"The mask hides not only my face but also the pain within."
( ~Annie Flame~)
CHAPTER TWO: The Phantom Knows Her Name
Elara dreamed of a man's voice calling her name.
Not desperate. Not loving.
Just… certain.
Like someone who had always known she'd return.
"Elara," he said, from somewhere behind the velvet curtains. "You're late."
Then the touch.
Cold fingertips brushing her wrist in the dark —
and the sudden overwhelming knowing
that she'd been touched by this presence before.
She woke up startled awake in the cold master bedroom,with tears on her cheeks and no memory of what was happening to her?
The room was colder than it should've been.
The window hadn't been left open, but the air pressed against her skin like a fog made of fingers.
The rain outside still hadn't stopped.
The mirror across from her bed — the one she'd covered the night before — had its sheet on the floor.
"Why the old cloth that had been draped over the mirror across the room?
On the floor. Again." She questioned herself. It was the 4th time this had happened to her.
She didn't move for a full minute. Just laid there, watching the breath leave her mouth in visible puffs like a winter storm had crept in during the night and curled up beside her.
Then she saw it.
Scrawled into the foggy surface of the mirror:
"Don't forget me again."
No explanation. No signature.
Just a demand dressed like a ghost story.
Elara stared at the message, unmoving, her body tense under the quilt like she was waiting for it to rewrite itself into something logical.
It didn't.
Instead, a single drip of condensation rolled down the glass, smearing the me in "Don't forget me" until it read more like:
"Don't forget."
She blinked.
When she opened her eyes again, the message was gone.
Elara blinked hard.
Sleep paralysis?
Stress hallucination?
What was even that?
She picked up the mirror's sheet, hands trembling just enough to make her clumsy.
"This is stress," she whispered to herself. "This is just stress."
Downstairs, everything was too still.
The kind of still that made the ticking grandfather clock sound too loud, like it was counting down to something no one had told her about.
She went downstairs.
Made tea with shaking hands.
And nearly dropped the cup when she found a black rose on the windowsill. She picked it up and threw it in the dustbin.
But the words danced on the page like they knew she wasn't really paying attention. Her eyes kept drifting to the shadows between furniture, convinced they were deeper than they should be. That the corners of the room weren't just dark—they were watching.
When the kettle whistled again two hours later, she realized she never drank her tea.
The cup had gone cold.
So had her hands.
The house refused to be ignored.
She found footprints on the stairs that weren't hers.
Barefoot. Dusty. Leading up to the attic.
She found her own journal open on the floor of the bedroom.
She hadn't touched it in days.
The last page was blank—until it wasn't.
In her handwriting (but shakier) someone had written:
"You knew me once. You will know me again."
By the third night, her mind was a cage with mirrors for bars.
She dreamt of a ballroom soaked in candlelight and shadow. Her dress was silk, soaked at the hem in something thicker than wine. A man's hand pressed against her lower back as they danced in slow, perfect circles. He was faceless, but somehow—deep in her chest—she knew him.
The music stopped.
He leaned down to whisper:
"You always run. And I always find you."
She woke up with the taste of iron on her tongue.
The next day, she found a journal hidden behind a loose brick in the library wall. It smelled like dust and rosewater. Its cover, faded black leather, bore a single name in gold leaf:
Elara Greaves, 1861
Same name. Same spelling. Same curling flourish at the G.
She opened it, pulse thundering in her ears.
March 12th, 1861.
He visited me again tonight. At first I was afraid. But now… now I find myself listening for his footsteps. Even when I know I shouldn't.
There is danger in loving what doesn't belong to this world. But my heart has never obeyed the rules of the living.
Elara dropped the book like it had burned her.
She tried to leave.
Packed her things. Grabbed her car keys.
Walked down the long gravel driveway with her heart in her throat.
But the road seemed longer. Wrong.
The trees were unfamiliar.
The same crow followed her the entire walk.
And when she finally reached the gate…
She was back at the front steps.
Like the house had shifted the world around her.
That night, she broke.
Standing in front of the cracked vanity, she whispered his name like a confession.
"Lazareth."
She had no idea where it came from.
The name just… surfaced.
Like it had been waiting.
The mirror cracked down the middle with a sound like a bone snapping.
Every candle in the room flared high and blew out, all at once.
She stood there in the dark, shaking, still not ready to admit what she already knew:
This wasn't her imagination.
This wasn't trauma.
This house had teeth.
And it had been waiting for her.
Later, she found a portrait.
Hidden behind a curtain. Tall. Oil on canvas.
A man in black — broad-shouldered, pale-skinned, face sharp as a blade. His eyes were the kind that knew things. Not just secrets, but you.
The plaque beneath read:
Lazareth Valemont, 1861
Lord of the Hollow Estate.
Her breath hitched.
She didn't recognize him.
But her hands trembled anyway.
Something cold brushed against her neck.
She spun around.
No one.
But in the dust on the wall beside her —
four fingerprints.
Trailing downward.
As if someone had touched her.
_______________________________________
To be continued....