The sirens wailed in the distance, a piercing, mechanical shriek cutting through the quiet suburban night. The flashing red and blue lights painted the walls of our expensive, modern hallway in harsh, alternating strokes. / Chapter 5 / 20

Chapter 5 - THE GIRL IN THE YELLOW DRESSI slammed on the brakes.

The SUV skidded violently across the loose gravel and wet pine needles, screeching to a halt barely three feet from where the girl stood.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped animal. I threw the gear into park, killed the engine, and stared through the windshield.

The girl looked to be around eight or nine years old. Her dark hair was matted and wet from the night fog, clinging to her cheeks. She wasn't shivering. She wasn't crying. She just stood there in the middle of the desolated forestry road, staring blankly through my glass with dead, hollow eyes.

And in her right hand, she held a large kitchen knife, the blade glistening darkly under my headlights.

"Hey!" I shouted, pushing the door open and stepping out into the freezing night air. "Hey, kid! Drop the knife! Are you alright?"

She didn't answer. She didn't drop the weapon.

Instead, she slowly turned on her heel and began walking toward the tree line, heading straight down the overgrown dirt path that led to Claire’s old cabin.

"Wait! Stop!" I called out, my protective instincts overriding my common sense.

I followed her. The fog was so thick I could barely see ten feet ahead, illuminated only by the faint glow of the flashlight app on my phone. The towering pine trees loomed like skeletal giants overhead, whispering in the bitter wind.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

The sound of her bare feet stepping on the frozen twigs echoed ahead of me.

"Who are you?" I demanded, quickening my pace. "Are you... are you Mara?"

The girl stopped dead in her tracks.

She slowly turned her head back over her shoulder, her pale face illuminated by the eerie blue glow of my phone screen. A slow, unsettling smile crept across her lips—a smile that held zero warmth, zero childhood innocence.

"Dad," she whispered, her voice carrying a chilling, metallic echo through the silent woods. "You're late."

Before I could process the word, a heavy blow struck me violently across the back of my head.

Pain exploded behind my eyes—a blinding flash of white hot agony. My knees buckled beneath me, and I pitched forward onto the cold, damp earth. The flashlight flew from my hand, tumbling into the brush.

As consciousness rapidly slipped away from me, I felt heavy hands grab my jacket, dragging my limp body across the dirt toward the rotting porch of Claire’s cabin.

Through my blurring vision, as the heavy wooden front door creaked open, I saw two figures standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the dim, flickering candlelight inside.

One of them was a woman with long, dark hair, wearing a hospital lab coat.

The other was Emily’s mother—my dead mother-in-law, who had supposedly passed away three years ago.