The Nightfall Chronicles

The Last Replacement - 12

I knew exactly who I needed to confront - Nathaniel. He was the only one who could give me answers, the only one who knew what had happened to me. Without hesitation, I took off toward the school, my legs moving faster than ever before, fueled by a strange energy. I felt no exhaustion, no strain - probably because I was dead.

When I reached the school, I began searching frantically for him. My mind raced with questions, desperate for clarity. It was lunch period, so I headed straight to the cafeteria, scanning the crowded room until I spotted him. There he was, sitting with a group of boys, laughing and chatting like nothing had changed. Like everything was normal.

My heart pounded in my chest, though I knew it no longer beat the same way. I approached him, my mind spinning with fury and desperation. He didn't even look my way.

"Nathaniel!" I shouted, but there was no reaction. He didn't see me. Was I invisible to him too?

Panic clawed at me as I reached out to grab his arm, but my hand passed straight through him, just like it had with my mother. My breath hitched. No. No, no, no.

I began hitting him hysterically, my hands swinging wildly at him, but it was like hitting air. My fists went through his body again and again. I kept going, my frustration spiraling into madness, yelling, unable to stop even though I knew it was futile.

I was out of my mind. Was this my fate? To be trapped in this state, unseen, unheard, forever? How long would this last? Would I remain like this for an eternity, a ghost, forever separated from the life I once had?

Terror coursed through me, the overwhelming realization that I might never escape this... never be alive again.

Without a second thought, I realized there was only one place left for me - the mansion. The very place everything had begun. I had no choice but to return, mentally bracing myself for the possibility that this dark, empty house might be my prison for the rest of... whatever existence I was now cursed to endure.

As I stepped inside, the air was thick with the same unsettling energy that had surrounded me the first time. I wandered aimlessly through the halls, my mind clouded with questions, when something on a table caught my eye - a letter, pinned down by the weight of a large vase. My heart sank as I picked it up, my fingers trembling slightly as I unfolded it and began to read.

The words chilled me to the bone.

Hey Eliza,

By the time you're reading this, you will be invisible to everyone. You're not dead. You're cursed. You're now stuck on the thin line between life and death. I was cursed and endured this for 30 years - until I found you.

You, too, will eventually find someone who can see you. When you do, pass the curse onto them. The boy who had passed this curse onto me had to live through it for almost two centuries before he found me. So I can't tell you how long it will take. Days, months, years... maybe even centuries.

Hold it in. You can do it!

With Love,
Nathaniel

The letter slipped from my hands, gently floating to the floor as the weight of his words crashed down on me. My blood boiled with rage. How dare he? How could he have the audacity to write something so casual, so callous, after everything he had put me through? After betraying me, cursing me to his limbo, he had the nerve to say, "Hold it in"?!

My hands balled into fists. He lived through this for thirty years? And now I was expected to do the same - or worse, for centuries? The sheer thought made my stomach churn. The uncertainty of it all - the days, weeks, months, or even decades of wandering invisible, unseen, unheard - was too much to bear.

I wanted to scream. To tear the walls of this cursed mansion apart. Instead, I stood there, my heart pounding in my chest, trembling with a fury I could barely contain. How long would I be trapped in this hellish in-between?

And worst of all, would I become like Nathaniel? Desperate enough to do this to someone else?