CHAPTER 4 — The Door That Shouldn’t Exist
The woman smiled.
“I was the first Emma,” she whispered. “You are only the last.”
Emma ran.
She didn’t know where she was going until she crashed into a wall that had not been there before.
A door appeared in the wallpaper.
Fresh wood.
A brass handle.
And carved into the frame was her full name:
EMMA CARTER — ATTEMPT 99
Her hand shook as she opened it.
Inside was not another room.
It was a hallway filled with photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Every photograph showed Emma dying in a different way.
Falling from the stairs.
Trapped in the basement.
Screaming behind glass.
And in every photo, the shadowy man stood behind her.
At the end of the hallway sat an old mirror.
Emma stepped closer.
Her reflection did not move.
Instead, it smiled and whispered,
“You still don’t understand. The diary was never trying to warn you.”
The mirror cracked.
Behind the glass was a small nursery.
And inside the crib lay a baby wrapped in a blanket embroidered with one name:
Emma.
Then the diary slammed shut by itself.
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On its cover, new words burned into the leather:
“Your mother didn’t give birth to you. She rescued you.”
