Clara couldn't move. Not because she was frozen in fear, but because something inside her something primal refused to move. Her mind screamed run, but her body whispered, wait.
The man in the black coat was still there.
Still smiling.
Still watching.
And even though the distance between them was clear, she felt his breath on her neck, warm and foul, like rot. Her phone buzzed again.
"Clara."
"Don't look away."
"He hates that."
She dropped the phone and stumbled backward. The moment her eyes left him, she heard the knock on her door.
Once.
Twice.
. . .
A pause.
Then silence.
Her heart thundered. She pressed herself into the wall, mouth trembling, hands over her ears. She wanted to scream, cry, beg but remembered what Elora said:
"It listens… and it learns."
Meanwhile, across town...
Elora sat beside Reverend Graves, her fingers tracing the jagged edges of the black journal. Her thoughts were spiraling Clara hadn't responded in hours, and she could feel the thing was getting closer. The air in the church had turned cold, even with no open windows. Candles flickered, dimmed.
Graves poured holy water into a glass and set it in front of her.
"Drink it," he said. "If it's already touched your soul, this won't help but it'll at least slow it down."
She stared into the water. Her reflection stared back.
But it blinked before she did.
She slapped the glass away in panic.
The Reverend's eyes narrowed. "Too late."
Back at Clara's apartment…
The man was gone.
But the knocks had returned. Now slower. More confident.
And they came from inside her wardrobe.
Clara grabbed the only thing she could a pair of scissors and tiptoed toward the door.
Don't open it, her thoughts screamed.
But a whisper from inside said:
"It's me, Clara. Elora. Please, let me out. Please, I'm scared…"
She gasped. It sounded like Elora.
Exactly like her.
Right down to the shaky breath, the soft cry, the words they'd whispered as children when locked in dark closets during thunderstorms.
But Elora was miles away. With the Reverend.
Clara stepped back, eyes wide.
She whispered, "You're not Elora."
The voice from the wardrobe giggled.
"Not yet."