The Heart loomed before me — vast, luminous, impossibly alive. It pulsed with a rhythm that wasn't quite sound but something deeper, a pressure that moved through the air and into the bones. Every throb sent ripples through the floor, making the world shimmer like water.
It wasn't beating blood. It was beating memory.
As I stood before it, images flashed inside its translucent surface — moments caught like insects in amber. Rachel's smile. Maya's laughter. Ethan's eyes in the firelight. My own reflection, younger, unscarred.
"Do you see?" the voice said. "They live within you. Within us."
I stepped closer, my hand trembling as I reached toward it. The surface rippled like liquid glass, warm against my skin. I felt a thousand voices whispering from within — fragments of lives the mansion had consumed.
"Why me?" I whispered. "Why make me your vessel?"
"Because you began this. Because you were not afraid to unmake death. You called to me before I existed. You built the vessel. I became the answer."
I closed my eyes, memories spilling open like wounds. I saw myself as a child, staring at a dying bird in my hands, whispering that I could save it if I only knew how. I saw years of obsession — forbidden texts, experiments, the birth of the ritual that brought the mansion to life.
And then the moment everything went wrong. Rachel's body still, her blood sinking into the floor, the mansion awakening with her last breath.
I fell to my knees. "I didn't mean for this."
"Intent does not change creation. You gave me form. You gave me hunger."
I looked up at it, tears stinging my eyes. "You're a mistake."
"No, Arlen. I am evolution."
The light inside the Heart intensified, revealing the figure I'd glimpsed before — the other me, floating within its core, eyes closed, arms spread.
"Who is he?" I asked, though I already knew.
"He is what you shed to survive. The part of you that remained pure — unburdened, untouched by death. You cannot exist apart forever. One must end."
The floor pulsed beneath me, red veins spreading like roots.
"Merge with me," the mansion whispered. "Become whole. Together, we will never die. No more loss. No more endings."
I hesitated — and in that silence, I heard something faint.
A voice.
"Maya…"
It was distant but real. A whisper cutting through the mansion's heartbeat like a breath of wind.
"Maya?!" I shouted, spinning around.
The Heart trembled.
"Do not listen. She is gone."
But I could hear her now, clearer — her voice strained, echoing from above, from somewhere beyond the chambers of flesh and bone.
Arlen, don't let it take you.
The mansion roared, a thunderous wave of sound that rattled the world. The Heart's light flared blindingly bright, and the other me opened his eyes.
Crimson. Endless.
He smiled — the same cruel half-smile I'd seen in my reflection.
"She's not real," he said. "Just a shadow of guilt. Finish it."
The walls split open around me, blood and glass spilling in rivers. Hands reached out from the cracks — human hands, grasping, pleading. I recognized some of them. Ethan. Rachel. My own.
Their voices joined in a broken chorus:Let it end.Finish it.Remember us.
I pressed my palms against my ears, screaming. "Stop!"
The Heart pulsed harder, every beat shaking the ground. I felt it pulling at me, drawing me closer, threads of light connecting my chest to its core. My body began to glow — veins flaring red.
"Arlen," Maya's voice said again, closer this time. "You can still choose."
"There is no choice," the Heart hissed. "Only acceptance."
"No," I whispered. "Not this time."
I staggered forward, every step a war. The pull grew stronger, the red light wrapping around my body, but I reached into my pocket — and found the broken shard of Maya's flashlight, still slick with blood.
I stared at the reflection in its jagged surface — my face, half human, half shadow.
Then I turned and plunged the shard into my chest.
The sound that followed wasn't a scream. It was a roar — from me, from the mansion, from the world itself. The light erupted outward, white-hot, blinding. The walls convulsed, splitting open, collapsing into themselves.
The Heart cracked.
"No—"
I fell backward, choking on air that suddenly tasted clean. The crimson glow faded, replaced by a blinding, pure light that devoured everything.
As the world burned away, I heard Maya's voice one last time.
You did it, Arlen.
Then — silence.
When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in the forest.
The mansion was gone. Nothing remained but a crater of scorched earth and mist. The rain had stopped.
I looked down at my hands — still shaking, still scarred. But human.
"Maya?" I called. No answer.
Only the wind.
I turned toward the trees, every sound sharper, every breath heavier. In the distance, I thought I heard something faint — a slow, steady heartbeat beneath the earth.
I closed my eyes.
It was never truly gone.