Thecla woke to silence.
Not peace , this silence throbbed, thick and waiting, the air humming beneath her skin like the pause before a storm breaks.
She sat up slowly. The light in the room was pale and gray, like dawn seen through water. Her eyes adjusted, heart quickening.
It looked like home.
The couch. The pictures on the wall. Her mother's favorite lace curtains fluttered faintly, though there was no wind.
Her chest tightened.
"Mom?" she whispered.
And then — the voice.
"Thecla, breakfast is ready."
Her heart lurched. That voice was warm, familiar — and hollow. She stood, feet soft against the cool floor, and walked toward the kitchen.
Her parents were there. Smiling. Calm.
Her father stirred tea with slow, even motions. Her mother laid down a basket of bread. Her little brother, John, sat at the table, laughing quietly at something unseen.and Anne was busy,reading her favorite story book.
It was all perfect.
Too perfect.
For one moment, Thecla wanted to believe. She wanted to rush into her mother's arms, smell the bread, hear the laughter — to pretend the darkness, the hotel, the mark, had all been a fevered dream.
But the air was wrong.
It smelled faintly of dust and iron.
And the bread… the bread had no scent at all.
She swallowed. "Mom?"
Her mother turned, smiling with porcelain gentleness. "Eat, dear. You'll need your strength."
"Where's the sea?" Thecla asked quietly. "Where's the hotel?"
Her father's stirring hand slowed. He looked up, eyes pale and unfocused, like marbles. "Nowhere you need to go."
A chill rippled down her arms.
John was drawing something on the table with his finger. She leaned closer.
The shape was familiar — the golden mark that had burned across the Chamber door.
Her breath caught. "John, what are you—"
The world flickered. For the smallest instant, she saw what lay underneath the illusion: her parents frozen in place, wrists wrapped in chains of light, anchored to unseen pillars.
Then the image stabilized again, as though reality itself had coughed and smoothed its face.
"No…" she whispered. "You're not real."
Her mother's smile faltered. The bread blackened to ash. The air thickened, cold enough to burn. A low vibration rumbled through the floor.
And then came the voice — deep, resonant, rolling through her bones like thunder under water.
"You could have stayed asleep, child."
The walls rippled like fabric. Her family froze mid-motion, faces draining of color until they became statues of pale dust.
Thecla stumbled back, clutching the pendant at her neck — A pendant, the one she had gotten in the hotel chapel before everything began.
She remembered it now — the night she received it.
---
That night, long before Marcus arrived, the hotel's lights had flickered for hours. Guests had whispered of shadows in the mirrors and voices from the vents. Thecla had crept into the abandoned chapel, barefoot, trembling.
On the altar sat a broken cross and a single, silver coin — a sixpence, old and worn, its engraving almost gone.
She didn't know why she picked it up. It just felt alive.
And she had prayed.
Not to the hotel's false "Host," not to the whispers of Griff or the cult's empty rituals — but to the Light that had no name but Love.
Her words had been simple: "Jesus, if You still walk where the lost are trapped… find me here."
Then the air had changed. A warmth spread through her palms, through her chest, like being wrapped in sunlight. The coin had melted into her hand — not painfully, but gently — and when she opened her fist, it had become the gold pendant she now wore.
The shape of a tiny flame enclosed by a crescent — the mark of protection.
That was her sixpence of faith, her smallest offering.
And it was enough.
---
Now, in the cold imitation of her home, the pendant glowed faintly against her skin. Its warmth pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat.
The voice spoke again, closer.
"You reach for borrowed light, little one. He cannot touch you here."
Thecla steadied her breath. "You're wrong. He never left."
The walls cracked, black water seeping through, swirling up around her ankles. It rose fast, dragging her down. The air filled with whispers — her mother's sobs, her father's angry shouts, her brother's crying,and her sister's screams. They echoed from every direction, overlapping, desperate.
"Stop!" she shouted, clutching the pendant tighter. "You don't own their voices!"
"They gave them to me," the voice replied. "Every prayer, every doubt, every word of fear. They belong to the Undying now."
The water surged higher, closing over her shoulders. It wasn't cold; it was alive, pulsing with slow, monstrous awareness.
In the surface reflection, she saw flashes:
Marcus — bloodied, holding his crowbar like a crucifix.
Lila — unconscious, the gold mark pulsing on her chest.
And beyond them, the Hotel — Shomon Crescent — a vast shadow beating like a heart.
She felt Marcus whisper her name.
The sound crossed worlds.
She muttered out a sacred text:
"When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell."(Psalm 27:2)
The black water hissed, recoiling as if burned. Thecla gasped, thrusting her hand forward — the pendant blazed, sending a torrent of light through the darkness.
The water screamed.
And then it was gone.
When she opened her eyes, she was kneeling in a vast hall of stone. Her parents and siblings stood a few feet away, motionless but whole. Their wrists were bound by chains of gold, each link shimmering with symbols that pulsed faintly between holy and corrupted light.
Thecla stood. The air was cold, but her breath glowed in front of her, golden.
"Please," she whispered. "Let them go."
The pendant flared. Warmth surged through her, fierce and tender all at once — not her own power, but borrowed, given.
And then, like sunlight breaking through storm clouds, she felt Him.
A presence — vast, gentle, sorrowful, surrounding her like wind through glass. She couldn't see Him, but she felt the nail-marked hands close around hers, unseen but real. The pendant's flame grew brighter.
A voice — not thunder, but whisper-soft — brushed her heart.
"I am here, little one."