteps. Heavy, deliberate footsteps coming up the stairs.
I shoved the phone under my pillow and scrambled under the covers, pulling them up to my chin. I squeezed my eyes shut, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I was sure they could hear it through the door.
The footsteps stopped right outside my room.
The doorknob rattled. Slowly at first, then with more force.
“Ella?”
It was the man. The fake father.
“Ella, honey, why is the door locked?”
I kept my eyes shut, feigning sleep, but I knew I had to answer. If I stayed silent, he might break it down.
“Dad?” I called out, making my voice sound groggy. “I… I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to nap. I must have turned the lock by accident.”
“Unlock the door, Ella,” he said. His voice wasn’t angry yet, but there was an edge to it. A cold, metallic command wrapped in a fatherly tone. “It’s time for your medicine. You forgot to take it after the soup.”
Medicine. If they drugged me, I was done. I wouldn’t wake up until… until whenever they wanted me to. Or never.
“I don’t need it right now,” I said, trying to sound petulant, like a tired daughter. “My stomach is a little upset. I just want to sleep.”
“Open the door, Ella.” The handle jiggled violently now. “Your eyes won’t heal if you don’t take your pills. Do you want to be blind forever?”
The irony made bile rise in my throat. “I’ll take them later! Please, just let me sleep for an hour!”
Silence again. I held my breath.
Then, a low chuckle. It was a dry, rasping sound, completely unlike my father’s warm laugh. “Alright, sleepyhead. Sleep. We’ll be here.”
I heard his footsteps retreat, going back down the stairs. *Thump. Thump. Thump.*
I exhaled, a long, shaky breath. But the relief was short-lived. A prickling sensation crawled up the back of my neck. The feeling of being watched.
I sat up slowly. The room was empty. The door was locked. But the feeling persisted. It was primal, instinctive.
I swung my legs off the bed and crept toward the door. I pressed my ear against the wood. Nothing. No TV sound from downstairs. No conversation. Just a heavy, oppressive silence.
I knelt down, lowering my head to the floor to peer through the gap between the bottom of the door and the floorboards. It was a habit I had picked up as a child when I wanted to see if my parents were still up watching movies.
I put my cheek to the cold wood and looked out into the hallway.
My breath hitched.
About three inches from the door, on the other side, was a face.
It was upside down. The man—the fake father—was lying on the floor in the hallway, his head pressed against the floorboards, mirroring my position.
But it was his eyes.
They were wide open, unblinking, staring straight into mine. The pupils were pinpricks, surrounded by a sea of yellow-tinged white. He wasn’t looking *for* me; he was looking *at* me. He knew. He knew I was there. He knew I could see him.
For a second, we just stared at each other through the crack. The horror of it was absolute. He didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He just grinned, his teeth looking too long, too sharp.
I scrambled back, clamping a hand over my mouth to stifle a scream. I crab-walked backward until my back hit the bed frame.
*He saw me. He knows.*
But if he knew, why didn’t he bust the door down? Was he playing with me? Was this some sick game?
I grabbed my phone from under the pillow. 2:30 PM. Fifteen minutes had passed.
A text from Noah: *Got the car. Driving fast. Send me your location just to be sure.*
I fumbled with the GPS, pinning my location and hitting send. *Hurry. They are watching me. He was looking under the door.*
I watched the three dots of him typing.
*Noah: Lock everything. I’m driving 90 mph. I’ll be there soon.*
I sat on the bed, knees pulled to my chest, eyes darting around the room. I needed a weapon. I looked at the nightstand. A heavy brass lamp. I unplugged it and wound the cord around the base, gripping the neck of the lamp like a club.
Time dragged. Every creak of the house sounded like a threat.
My phone buzzed again. It was Noah. A call.
I answered immediately. “Are you here?”
“Ella,” Noah’s voice sounded breathless, confused. “I… I’m looking at the location you sent. Are you sure this is right?”
“Yes! It’s the villa! The one we’ve been in for three months!”
“Ella… I’m looking at the photos on the listing and the satellite view. And… I’m driving up the road now. The GPS says I’m five minutes away, but…”
“But what? Noah, you’re scaring me.”
“The place you pinned… it’s listed as abandoned, Ella. Condemned since 2018. There shouldn’t be anyone living there.”
My blood ran cold. “That’s impossible. I’m in a furnished house. There’s electricity. There’s food. My parents rented it!”
“Okay, okay, I’m almost there. I see the gate. I see the house.”
“Do you see the car? Mom and Dad’s SUV?”
“No,” Noah said, his voice tight. “There’s no car in the driveway. Ella… the windows are boarded up on the first floor. The grass is three feet tall.”
I stood up, walking to the window of my bedroom. I hadn’t looked outside yet. I had been too focused on the interior. I reached for the heavy gray curtains and pulled them back.
I gasped.
Noah was right. But he was also wrong.
Looking out from the inside, the lawn was manicured. The sun was shining. The driveway was paved and clean. But there was no SUV.
“Noah, I’m looking out the window,” I said, my voice trembling. “It looks… normal to me. It looks perfect.”
“I’m at the gate,” Noah said. “It’s chained shut. I’m going to ram it. Hang on.”
“No, wait!” I screamed. “If you come in loud, they’ll kill me! You have to be quiet!”
“Ella, there is no one there! The house is a ruin!”
“THEY ARE HERE!” I shrieked, losing control. “They are outside my door! They are real to me, Noah! If you come crashing in, they will hurt me!”
“Okay, okay. I’m getting out. I’m climbing the fence. I’m coming to the front door. You said you’re on the second floor?”
“Yes. Front right bedroom.”
“I see the window. The glass is… it’s dirty, Ella. It looks like no one has cleaned it in years.”
My mind was fracturing. How could I be seeing a clean, sunny room while he saw a ruin? Was I hallucinating? Was the blindness the only real thing, and this sight a delusion?
No. The fear was real. The man under the door was real. The note was real.
“Noah, I’m going to try to get out. I can’t stay in this room. They know I’m awake.”
“Don’t come down yet. Let me clear the ground floor.”
I heard the sound of crunching gravel through the phone, then the faint sound of it in reality, echoing from outside. He was really there.
Suddenly, the doorknob turned again. Violent this time. A hard rattle.
“Ella!” The woman’s voice. It wasn’t sweet anymore. It was a screech, like metal grinding on metal. “Who are you talking to? Open the door!”
“Mom, leave me alone!” I yelled, backing toward the window.
“We know you can see, Ella!” the man roared, abandoning the facade entirely. He slammed his body against the door. The wood groaned. “We saw you looking! You ungrateful little brat!”
*Bam! Bam!*
They were throwing themselves against the door.
“Noah! They’re breaking in!” I screamed into the phone.
“I’m at the front door! It’s locked! I’m kicking it!”
I dropped the phone on the bed and grabbed the window latch. It was stuck. Painted shut or rusted. I gritted my teeth, adrenaline flooding my veins, and slammed the base of the brass lamp against the latch. It shattered. I shoved the window sash up.
Dust—real dust—billowed up from the sill. The illusion flickered. For a second, the sunny, clean room superimposed with an image of rotting wood and peeling paint. I blinked, and the clean room returned, but the edges were fraying.
I looked down. It was a fifteen-foot drop to the garden. There was a trellis covered in vines—thick, thorny roses—running down the side of the wall.
*Bam!* The bedroom door splintered. A hand—gray, elongated, with dirty claws—reached through the crack near the lock.
I didn’t think. I swung my legs out the window.
“Hey!” The man’s voice came from inside the room now. The door had given way.
I looked back. The “parents” were standing in the doorway. But the illusion was failing. Their faces were melting, sliding off like wet wax. Beneath the skin, there was nothing but darkness and those terrible, wide eyes.
“You can’t leave, Ella,” the thing that sounded like my mother hissed. Its jaw unhinged, dropping unnaturally low. “We’re not done with you.”
I screamed and launched myself onto the trellis. The thorns tore at my pajamas, digging into my palms and knees, but I didn’t feel the pain. I scrambled down, slipping, sliding, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Get her!” the man roared from the window above.
I hit the ground hard, rolling in the dirt. I scrambled up and ran. The yard was a nightmare. The manicured lawn I had seen from the window was flickering in and out of existence, replaced intermittently by tall, dead weeds and rusted junk. I was running through two worlds at once.
“Ella!”
I saw him. Noah. He was sprinting toward the house, a tire iron in his hand. He looked real. Solid.
“Noah!” I shrieked, sprinting toward him.
He skidded to a halt, his eyes widening as he saw me. He dropped the tire iron and opened his arms. I collided with him, burying my face in his chest. He smelled like leather, jet fuel, and cologne. He smelled like safety.
“I got you. I got you,” he panted, wrapping his arms around me. He looked up at the window. “Jesus Christ.”
“Did you see them?” I sobbed, clutching his jacket.
“I saw… I saw shadows,” he said, his voice trembling. “I saw something moving in the window. Let’s go. Now.”
He grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the gate. We squeezed through the gap in the wrought iron fence he had mentioned earlier. His rental car, a silver sedan, was idling on the shoulder of the road.
We threw ourselves inside. Noah slammed the gear into drive and peeled out, gravel spraying behind us.
I slumped in the passenger seat, gasping for air, watching the villa disappear in the side mirror. As we drove away, the illusion broke completely. The house I saw in the mirror was a rotting, hollowed-out shell, dark and menacing against the skyline.
“You’re safe,” Noah said, reaching over to squeeze my hand. “You’re safe now.”
I nodded, tears streaming down my face. “They… they took Mom and Dad, Noah. I don’t know where they are.”
“We’ll go to the police,” Noah said, his eyes fixed on the road. “We’ll get help. But first, we need to get far away from here.”
I leaned my head back against the seat, closing my eyes. The adrenaline was fading, replaced by a crushing exhaustion. My body felt heavy, leaden.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“I’ll always come for you, Ella,” he said softly.
We drove in silence for a while. The scenery outside blurred—trees, fences, telephone poles whipping by.
After a few minutes, a strange sensation settled over me. The silence in the car was too deep. The hum of the engine was fading, becoming distant, like a radio playing in another room.
“Noah?” I asked, opening my eyes. “Where are we going?”
“To a safe place,” he said. He didn’t look at me. His hands were gripping the steering wheel at ten and two. His knuckles were white.
“Which police station?” I asked, sitting up straighter. The heaviness in my limbs was getting worse. I felt like I was sinking into the seat.
“Not a police station,” he said. His voice sounded flat. Monotone.
I looked at his profile. He looked like Noah. He had the same jawline, the same stubble, the same scar on his chin from a childhood bike accident. But… he wasn’t blinking.
“Noah, look at me,” I said, a new wave of cold fear washing over me.
He didn’t turn. “I can’t. I have to drive.”
“Stop the car,” I whispered. “Noah, stop the car.”
“We’re almost there, Ella. Don’t fight it.”
“Don’t fight what?” I reached for the door handle. It was locked. I pulled the lock tab up, but it snapped back down instantly.
“What are you doing?” I screamed, pounding on the glass. “Let me out!”
“You’re tired, Ella,” Noah said. His voice began to distort, deepening, layering over itself. It sounded like the man back at the villa. “You need to sleep. You’ve been fighting for so long.”
“You’re not Noah,” I breathed, backing away from him until I was pressed against the passenger door. “You’re one of them.”
He finally turned his head.
It *was* Noah’s face. But the eyes… the eyes were gone. In their place were pools of blinding white light.
“I am Noah,” the entity said, but the mouth didn’t move. The voice echoed inside my head. “And I am not. I am what you needed to see to leave the house.”
“No!” I screamed, covering my ears.
The car dissolved.
The dashboard, the windshield, the road—it all evaporated into mist. The sensation of motion stopped abruptly.
I wasn’t in a car anymore. I was standing in a field. The ground was soft, covered in low-hanging fog that swirled around my ankles. The sky above was a bruised purple, devoid of stars or sun.
I spun around. “Noah!”
“Ella.”
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