Emma clutched the spiral pendant in her pocket as if its heat could somehow guide her.
From beyond the door, Gréta's voice called out again.
"Emma… don't leave me out here… I'm cold… I'm scared…"
Jessica leapt from the couch and rushed toward the door.
"We have to let her in!" she cried.
Emma stepped in front of her.
"No! Wait!"
Jessica sobbed.
"But she's our friend! We can't leave her out there!"
Emma's heart broke with every word.
But the pendant burned in her palm, hot and urgent—like a warning.
"Trust your instincts," Nóra whispered. "Something… something's wrong."
Another knock.
Louder. More demanding.
And the voice—it was changing.
"Emma… open the door… now…"
It had deepened.
Something cold and alien had crept into it.
Jessica trembled.
Emma slowly stepped back from the door.
"That's not Gréta," she said, her voice shaking. "No matter how much we want it to be… it's not."
Suddenly, a deafening bang rattled the door.
The whole house shook.
The doorknob twisted violently, as if something outside was trying to tear it off.
Jessica screamed and stumbled backward.
Emma and Nóra shoved the cabinet tighter against the door.
The pounding grew more frantic—like a giant fist hammering the wood.
But the cabinet held.
The door held.
And then—silence.
For minutes, all they could hear was their own breathing.
The house fell quiet again.
But Emma knew—
Out there, in the thick fog, something was still watching them.
And the spiral…
Its grip was tightening.
Not just around the house.
But inside them, too.
The silence that followed wasn't peace—it was pressure. A suffocating stillness, thick with something unsaid. The kind of quiet that comes when something is listening.
Jessica sat curled up on the rug, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Her breathing was shallow, eyes wide and wet. She wouldn't meet anyone's gaze.
"I almost opened it," she whispered.
Emma crouched beside her. "You didn't."
"But I wanted to," Jessica said. "It sounded so much like her. Like Greta. Her voice when she was scared. When we were little."
Emma nodded, but didn't answer. Deep down, she'd wanted to open the door too.
They all had.
The spiral didn't just speak in symbols anymore. It spoke through memories. Through love. Through guilt.
Nóra stood by the wall, watching the door. "It knows us. It knows what we care about. Who we care about."
Emma turned the pendant over in her hand. Its heat had faded, but the shape of it still pressed into her skin. A warning mark. A brand.
She stared at the door.
"We need to block the windows next."
Nóra nodded and began dragging a heavy chair toward the living room bay window. Emma helped, pushing aside dusty curtains. Outside, nothing but fog. Still and patient.
"Do you think it's still out there?" Jessica asked from the floor.
Emma didn't answer. Because the truth was worse than the question.
It wasn't just out there.
It was creeping inside.
A clock somewhere in the house ticked—slow, arrhythmic. Like a heartbeat trying to remember how to beat.
Nóra found old nails in a drawer and used a fireplace poker to wedge a bookshelf across the side door. Emma, hands shaking, wedged a dining chair beneath the front doorknob.
"I hate this," Jessica said.
"We all do," Nóra replied, softer than usual.
They didn't speak for a long while. Just sat. Listening. Waiting.
And then—
Emma heard it.
Not a voice this time.
But breathing.
Not theirs.
From above.
Upstairs.
Emma's breath caught.
There it was again.
A slow, deliberate inhale—raspy and too long. Then an exhale, dry and rattling like something dragged over wood.
It wasn't the house settling.
It wasn't wind.
It was breathing.
From upstairs.
Nóra heard it too. She turned slowly, eyes narrowing.
Jessica froze where she sat, her mouth trembling.
Emma stood. Her legs felt too light, her fingers too heavy. "It's in the house," she whispered.
"Maybe it's still Greta," Jessica offered, though the hope in her voice cracked halfway through.
"No," Nóra said firmly. "We locked the doors. We blocked everything. Nothing got in."
But something had.
Emma looked at the staircase. The shadows clustered on the steps like they were waiting. Her heart pounded in her throat.
"I have to see," she said, barely hearing herself.
Nóra stepped forward. "You're not going alone."
Together, the two of them ascended the stairs—Emma first, her hand white-knuckled around the spiral pendant. It was pulsing again. Slower now. Heavier. As if something inside it had awakened, and now matched its rhythm to hers.
Each step creaked beneath their weight. The house moaned like it remembered them.
Halfway up, Emma paused.
"Do you smell that?" she whispered.
Nóra nodded. "Metal. And something else…"
It was faint, but sharp. A scent like blood and old soil. Like rust under fingernails.
They reached the landing.
The hallway stretched out in both directions, dim and distant. Doors stood closed. All of them.
Except one.
Emma's door. It was open
They reached the landing.
The hallway stretched out in both directions, dim and distant. Doors stood closed. All of them.
Except one.
Emma's door. It was open. Just a crack.
Inside, nothing moved.
But the silence felt wrong.
Emma reached out with trembling fingers and pushed the door open wider.
Her candle sputtered as if choking on the air.
Her room looked unchanged—bed, desk, the chair by the window. But the shadows had grown. They clung to corners and drifted along the floor like mist.
On the bed, the spiral pendant she thought was in her pocket lay coiled atop the blanket.
Nora gasped softly. "How is that…?"
Emma reached into her pocket.
It was gone.
The one on the bed pulsed.
Emma stepped forward despite everything in her screaming not to. The spiral called her name—not aloud, not in sound, but in something deeper.
And then—something moved in the corner.
A shape. Just tall enough to be human.
Watching.
Emma couldn't breathe. Nora gripped her shoulder.
The shape didn't come forward.
But it didn't fade, either.
It was waiting.
And the spiral… was smiling.