Chapter 13 - The Fine Print
The iron grip of the entity locked onto my shoulders, sending a searing shock of arctic cold straight into my nervous system. I struggled against it, thrashing and throwing my weight backward, but it was like trying to wrestle an anchor buried deep in the ocean floor.
"Sarah! Grab the papers! Find page twelve of the closing documents!" I yelled over the roaring sound of wind filling the bedroom.
Sarah didn't hesitate. She scrambled across the freezing floor toward our desk, ripped open the bottom drawer, and pulled out the thick leather folder containing our house purchase agreement. Her fingers flipped frantically through the dense legal jargon, her eyes scanning the dense blocks of text under the glaring light of her own smartphone.
"Here! Paragraph four!" she screamed, holding the paper up. “'The buyer agrees to assume all structural, historical, and custodial obligations pertaining to Subject 412, effectively binding the title deed to the hereditary containment lineage established in 1974.' Mark, it's a bloodline curse disguised as a municipal deed! The previous owners didn't die in a car crash—they walked into the wall when their term expired!"
The entity laughed—a sound that echoed with my own voice multiplied a hundred times over, vibrating in the marrow of my bones.
“You own the bricks, Mark. You own the lath. You own what lives between them,” the entity rasped, its reflective chrome face rippling like liquid mercury as it pulled me closer toward the jagged portal in the wall.
"No!" Sarah cried, sprinting across the room and grabbing the heavy steel lockbox we had pulled from the wall. Without a second thought, she hurled the entire metal box directly at the entity's head.
The lockbox struck the side of its face with a dull, heavy metallic clang. The entity stumbled backward half a step, its grip on my shoulders loosening for a fraction of a second.
That single fraction of a second was all I needed. I threw all my remaining weight forward, driving my elbow into its midsection and kicking out with my boots. The entity lost its footing, slipping backward across the threshold and tumbling out into the endless corridor of white doors.
As it fell, it reached out and grabbed my wrist, its cold fingers digging into my skin, attempting to drag me down into the abyss with it.
"Mark!" Sarah screamed, diving to the floor and grabbing my other arm with both hands, pulling me back with the desperate strength of absolute love and terror.
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Buster barked furiously, clamping his jaws around the edge of my grey t-shirt and pulling backward with all his might alongside Sarah, anchoring us both against the edge of the portal.
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