Chapter 4: The Absence of Carol
The world became a gauntlet of slicing glass and blinding dark.
Julius threw his arms over his head, diving blindly toward the concrete base of the iron workbench. All around him, the air screamed with the sound of thousands of heavy shards raining into the dirt. A piece of jagged glass grazed his cheek, leaving a thin, burning trail of heat that trickled down his jaw.
"Belinda! Carol!" he shouted, but the sound was completely swallowed by the ambient chaos.
When the rain of glass finally subsided, a suffocating, unnatural silence took its place. The storm outside had vanished entirely, as if erased from existence. No wind, no thunder, no patter of rain. Just the rhythmic, heavy thump-thump of that impossibly slow heartbeat vibrating through the floorboards.
Julius pushed himself up, his hands pressing into a mix of potting soil and broken glass. "Belinda?"
A beam of sharp light suddenly cut through the blackness. Belinda stood a few feet away, her breathing ragged, holding a heavy tactical flashlight she’d pulled from her coat. The beam swept across the ruins of the greenhouse. The towering ferns had been shredded to ribbons, and the air was thick with a floating mist of pulverized plant matter.
"I'm here," Belinda croaked, coughing against the dust. She swung the beam toward the iron workbench. "Where’s Carol?"
The flashlight beam settled on the space behind the bench.
Carol was gone.
Her heavy canvas apron lay on the floor, perfectly intact, but completely empty. Rolled inside it was the brass-geared mechanical device she had been reaching for just before the glass shattered. There were no signs of a struggle, no blood, and no footprints in the damp soil. Just an empty garment, as if she had simply evaporated from the inside out.
Julius staggered over, picking up the heavy brass artifact. It felt freezing cold to the touch, its intricate cogs turning silently without a power source. "She said he takes your mind. Did he just... take all of her?"
"No," Belinda whispered, her flashlight beam dropping to the dirt near the apron. "Look."
Scrawled in the soil, as if dragged by a dying finger, was a single word: RUN.
"We need to get out of here right now," Belinda said, grabbing Julius by the leather jacket. "Whatever trapped her is still in this room."
Before they could turn toward the shattered exit, Julius’s head violently throbbed. The blinding migraine from the archives returned with a vengeance, forcing him to his knees. The flashlight beam in Belinda’s hand started to warp, the white light twisting into a nauseating, deep violet hue.
A heavy, suffocating wave of memory crashed into his brain, completely unbidden. He wasn't seeing the greenhouse anymore. He was seeing an old-fashioned drawing room, lit by gas lamps. He felt the weight of a heavy wool coat on his shoulders, and his hands—hands that were older, calloused, and stained with machine oil—were delicately assembling a set of brass clockwork gears.
I am Victor, a voice echoed in his mind, clear and undeniable. I was born in London. The year is 1960.
"Julius! Stay with me!" Belinda’s voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. She was shaking his shoulders, but her face was beginning to blur, her features melting into the shadows.
He fought the tide, desperately grasping for his own life. My name is Julius Montenegro, he repeated like a mantra inside his skull. I am an audio engineer. My mother baked bread in the house on Willow Creek Crossing.
But when he tried to picture his mother's face, there was only a blank, gray void. The memory had been completely scrubbed clean.
"I'm losing it, Belinda," Julius choked out, blood beginning to drip from his nose. "He’s inside. He's rewriting the walls."
Suddenly, the violet light from the flashlight stabilized, locking onto a figure standing at the far end of the shattered greenhouse entrance.
It wasn't a shadow. It was a person, silhouetted against the dim, distant city lights. They were standing perfectly still, watching them.
Belinda raised her weapon, her hand remarkably steady despite the terror vibrating through the air. "Don't move!"
The figure took a slow, deliberate step forward into the ruined greenhouse. As the dim purple light caught their face, Julius felt his breath catch in his throat.
It wasn't a monster. It was Carol.
But her wide, hyper-vigilant eyes were gone. Her gaze was icy, calm, and perfectly deadpan. She looked directly at Julius, her lips parting into a serene, terrifying smile that didn't reach her eyes.
When she spoke, her voice didn't possess her usual frantic tremor. It was the raspy, dual-toned whisper from the audio file—the voice of two people speaking in perfect, chilling unison.
"The clock is ticking, Julius," the thing wearing Carol's body hissed. "And your time is already mine."
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