The rain had started again — a fine, whispering drizzle that blurred the streetlamps into smears of amber. Mara stood outside the Leigh residence, staring at the darkened windows. The house had been locked since the family moved away, yet the scent of pine smoke drifted faintly from its porch. It was the smell of the woods, thick and comforting, but here, in the hollow of this abandoned home, it felt wrong. Like the forest had crept inside.
She stood motionless for a moment, her mind unraveling threads of logic and instinct, then pulled out her standard issue lockpicking tools. It was a quick job — the lock was old, worn, just like the house itself. The door opened with a reluctant groan, as if the house itself resented being disturbed. No alarms. No neighbors watching. No one to see her.
Inside, the air was thick. Not with dust or decay — but with presence. The kind of stillness that settled in the bones, making it feel like the house was holding its breath. She clicked on her flashlight, its beam slicing through the oppressive dark, casting strange shadows on the walls. Samantha's room was upstairs, she remembered, and as she moved through the house, every creak of the floorboards felt too loud, too intentional. As though someone or something was watching her from the corners of the rooms.
At the top of the stairs, she passed a mirror. Its frame was warped, cracked diagonally, the spiderweb fractures spreading from the center like fractures in time itself. As she moved, her reflection stuttered, flickered like a broken film strip.
For a moment, Mara paused. The image was wrong. Her face — was it her face? She couldn't tell.
A sharp breath. She tore herself away.
The bedroom door opened easily. The smell of stale air, old wood, and something bitter greeted her. Posters still lined the walls — faded band logos, half-torn photos of the moon, a distant world that seemed far removed from the darkness around her. But what really caught her attention were the sketchbooks. Five of them, stacked beside the bed, their covers warped from moisture, each one seeming to pulse with a strange energy that she couldn't place.
She crouched, her fingers trembling as she carefully put on latex gloves, then flipped open the first book.
The drawings weren't random. These weren't the doodles of a bored teenager. These were obsessions. Lines that weren't just scribbles, but deliberate, intricate patterns. Spirals. Like antlers or roots that twisted and turned inward, drawing the eye deeper, urging it to look closer, to understand.
As she flipped through the pages, the drawings escalated. Each one felt darker, more distorted. There were trees with eyes in their knots. Houses floating upside down in the sky. A mirror bleeding into the earth. A deer with too many legs, its body twisted in unnatural ways.
On one page, the spiral widened into a deep pit. At the center, a small, faceless silhouette of a girl was falling backward, disappearing into the abyss.
Mara's hand shook as she turned the pages faster. The images grew more disturbing with every flick. A self-portrait of Samantha, drawn in fine pencil, her face gaunt, her hair unkempt, eyes wide and haunted. But what truly made Mara's skin crawl was what stood behind her.
A figure. Tall, its limbs unnaturally long, with no face, just an empty void where the head should have been. Twisted roots extended from its spine, threading through the trees in the background. Beneath it, written in frantic ink: "It feeds on remembering."
A cold shiver slid down Mara's spine. She flipped the page. Another drawing of Samantha — this time, standing in front of a mirror. But in the reflection, she wasn't alone. A second figure stood behind her. It was identical in face to Samantha, but its mouth was stretched into a wide grin, its hands reaching for her shoulders. The mirror cracked, splintering across the paper.
Mara's breath caught in her throat. She turned her flashlight to the room's only mirror, the one hanging above the dresser.
Still intact. For now.
She couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching her, pressing against her every move, like the very room was closing in. Her eyes darted back to the sketchbook, scanning through the pages.
The final book was different. There were no drawings at all. Just a single sentence, repeated again and again in a hurried, frenzied scrawl:
"Under the roots, under the roots, under the roots…"
She scanned the pages until one sentence caught her eye. Written in a smaller, tighter hand:
"She sees you too."
Mara backed away from the desk, her pulse hammering in her throat. She closed the book and didn't dare look at the mirror as she passed it again. It felt as though the room itself was holding its breath with her.
Downstairs, Mara searched through drawers and closets, hoping to find something the sketchbooks hadn't already revealed. Her heart thudded in her chest as she sifted through random items — a half-empty bottle of perfume, a cracked vase, old clothing. But nothing that gave her answers.
In the hallway closet, beneath some folded sheets, she found an old Polaroid camera — the kind that used film, still loaded. It felt out of place. As though it had been waiting for her to find it.
She raised the camera toward the window and clicked. The whirring sound was strangely loud in the silence. The photo ejected, and she shook it gently, watching as the image slowly began to form.
She frowned. The photo showed an empty window. But when the image fully developed, she saw something else.
A figure. Standing just outside the glass. Its limbs were long, unnaturally so, and its face was — nothing. Just a void.
Mara's breath caught. She turned toward the window again. Outside, the rain fell in steady sheets, and there was nothing in the yard but trees. No figure. No movement.
She pocketed the photo, her fingers trembling.
A floorboard creaked behind her. Mara spun, her hand instinctively reaching for her sidearm. But there was no one there.
Just the faintest breeze — a breeze that shouldn't have been there. The door she had locked was now ajar. Had it always been open?
Her stomach churned.
Back in her motel room, she laid out the sketchbooks on the bedspread, photographing each page carefully with her tablet. The symbols were there again — the spiral, the roots, the unsettling reflections — each one subtly shifting, like they were part of a dialect, an ongoing conversation she couldn't understand.
She took notes as she scrolled through the Polaroid photo. The figure outside the window was clearer now, more defined. It was still faceless, but there was a grotesque sense of shape to it.
Her thoughts raced. Roots. Reflections. A place of remembering. There was a connection. Something she couldn't grasp.
The drawings spoke to her. They were a warning. But what were they trying to say?
A soft knock at her door.
Her blood ran cold. The clock on her nightstand read 2:13 a.m.
She moved swiftly, instinctively, picking up her sidearm, her body tense as she crept toward the door.
She peered through the peephole. Nothing.
Another knock. Louder. More insistent.
She flung the door open, her gun at the ready.
No one was there.
Just the steady drizzle, the wet pavement, and something left on the welcome mat. Another sketchbook.
This one was soaked, pages buckled and warped from water, the ink bleeding into the paper.
She brought it inside quickly, her pulse pounding in her ears. She opened it, her hands trembling as she turned the damp pages.
Four pages survived the water.
A drawing of a tree. Its roots burrowed deep through houses, like veins through human skin.
A face. Her face. Made of leaves and bark.
A motel door. Room 6. Hers.
And on the last page:
"You're not the first one they sent."
Mara's heart raced in her chest. She shut the book, clutching it against her chest as she stumbled backward.
Morning came — gray, bruised sky, heavy with the promise of more rain. She made her way back to the sheriff's office, dreading the conversation she knew was waiting for her.
Grady was already there, sitting behind his desk, his fingers wrapped around a coffee mug. His eyes were steady, unreadable.
"Don't go back to that house again," he said flatly. "The last person who did… didn't leave anything behind. Not even clothes."
Mara raised her brow. "You're afraid."
He didn't flinch. "I'm cautious. And I know how this place works. You dig too deep, it digs back."
She placed the soaked sketchbook on his desk.
"Someone delivered this to my room last night. While I slept."
Grady stared at the cover. His fingers hesitated before he opened it slowly. He flipped through the pages, one by one, pausing at the fourth.
He said nothing for a long time.
Finally, he spoke.
"That's you."
Mara's breath caught. She nodded slowly. "Yes."
Grady flipped to the last page. He read the final sentence, then closed the book with a soft snap.
"I'm going to show you something," he said, standing up.
They walked through the station, down a narrow stairwell that Mara hadn't noticed before. It led to a locked door, which Grady opened with a key from around his neck.
Inside: filing cabinets. Dust. The smell of old pine and rot, thick in the air.
Grady pulled out a drawer. It creaked open with an eerie slowness. Inside: more sketchbooks. Dozens. All different. All signed in tiny pencil at the bottom corner: S.L.
Mara stepped back, her breath hitching. "How…?"
"She was never the first," Grady said quietly. "But she may be the last."
He handed her one, its cover faded and worn, labeled 1987. The first page was torn out. The second page was of a face. Her own. Older. Eyes hollow, the outline of roots growing through her mouth.
The image was both familiar and impossible.
Grady's voice dropped to a whisper. "This is where it begins."