Chapter 5 - The Grip of the Void
"Elena!" Mark roared, diving forward to wrap his arms around his wife's waist as she was dragged halfway across the threshold by an unseen force inside the pitch-black room.
Elena screamed, her fingernails scraping desperately against the hardwood floor as the unnatural strength pulling her inward threatened to tear her away from us completely.
Maya wailed from the dark staircase, paralyzed by fear while watching her mother fight a losing battle against the entity hiding behind the white door.
"Let her go! Take me instead!" Mark sobbed, using every ounce of his muscular frame to heave backward, slowly dragging Elena inch by inch out of the terrifying abyss.
With a sudden, violent snap, the unseen grip released Elena, sending both her and Mark tumbling backward onto the hallway rug in a tangled heap of bruised limbs and heavy breathing.
The white door slammed shut with deafening force, the sound reverberating through the floorboards and rattling the remaining shards of glass in the broken family photo frame.
Elena lay gasping for air, her wrist bruised in the exact shape of a small child's hand, glowing with an eerie, frost-bitten blue light in the dim corridor.
"We have to leave. Pack a bag right now. The house is waking up," Mark whispered, his face completely pale as he stared up at the ceiling where new cracks were rapidly spider-webbing across the plaster.
Elena slowly pushed herself up, ignoring the burning pain in her arm, and looked at her husband with eyes devoid of any remaining warmth or trust.
"We aren't going anywhere until you tell me who was buried in the backyard before we built this place," she said, her voice dropping to a terrifying, deadly calm.
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Mark flinched as if struck, opening his mouth to speak, but before a single word could escape, the doorbell downstairs began to ring relentlessly.
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