7:44 P.M.
The broomstick shattered.
Derreck's axe slammed into the bathroom door with a thundering crack, splintering wood and sending shards flying.
"MOVE!" Elli screamed.
Joseph grabbed Karrie and yanked her toward the laundry hall. Mindy helped Olivia up—her injured hand still bleeding through the bandage—and they stumbled through the narrow side door just as the axe tore another chunk out of the frame.
Derreck's voice was distorted, low and violent.
"I see you! I see all of you!"
He slammed the axe again. The blade punched through.
7:51 P.M.
They barricaded the hallway entrance with an overturned washer and several crates.
It wouldn't hold.
"We're cornered," Mindy hissed.
"We need to get to the basement," Joseph said. "Now."
But Olivia wasn't listening.
She was staring at the window. Small, just enough for someone thin to slip through.
"No…" Elli whispered. "No, don't—"
Olivia turned to them, voice shaking. "I can't stay in here. I can't die like the others. Not in this house."
"You don't understand," Karrie said. "You can't go outside!"
Olivia's eyes welled with tears. "I won't die like an animal in a cage."
Then she climbed out.
7:56 P.M.
The cold hit her first.
The world outside the house was silent—no wind, no birds, no stars.
Just a low, distant groan, like the world was exhaling pain.
She ran.
Past the porch.
Across the lawn.
Toward the woods.
That's when she saw them.
Black shadows.
Tall. Endless. Not moving, but watching.
Then they moved.
They didn't run.
They glided.
Olivia screamed and turned—but one was already behind her.
It pierced her shoulder with a black blade.
Another stabbed her gut.
Another her neck.
Then her thigh.
Then her eye.
She dropped to her knees, blood steaming in the cold.
The shadows surrounded her.
And she disappeared.
8:02 P.M.
Inside, Joseph screamed, "OLIVIA!"
They had seen it—through the window.
The figures. The slaughter. The blood.
Karrie collapsed to the floor, sobbing. Mindy turned away, gagging.
Then—
The door exploded inward.
Derreck stormed through, axe high, eyes wide with madness.
Joseph turned to run—but not fast enough.
The axe came down—shink!
A flash of blood.
Joseph screamed as his left arm dangled, tendon and bone exposed.
Elli pulled him away, dragged him through the hall as Mindy kicked the door shut behind them.
Blood smeared the walls.
"BASEMENT—NOW!" Elli shrieked.
They ran.
Joseph leaving a trail.
Derreck laughing.
6:04 A.M.
Light.
Faint and gold, slicing through the dark like a shallow breath.
The axe slipped from Derreck's fingers with a heavy clunk.
His knees buckled.
He collapsed in the blood-soaked hallway, twitching once before going still.
No one moved at first.
Joseph, clutching his ruined arm, stared with wide, tear-rimmed eyes. Karrie finally took a step forward, her legs trembling beneath her.
"Is he dead?" Mindy asked.
"No," Elli said, her voice hollow. "He's… free again."
Derreck moaned weakly, eyes flickering open.
"I… I saw everything…" he whispered. "I couldn't stop it."
Joseph knelt beside him, groaning through the pain. "We know," he said softly. "It wasn't you."
"But it was," Derreck said, tears leaking down the sides of his face. "I felt it. I liked it."
They brought him to the living room, wrapped Joseph's arm in towels, and pushed furniture back into place. Bloodstains had soaked into everything.
Karrie stood silently in the corner, staring at the broken window where Olivia had disappeared.
"She didn't listen," she said quietly.
"She was scared," Mindy whispered. "We all are."
Elli sat cross-legged on the floor, her notebook in her lap, pages smeared with blood and ink. "We need a plan."
Joseph nodded. "A real one."
Elli tapped her pen to the paper.
"We don't fight it. We avoid it."
Derreck coughed. "What does that even mean?"
"We hide," Elli said. "From each other."
She flipped the notebook around, showing a map of the house.
"There are still six of us," she said. "Six large cabinets. Closets. Lockers. Chests. If we isolate ourselves during the possession, there's no one for the demon to kill."
Joseph blinked. "Wait… are you serious?"
Elli nodded. "The curse thrives on death. But what if there's no target for the possessed to hurt? What if the game can't play?"
Mindy leaned forward. "But won't the possessed one try to break out?"
"We reinforce the hiding spots," Elli said. "We tie ourselves in. If we can last until morning…"
Karrie frowned. "What if the possessed one dies on their own? Bashes their head trying to escape?"
"We'll cushion the insides. No sharp edges. No tools. Just darkness and distance."
Joseph exhaled. "You're saying we trap ourselves with no way out."
"I'm saying we play their game—our way."
They spent the next hour listing places:
The coat closet in the hall
The pantry
The wardrobe in the upstairs bedroom
The old wooden chest in the attic
The linen cabinet
The storm shelter hatch in the basement
Each big enough for one.
Each lockable.
Each far enough apart.
As they worked, the conversation turned.
"What does it feel like?" Mindy asked Derreck.
He looked up slowly. "Like drowning in someone else's skin."
"Could you see us?"
"Yes. But not like people. Like… meat. Like… things I had to destroy. The voice didn't speak—it screamed."
Joseph looked at Elli. "Why us? Why this house?"
Elli turned a page in her notebook. "This curse… it's not random. It chose young blood. Friends. Connection. That's what it feeds on."
Mindy's voice cracked. "Then why kill it?"
"Because that's the point. To make the one who survives suffer the most. Lose the most."
Karrie closed her eyes. "This plan better work."
Elli smiled—grim, but real.
"It's the only one we've got."