THE SILENT VOID BENEATH THE FLOORBOARDS

The kitchen was unrecognizable.

The dark hardwood floor had been completely torn up, revealing the damp joists and dirt subfloor beneath. The air was thick with a heavy, impenetrable grey fog that smelled of open graves and stagnant river water.

Standing in the center of the ruined room, illuminated by the pale moonlight streaming through the broken window, was a figure.

It wasn't the monster from the basement.

It was Sarah.

Ryan stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes darting between the woman standing in the center of the kitchen and the woman standing right beside him holding Toby’s hand.

The Sarah standing in the center of the room was soaked in river water, wearing the rain-drenched clothes she had worn the night Lily died. Her face was pale, her eyes hollow, and her arms were crossed tightly over her chest.

"Ryan..." the Sarah in the center of the room said, her voice dripping with venomous disdain. "You woke up at midnight, didn't you?"

Ryan gasped, backing away until his spine hit the kitchen counter. "What?"

"You woke up at midnight," the copy repeated, stepping forward over the exposed floor joists. "You saw her wander out of the tent. You saw her yellow coat disappear into the treeline near the river."

"No... no, I was asleep!" Ryan shrieked, his mind splintering under the weight of the nightmare. "I was asleep until dawn!"

"You weren't asleep, Ryan," the second Sarah said, her voice echoing in his skull like a tolling bell. "You were too tired to chase her. You thought she'd just walk around the trees and come back. You sat in your chair, closed your eyes, and went back to sleep because you didn't want to walk into the cold rain."

Ryan covered his face with his hands, a dry, agonizing sob tearing through his chest.

The woman standing beside him—the Sarah holding Toby’s hand—faded into a cloud of grey dust, dissolving into the freezing air like a forgotten dream.