Chapter 4

I knew what I saw. It wasn't a hallucination. My body still ached with the phantom pain born of sheer terror.

My sanity clung to an impossible truth: there were two mothers. One who held me in grief, and another who moved like a broken toy and smiled with too many teeth.

Cedric's hands gripped my arms tightly. "Kelly, you're shaking. What exactly happened?" His eyes were full of concern, but tinged with something else-I recognized it as fear.

I backed away slightly, forcing myself to take a deep breath. "I just... I just need to be alone for a minute, Ced. Please."

I couldn't tell him yet. It sounded too crazy. He was already so fragile right now.

He hesitated, his gaze searching my face. "Okay, Kelly. But... don't do anything stupid." He squeezed my arm once more before turning and heading back to his room, leaving me alone in the silent, oppressive hallway.

Alone again. My conviction hardened.

The "Other Mom" was real. She was here, in this house, living among us, waiting to consume us.

Annabelle knew. Annabelle had tried to warn me. I had to find out exactly what she knew.

I crept back into Annabelle's room. The laptop still sat on her desk. I woke it up, the screen still displaying that cryptic note: "Beware of the Other Mom."

I searched around, hoping to find more clues or hidden files. Nothing. I went through her drawers, her closet, her books. Just the usual teenage clutter.

I remembered the day Annabelle disappeared. It was a Friday. She had gotten into a screaming match with Mom about curfew, like always, and stormed out.

We thought she'd be back by morning. When she didn't show, we called her friends. No one had seen her. We called the police and filed a missing persons report. We figured she was just being rebellious, maybe shacked up with a new boyfriend just to spite us. We believed she'd eventually call. She was just mad.

But now she was dead, stuffed inside that ottoman.

My search yielded nothing, and frustration gnawed at my heart. I sat on Annabelle's bed, burying my face in my hands. Suddenly, a jarring, loud noise shattered the silence.

Annabelle's phone. It was sitting quietly on her nightstand, gathering dust like an antique.

The phone was ringing, playing her custom ringtone. It was distinct, loud, and unmistakably hers.

My heart sank. Who was calling? Her phone had been dead for days, maybe weeks.

I stared at the screen. The caller ID glowed brightly: Annabelle.

I reached for it, my hands shaking violently. My fingers fumbled, slick with cold sweat.

This was impossible. Annabelle was dead.

I answered, my voice a raspy sob. "Annabelle?"

A burst of static. A harsh, buzzing interference, like signal jamming.

Then, a voice came through. Annabelle's voice.

But it was distorted, shrill, and frantic, as if spoken through a broken walkie-talkie.

"Kelly! Listen! She's coming! The Other Mom! She's not... she's not real! She's evil! She killed me! She burned down the house! Kelly! The Other Mom killed us! She burned down the house! She's hunting us! She wants to keep us quiet! She wants to protect Mom! Don't let her win! Wake Mom up! The truth! She's the weakness! The truth will make her disappear! Tell Mom we love her! We never blamed her! Tell her... tell her..."

The call abruptly cut off, replaced by a digital dial tone.

My hand slipped, and the phone clattered to the floor.

It was a message from Annabelle. A pre-recorded message.

I scrambled to pick the phone up, my heart pounding like a war drum. I checked the call log.

It wasn't a phone call. It was a scheduled message, set to play at a specific time, on a specific date.

Annabelle had planned this. She knew. She had foreseen her own death. She left a warning, a desperate SOS broadcast from beyond the grave.

I gripped the phone tight, my fingers digging into the plastic casing. Every single word echoed in my mind.

She killed us all.

She burned down the house.

Five years ago. We're all dead.

What did that mean? I couldn't comprehend it at all.

I plugged Annabelle's phone into her laptop and transferred the audio file. My fingers flew across the keyboard, opening an audio editing software. I extracted the track, running noise-reduction filters and pitch correction. I listened to it again carefully.

The distorted voice became clearer.

"Kelly... please... listen carefully. She killed us. Five years ago, Mom killed us. This isn't real. She had a mental breakdown. The 'Other Mom' is just a manifestation of her guilt. She's trying to stop you from remembering the truth. She hunts us, makes us disappear, so Mom never has to face what she did. Kelly, wake Mom up. The truth is her weakness. Tell her we love her. Tell her we never blamed her. She needs to know. You need to know too. She's coming for you, Kelly. She's coming... for both of you..."

I paused the audio. My chest heaved violently. My hands were shaking uncontrollably. I was cold and clammy all over.

I'm dead? We're all dead?

But I'm clearly alive. What on earth did Annabelle mean?

And then I heard it. In the audio. A faint, wet, scratching sound, almost like a guttural whimper. It was layered underneath Annabelle's frantic message.

I rewound it, isolated that specific sound, and amplified it.

It was distinct, and non-human. A low snarl, a hungry, wet sniffing. It was the sound of an intense, predatory hunger.

I played it over and over, confirming the horror.

It was there, embedded in Annabelle's final message. My body trembled uncontrollably. The chill in the room deepened.

My gaze drifted past the laptop screen, toward my own reflection in the mirror.

In the mirror, Christine was standing right behind me. Her head was tilted, her mouth slightly ajar, mimicking the wet sobbing sound from the recording. Her eyes were wide, pitch black, and utterly devoid of life.