Whisper of the lies and pasts👥🍂

Ch14-Unraveling the Darkness:The hidden door💨💥

There are some things you can’t see until the darkness shows you. And some things, once seen, can never be forgotten.

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The shadows seemed to stretch across the room, their fingers creeping along the walls like they had a life of their own. The basement, once a quiet storage space, now felt like a prison, suffocating them both. The air was thick with the scent of old wood and something far more sinister, like dust combined with the scent of decay. Lavender’s heart was pounding in her chest, and Alex’s face, usually full of determination, was now etched with fear.

It was as if the house itself had come alive, pulsating with an energy that neither of them could explain. They had thought the past was behind them, locked away in the dark corners of Alex's history. But now it was clear: it wasn’t just haunting him anymore. It was haunting them both.

Lavender slowly closed the journal in her hands, the words on its pages now burned into her mind. Alex had never said it directly, but she could feel the weight of his confession hanging in the air.

“They're never gone, are they?” Lavender's voice broke the silence, and she swallowed hard, the words leaving her throat like shards of glass.

Alex didn’t answer right away. He only stared at the journal, his face as pale as the moonlight that filtered through the small basement window. His hands shook as they clenched into fists, his knuckles white.

“They never left,” he whispered finally, as if the words themselves hurt. "And they won't stop until... until everything’s taken from us."

Lavender’s mind raced. She had been waiting for him to tell her the full story, but the more she heard, the deeper the darkness became. She had known Alex had his demons, but she hadn’t realized the scope of the terror that loomed over him. Over them.

“They’re connected to everything, aren’t they?” she asked, her voice soft but resolute. "The house. The shadows. The whispers. It’s all because of what you did, isn’t it?”

Alex slowly nodded, his gaze fixed on the journal as though he could find the answers there. But he knew better. There were no answers in these pages. Only more questions, questions that would never have a real resolution.

“The man I became... I thought I could outrun it all. But some things follow you. You can’t escape them,” Alex murmured, his voice haunted.

“What do you mean?” Lavender’s voice trembled as she stepped closer to him, her mind scrambling to make sense of the pieces.

“I was part of something... something far worse than what I’ve told you. My father—he wasn’t just some businessman. He was involved in things that should never have seen the light of day. And when I took over... I thought I could control it. But I was wrong,” Alex said, his eyes clouded with guilt.

Lavender’s breath caught in her throat. “What kind of things?”

Alex’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “I worked with people who didn’t care about the price of power. I saw things. Horrible things. And I didn’t stop it. I didn’t stop him.”

Lavender’s heart shattered as she pieced together the magnitude of Alex’s regret. She had known his past was complicated, but this was something else entirely. There was no way she could imagine the depths of the decisions he had made, the things he had allowed to happen.

“And now they’re coming after us. After you,” she whispered.

Alex didn’t respond at first. He just stood there, frozen, as if something—or someone—was reaching into him, pulling out his worst fears. The atmosphere around them grew even colder, and Lavender could see her breath now, a faint mist in the air.