CHAPTER 7:
Elias stared at the small flame dancing on the silver lighter. The inkwell sat innocently on the desk, its dark contents swirling as though sensing danger. Sarah stood beside him, her hand steady, her eyes reflecting the blue-white fire that had already begun to lick at the edges of the journal.
"Burn it," she whispered. "End it all. Every story, every voice—free or destroyed, but gone from this world."
The scratching in the walls had become a chorus now—hundreds of fingernails, small and large, frantic. The air grew thick, almost liquid, pressing against his skin.
He thought of Lydia's note: Burn the rest when you are done. There is no undoing what is read.
But she had never burned the ink itself.
Elias's hand trembled. The flame wavered.
If he did this, the house would burn. They would burn. Every trapped soul would either escape into the night or be consumed forever. There would be no more tellers, no more stories bleeding into reality.
But what if some of those souls did not want freedom? What if some wanted vengeance?
The pen on the desk twitched violently, standing upright again. Fresh words bled across the open page:
He will not choose the fire.
He is too curious.
He wants to know how his own story ends.
Elias felt the pull—like a hook behind his ribs. The same pull that had kept Lydia here for decades. The same pull that had driven Jonah to the noose.
Sarah's voice softened. "Elias. Look at me."
He did. For the first time he saw fear in her eyes—not of death, but of something worse.
"I came here to help you end it," she said. "But I lied about one thing. I'm not Miriam's great-great-granddaughter. I'm Miriam."
The room seemed to tilt.
"I never left," she continued. "When the house took me, the ink kept a piece. A shade. It sends us out sometimes, wearing new faces, to guide the next teller toward the ending it wants. I've done this before. Many times."
She released the lighter into his palm and stepped back.
"The fire will free me too. Or it will end me completely. I don't know which. But I'm tired, Elias. So tired."
The journal flipped itself to a new page. Words appeared faster than ever.
Choose quickly.
The walls are thinning.
Soon there will be no walls at all.
Elias looked at the lighter. Then at the inkwell.
He closed the lighter with a snap.
The flame died.
Sarah—Miriam—closed her eyes. A single tear traced down her cheek.
"I was hoping you'd be stronger than the others," she said quietly.
The scratching stopped. An awful silence filled the house.
Then the inkwell overflowed.
Black liquid poured over the rim, thick as tar, spreading across the desk in deliberate rivers. It did not drip to the floor. It rose, forming letters in the air—towering, glistening.
THANK YOU FOR CHOOSING WISELY.
The ink wrapped around Elias's wrist like a bracelet, cool and alive.