Chapter 12 - The Threshold
Ryan stood motionless in the center of the ruined room, the silence of the house pressing against his ears.
He looked at the small girl standing before him. He looked at her small, pale hand waiting for his. He knew what lay beneath that hand—he knew the rot, the worms, the endless, suffocating darkness of the earth beneath the floorboards.
He knew that if he took that hand, he would never wake up. He would be stepping into the grave he had dug for himself two years ago.
He took a slow, deep breath. The smell of pine oil and damp earth filled his lungs.
"I'm sorry, Lily," Ryan whispered, tears slipping down his cheeks, shining in the moonlight. "I'm so, so sorry I didn't come into the rain that night. I was weak. I was scared. And I spent every day since then wishing I had drowned in that river instead of you."
The small girl’s smile faded. Her hazel eyes flickered, shifting for a fraction of a second into the hollow, dark sockets of the corpse beneath the house.
"If you're sorry," she rasped, her voice beginning to distort, "then take my hand."
Ryan looked down at his own trembling, bruised hand. He raised it slowly, stepping toward her over the exposed floor joists.
"I can't bring you back, baby," Ryan said, his voice breaking, but filled with a strange, sudden clarity. "And I can't fix what I broke. But I won't let your memory be a monster anymore."
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Instead of reaching for her hand, Ryan reached past her, grabbing the emergency release latch of the kitchen’s heavy exterior door.
He yanked it open with all the strength remaining in his body.
