Chapter 4 - The Crimson Leak
"Mark, look at the ceiling!" Elena screamed, dropping to her knees as the first heavy drop of dark red liquid splashed directly onto the kitchen island counter.
"Don't touch it, don't let it get on your skin!" Mark ordered, pulling his wife backward by her collar while his eyes frantically searched for a towel or a bucket.
The crimson drip accelerated, turning into a steady, rhythmic pour that pooled across the marble surface and began to trace complex, jagged symbols along the polished stone.
Clara walked toward the counter in a slow, trance-like shuffle, her bare feet padding softly against the tile while her vacant eyes remained locked on the spreading crimson pool.
"Clara, stop! Don't go near that!" Mark yelled, lunging forward to grab her arm, but as his fingers brushed her shoulder, an invisible shockwave threw him backward.
Mark hit the pantry door with a heavy thud, the breath exploding from his lungs in a ragged gasp as pain flared across his lower back and left shoulder blade.
"Mark!" Elena cried out, scrambling across the slick floor to his side, her silk blouse staining with the strange red fluid that now covered the entire kitchen area.
"I'm... I'm okay, get Clara away from there," Mark wheezed, clutching his ribs as he watched their daughter reach out her tiny, unblemished hand toward the fluid.
Clara pressed her palm flat against the wet marble, right in the center of the strange symbols, and the glowing red liquid instantly vanished, absorbed entirely into her skin.
A blinding flash of white light illuminated the kitchen windows from the outside, turning the night sky as bright as noon for a single, agonizing fraction of a second.
When the darkness returned, the front door swung wide open on its own, revealing not the porch or the quiet suburban street, but an endless, misty stone corridor.
The corridor stretched out into infinity, lined on both sides with hundreds of identical wooden doors, each one carved with a brass number that matched a year in the past.
"Welcome home, Mark," a hollow, multi-toned voice echoed from deep within the misty hallway, vibrating in the air with a weight that made their teeth ache.
Elena clutched Mark’s arm so hard her fingernails drew blood, her face completely drained of color as she stared into the impossible abyss waiting just beyond their threshold.
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Clara turned around slowly, her face now entirely devoid of expression, and pointed her headless pink bunny straight down the center of the endless stone corridor.
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