The soldiers stood at the mansion's threshold.
Their boots sank into the blue grass.
The air was thick.
Then—
A scream.
High. Human. Distant.
Followed by a guttural growl.
A creature lunged from the fog—twisted limbs, glowing eyes, teeth like broken glass.
The soldiers fired.
Flamethrowers lit the trees.
The creature shrieked and vanished.
But the fog pulsed harder.
Mira watched from the upper balcony.
Her heart pounded.
Anne is out there.
And the lamp is fake.
She turned and sprinted back toward the pit.
Egry lay motionless.
Her skin pale.
Her eyes dim.
Her hair—longer now—dripped over her shoulders in tangled strands.
Mira knelt beside her.
Held her hand.
"Don't leave," she whispered.
Mrs. Hodgins appeared at the doorway.
"Come up," she said coldly.
Mira stood.
"No."
She stepped forward.
"You lied. You're using Egry. You want the portal."
Mrs. Hodgins' eyes flared.
She slammed the door.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Then—
A strand of blue light shimmered from Egry's hair.
It pulsed.
Soft. Steady.
Mira gasped.
"Tell me how to help," she whispered.
Egry's voice was faint.
Her story spilled out—how she was bound to the mansion, how belief fed her, how rumors kept her alive but twisted.
And how silence could heal.
Mira remembered.
Brittany's phone.
She pulled it out.
Opened Pinstagram.
Typed:
"Saw the inside of the forest. There was a cabin but nothing was there. Found a clue at the mountains up the hill."
She hit send.
The post spread like wildfire.
Comments flooded in.
"So it's fake?"
"I knew it was just a myth."
"Mountains? Not the woods?"
The rumor began to die.
The mansion flickered.
The flamboyant light dimmed.
The treehouse blurred.
The grass faded.
And Egry—
She breathed.
Her hair turned golden.
Her skin warmed.
She was healing.
To be continued…