The night started with silence.
They barricaded the living room, dragged in mattresses and pillows, and turned the space into a single war camp. No more private rooms. No more separation.
"We stay together," Elli said. "If anyone starts acting weird, we contain them fast."
Joseph paced, glancing toward Olivia's closet. She hadn't spoken since sunset. That terrified him more than anything.
Mindy sat with Derreck, both holding makeshift weapons—poker and hammer.
Sophia sat on the couch, arms around herself. Mae sat next to her, expression unreadable.
Everyone looked at Mindy the most.
She'd already been possessed once. Now they watched her like she might crack open again at any second.
"Why are you all staring at me?" Mindy muttered. "I don't feel anything."
"That's what Olivia said," Lorenz rasped from his blanket, barely awake.
"You think I'd hurt you again?" she asked.
"It's not you we're afraid of," Joseph said gently. "It's the thing inside you."
"But I'm not possessed now."
"And yet," Derreck muttered.
The tension twisted tighter.
1:49 A.M.
Sophia got up to grab water from the corner table. Mae followed behind her, quiet as a shadow.
"I'm sorry," Mae whispered.
Sophia turned, holding a cracked mug. "For the rope?"
"For everything," Mae said. "I thought I could help. I thought I was smart. I'm not. I'm scared."
Sophia looked into her eyes, trying to see truth. "I know. Me too."
Mae smiled.
A little too wide.
Then she shoved the mug into Sophia's face.
Glass shattered. Water splashed the couch.
Sophia screamed, stumbling backward.
"What the hell!?" Joseph shouted, leaping up.
Mae didn't answer.
She stabbed herself in the eye.
With a shard of the mug.
The sound—a wet crunch followed by a hiss of pain—echoed across the room.
"M-Mae?" Sophia gasped, blood dripping from her cheek.
Mae pulled the glass out, twitching.
"You didn't believe me," she whispered. Her voice layered, dark. "None of you believed me."
Then she lunged.
She tackled Sophia across the room, slamming her into the desk. Wood cracked.
"Get her off!" Sophia screamed.
Mae grabbed a kitchen knife from her waistband.
No one had seen her hide it.
She plunged it into Sophia's side. Once. Twice.
"NO!" Mindy shrieked.
Derreck tackled Mae to the floor, but she twisted with an unnatural scream, biting his arm. He shouted and dropped the hammer.
Joseph grabbed a chair and smashed it over her back. She didn't flinch.
Blood gushed from Sophia's stomach as she crawled toward the hallway, gasping. "Help—help me—"
Lorenz tried to stand but collapsed again.
Karrie pulled Sophia behind the couch, pressing her coat into the wound. "You're okay, you're okay—just breathe—"
Mae spun, her one eye wild and bloody, laughing. "Why are you running? You know the rules! Only one gets out!"
She threw the knife. It missed Joseph by inches and embedded into the doorframe.
"Split up!" Elli yelled. "Don't let her corner us!"
The house exploded into motion.
Joseph ran upstairs, slamming a bedroom door shut behind him. He held it with shaking hands as Mae slammed into it seconds later, laughing.
Karrie and Mindy dragged Sophia into the bathroom and locked it. Karrie pressed towels to her side. "Stay with me," she whispered. "Just stay."
Derreck ran through the kitchen, breathing hard, grabbing a second knife from the drawer. He locked himself in the pantry.
Lorenz crawled beneath the stairs, blood seeping from his bandage, whispering, "Please not again, not me, not me…"
Elli hid behind the old furnace in the basement—her journal still clutched to her chest, writing even now with shaking hands.
Mae stalked the halls.
Singing.
"You trusted me. You loved me. You should have let me go…"
She dragged her knife against the wall, carving words into the wood:
SLASH ME
SLASH HER
SLASH YOU
Upstairs, Joseph breathed shallowly as footsteps stopped just outside the door.
She whispered through the wood:
"You're the last one I'll kill tonight."
Silence.
Then footsteps moved on.
3:07 A.M.
The house was still again.
But the blood hadn't stopped dripping.
Sophia was still breathing.
Barely.
And Mae…
Mae wasn't Mae anymore.
She was the third mark.
And the night wasn't over.
3:23 A.M.
The bathroom reeked of blood.
Sophia lay on her side, pale and shaking, her body limp against Karrie's lap. Mindy pressed towels into her side, trembling as more blood soaked through each layer.
"Sophia?" Mindy whispered. "Hey. Hey, stay with us."
Her breath was barely audible.
Karrie stroked her hair, tears streaking her face. "It's okay. You're not alone. Just keep your eyes open. Please."
Sophia blinked once.
Then her hand twitched.
Then stopped.
The silence that followed was thick and unreal. Like the air itself had frozen.
"No," Mindy whispered. "No, no, no—Sophia—!"
She pressed her hands harder against the wound, even as the blood stopped flowing.
"Don't—don't go—don't leave me—"
Karrie just cradled Sophia's head. "She's gone," she said, voice hollow. "She's gone."
Mindy screamed.
A raw, animal scream.
And somewhere in the house, Mae laughed.
4:09 A.M.
Footsteps creaked across the upper floor.
Olivia had escaped the closet hours ago. They hadn't even noticed when. The door had simply been… open.
Now she wandered the dark house like a ghost, face expressionless, one hand tucked into her hoodie pocket.
She gripped something there.
Cold. Metal. Familiar.
A knife.
Derreck spotted her first from the pantry door, eyes wide. "Olivia?" he called. "Where did you—?"
She turned to him, quiet. "Did you lock me up?"
"No," he lied.
She didn't seem to care.
"I feel weird," she said. "Like there's something under my skin."
"Put the knife down," he said gently.
But she just walked away.
5:48 A.M.
Mae prowled through the basement now, dragging her foot behind her, blood caking her face and shirt.
She saw Olivia in the hallway—slow, silent, watching her.
For a moment, neither moved.
Mae smiled with her teeth. "So you're the next one."
Olivia said nothing.
Mae pulled her second knife.
Olivia reached into her hoodie.
Steel flashed.
The two of them crashed into each other.
Knives scraping.
Breathing hard.
The hallway was filled with the sound of blades and boots—struggling, slicing, screaming.
Olivia tried to twist away, but Mae grabbed her wrist and slashed downward.
The knife cut through bone.
Her fingers flew across the hallway floor like discarded twigs.
"AGHHH!" Olivia shrieked, collapsing to her knees, blood pouring from her mangled hand.
Mae raised her knife again.
Then she froze.
A beam of pale light touched her shoulder.
6:00 A.M.
The morning light spilled across the windows like a holy fire.
Mae stumbled, gasped, dropped the blade.
She looked up, her eye vacant.
Her body convulsed—and she collapsed, twitching.
Like a marionette whose strings had just been sliced.
Joseph rushed forward. "Get her! Tie her up before she wakes!"
But Olivia didn't move.
She just screamed.
Her hand was a ruin of blood and tendons.
Her screams rang through the house, echoing off every wall.
Derreck stared at the fingers on the floor.
Elli sat nearby, writing with shaky hands, whispering: "That's three. That's three now. Seven left. Seven left."
Mindy stumbled out from the bathroom.
Saw Olivia.
Then the blood.
And dropped to her knees again.
"We're not going to make it," she whispered.
But Joseph just stared at Mae's twitching body.
His voice was distant.
"We're not even halfway."