Chapter 3 - The Face in the Dark
The rusted screws gave way with a sharp screech that echoed through the silent, oppressive hallways of the old house. Arthur pulled the heavy iron grate aside, exposing the yawning, black mouth of the floor duct. The cold air rushing up from the crawlspace carried an overwhelming scent of dust, dampness, and something metallic—like old pennies.
Clara leaned forward, ignoring her mother’s muffled screams of absolute terror.
"Don't look, Clara! Close your eyes!" Elena wept from the floor, her hands still clamped over her face.
Arthur held his breath, squinting into the pitch-black void. Slowly, shapes began to resolve themselves in the dim ambient light filtering through the hallway window. Curled up in the cramped, dusty space between the floor joists was a child. She wore a tattered, dust-covered dress remarkably similar to Clara’s light blue one, though now it was stained with gray grime and years of neglect.
The girl looked up. Her eyes were wide, luminous, and terrifyingly familiar. It was as if Clara was staring into a warped, starving mirror reflection of herself.
"You... you came back," the underground girl rasped, her voice like dry autumn leaves scraping across concrete. She reached out a skeletal hand, touching Arthur’s thumb with freezing skin. "You promised you’d bring me back upstairs after the bad men left."
Arthur stumbled backward, horror washing over his face as a long-buried memory slammed into his mind with physical force. He looked at Clara, then back down into the suffocating darkness beneath the floorboards.
"Who... who are you?" Arthur choked out, his voice barely a whisper.
The starving girl tilted her head, a chilling smile stretching across her pale, gaunt cheeks.
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"Don't you recognize your own twin, Daddy? You put me down here the night the fire started."
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