Chapter Text
“I think that’s the last of it.”
Alina puts her hands on her hips and surveys the living room, piled high with boxes and furniture that’s going to need to be moved later, adjusted and readjusted until it feels just right. There’s a sheen of sweat on her brow and she wipes at it, her tank top sticking to her like a second skin.
Mal grins at her.
“Now the real fun begins, huh?” he jokes.
Alina laughs.
“Yeah, fun for me,” she teases, “Only one of us is going to be left to unpack all this crap.”
“Well one of us can’t work from home,” he reminds her.
There’s the smallest edge to his voice that makes her bristle but she ignores it, refusing to start a fight with him when they haven’t even been in the house a day. It’s not worth it, not when this is a new start for them, a new town, a new home, bigger, in a nicer neighborhood, one with the good schools.
“It won’t be so bad,” Alina says, “I’ll have my little helper.”
Their daughter weaves in between the boxes, giggling loudly, her blue summer dress flowing behind her.
“Yeah, Mama, I’ll help!” Karina promises. “Can we do my room first though? Please, please, please?”
“Sure, baby,” Alina chuckles.
“Yes! I’m gonna start right now.”
Karina runs past them and up the stairs, her small feet thudding as she goes, twin braids flipping wildly. Mal walks over to Alina and takes her into his arms, hands on her waist, sweaty nose brushing hers.
“This is gonna be good for us,” he promises.
“Yeah,” she agrees softly. She kisses him lightly, smiling when she hears Karina calling out about how big her new room is.
She still couldn’t quite believe Mal found such a place for them, the perfect home, below their budget. She was never one for religion, but did believe everything happens for a reason, and that maybe this was fate intereving to give them what they needed.
She touches the gem hanging from her neck unconsciously.
A fresh start.
Something good.
***
The kitchen is quick to get unpacked.
They didn’t have a lot, neither of them were the best cooks and survived on take-out the majority of their lives. They were just lucky Karina was a picky eater and lived off PB&J’s and chicken nuggets.
With Alina’s new job being fully remote though, she entertained the thought of learning to cook more. She smiles slightly at the thought of Mal coming home from work to find her in the kitchen making dinner, would probably tease her for turning into a housewife.
She folds the last of the tea towels and tucks them away in a drawer, walks to the fridge to grab a bottle of water.
Thud.
Alina frowns and looks up towards the ceiling. She does a mental review of the house's layout and thinks that it must’ve been from Karina’s room, that maybe something fell over, or maybe she did.
As she walks from the kitchen to head upstairs to check on her daughter she sees Karina sitting in the living room laying on her stomach, two of her barbie dolls in her hands having pretend conversations.
Odd.
She shakes her head and climbs up the stairs to head to Karina’s room. Alina pushes the door open and nibbles her bottom lip, looking around to see what could’ve fallen over. Most of her daughter’s toys are put away, the carpeted floor empty sans a few pieces of dirty laundry that Alina bends over to collect.
She’s leaving when she notices the picture frame on the ground.
It’s fallen from its place on Karina’s dresser and Alina puzzles out how it could have ended up tumbling over at all when no one was up here.
“Strange,” she mutters.
She places the picture of herself and Karina back on the dresser.
Next to the one of Mal and Karina that was untouched.
***
Alina finishes getting ready for the night and pads out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom. Mal looks up from his phone and grins at her in that boyish way he does when he wants something. She purses her lips and raises an amused eyebrow.
“Is there something you want?” she asks.
She climbs into the bed, fully ready to just go sleep but he slides his hand against her leg suggestively, smirk on his lips.
“You, babe.”
“Mal—”
“Come on,” Mal coaxes. “We haven’t even christened the new house yet.”
Alina giggles and bites her bottom lip, glancing at their closed bedroom door. Karina should have fallen asleep ages ago and it’s been a while since they were able to be intimate let alone have sex.
She makes her decision by straddling Mal’s lap in their bed and her husband grins, pleased, his hands settling on her waist. She tugs her t-shirt over her head and closes the distance between their mouths, groaning pleasantly when he begins to grind into her. His lips move from her mouth to her neck and he kisses the skin there as he palms her ass.
Tap.
Alina frowns.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Mal asks into her neck.
She shoves at his shoulder to force him to stop, straining her ears to catch the sound again.
Tap.
“That.”
“Babe, it’s an old house,” Mal tells her, “It’s going to make noise.”
He strokes her hips and pulls her forward so she’s back up against his still-clothed cock, his lips returning to kiss her neck and then the valley of her breasts.
“Right,” she agrees. “S’an old house.”
It’s new for them too, the noises are just different from their old house. She had gotten used to the pipes creaking, or the sputtering before the heat or air turned on, she would get used to this too.
Tap.
Mal continues kissing her skin and she looks around again, unable to determine where the noise is coming from. He undoes her bra and takes her nipple into his mouth, grinding upwards into her.
“Mal—”
The bed starts creaking and at first she thinks it’s her husband but even he stops, pulling back from her body with a look of confusion. He opens his mouth but is cut off when everything starts shaking in full, the art from their walls tumbling.
“Earthquake,” Mal manages.
“Karina.”
The shaking intensifies and Alina throws her shirt over her head, the both of them bolting from the bed and down the hallway to their daughter. She stumbles slightly as she goes but Mal rights her, his hand getting Karina’s bedroom door open.
“Mama!” she cries, sitting upright in bed with fear on her face.
Alina is on her in a second to pick her up, covering her head with her hand as she brings them to the doorway. She crouches down with Karina tucked into her chest, Mal wrapped around the both of them.
“It’s okay, baby,” Alina promises, wincing as things crash throughout the house. “It’s just an earthquake it’ll be over soon.”
Karina whimpers and clutches to Alina’s shirt, her tears wet in her mother’s neck. The house rumbles and shakes and Alina has a horrifying thought of it collapsing around them. She holds Karina tighter and wills the vibrations to end, for them to be safe.
“Stop it,” Karina cries quietly. “Stop it.”
The shaking ceases.
Alina breathes a sigh of relief, kissing the top of Karina’s head. She strokes her back and meets Mal’s eyes, the both of them still clearly unsettled by the entire ordeal.
“I’m going to go check on things,” Mal tells her. He drops a kiss to Karina’s head and then Alina’s, leaving the two of them in the doorway alone.
She continues rubbing circles into Karina’s back and assumes that when her daughter says “thank you”, it’s to her.
***
She logs out of her Zoom call with a sigh and rubs her temples. She can hear Karina laughing through the crack in Alina’s office door and she stands to go check on her. Her daughter had snuggled into their bed after the earthquake, far too afraid to be alone in her own room. Alina thought she would’ve been more shaken, but the next night she was back in her own bed, much to her husband’s delight.
Alina pushes Karina’s door open and sees her set up at her tea table, sitting in one of the four chairs around it. Her stuffed elephant is perched in one wearing one of Alina’s old sun hats and Karina pours her stuffed toy a pretend cup of tea.
“Hi, Mama,” Karina greets.
“Hey, baby, having a tea party?”
Alina takes the seat across from Karina, next to her stuffed elephant.
“Yep, would you like a cup?”
“Why, yes of course.”
Karina grins widely and mimics her earlier actions with her elephant, nothing but air falling from the plastic kettle, Alina’s cup still empty. Alina thanks her and raises the cup to her lips, blowing on it before she takes a sip.
“Good?” Karina asks.
“Very good, thank you, sweetheart,” Alina tells her. She sets the cup down and then glances out through Karina’s window, the perfect mix of clouds in the sky to keep them from getting too warm. “Why don’t we go play outside for a bit? You’ve been in your room all day.”
“I want to play with Sasha,” Karina protests.
Alina frowns because they’ve barely moved in, there hasn’t been time for introductions to other children yet.
“Who’s Sasha, honey?” Alina asks.
“My friend, he’s sitting right there.”
Alina follows Karina’s gaze to the empty chair in between them, a small tea set settled in front of the chair that mirrors her own. She should be too old for imaginary friends, but she supposes the move was stressful, so this could be how she’s dealing with such a change.
“Okay,” Alina resigns. “Does Sasha want me to stay?”
“Yes,” her daughter giggles, “Sasha likes you a lot, too.”
***
After the last box is finally unpacked, she calls Genya and invites her over. She needs a celebratory drink and to see a person that isn’t her husband or child.
“This place is great,” Genya tells her, sipping her margarita, the condensation rolling down the glass from the heat outside. “Really, honey, everything looks amazing.”
“I keep trying not to pinch myself,” Alina admits. “But I’m just glad everything’s finally where it’s supposed to go.”
“And now the real fun starts, the part where you buy more stuff to fill this big old house up.”
Alina laughs and takes a sip of her drink through her straw, pushing her sunglasses further up her nose. She sets her drink down on the wicker patio table, watching Karina play under the shade of the big tree in the yard. Her daughter is talking to the empty space next to her again and Alina frowns, releasing a small sigh.
“Danny had an imaginary friend until he was ten, I wouldn’t worry.” Genya consoles.
“Karina’s just never had one before,” Alina tells her. “I’m just worried it’s a stress response, or, I don’t know—maybe she needs more socialization?”
“Bring her to the pool this weekend,” Genya says with a small shrug. “Danny will be back from summer camp then. They can hang out.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’ll be good.” Alina agrees.
“It was probably stress from the move, or she’s just being a kid.”
“Yeah, or maybe the earthquake.”
“What?” Genya asks, perplexed.
“The earthquake,” Alina repeats, “The other night?”
Genya frowns.
“You didn’t feel anything?” Alina questions.
“No, sweetie,” Genya replies. “But we’re on the other side of town, maybe you just felt the brunt of it.”
Something that big couldn’t have just been localized to their house—her and Mal spent the entire next morning cleaning up and rehanging pictures that had fallen, sweeping glass from broken frames and replacing them with new ones. Genya lived at most ten minutes away from her now, she should’ve felt something.
“Yeah,” Alina agrees. “Yeah, that must’ve been it.”
Alina takes another sip of her drink and replays that night in her head, the odd noises that preceded the shaking, the way it stopped when her daughter pleaded it to.
It had to have been a coincidence.
Karina continues talking to the empty space next to her, her head craned upwards as if her imaginary friend was bigger than her.
She worries her bottom lip between her teeth so hard it breaks the skin. Genya sets a warm hand on her arm.
“Come on, Alina, sweetie, haven’t you ever had an imaginary friend?”
She hadn’t thought about it in so long, especially after blocking out the majority of her childhood—too painful with the memories of the family she lost so young.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “Maybe.”
She digs into her thoughts, into the carefully sealed box of the before.
Before the fire, before she lost her home, her family, everything. It was too painful to think about, so she just didn’t. She kept it locked away, the memories of her childhood only ever settled in the after, her foster family that came after, her husband and daughter that came after.
Karina giggles, neck still craned up.
Alina remembers sitting in her own bed at night, blurry edges from a lifetime ago of laughing while reading a story aloud.
Looking up.
“I think I did have one,” Alina murmurs.
“See, honey, it must run in the family,” Genya teases.
Alina forces herself to smile, despite the memory of the friend she used to play with as a child.
She just wishes she could remember its name.
***
Later, Alina searches her local news for earthquakes that occurred recently and finds nothing.
Not a single report.
Her stomach twists because she knows what she saw. What she felt.
It leaves her feeling strange.
Unsettled.
She tells Mal later that night when they’re curled up on the couch watching a movie, her head on his chest while he scrolls on his phone.
“Genya didn’t feel the earthquake,” she says. “I couldn’t find any reports about it online either.”
“Weird.”
He doesn’t stop scrolling, doesn’t even ask her more about it.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
She tenses slightly and he strokes her hip.
“S’the pipes,” he tells her.
“Mm.”
Why would it be the pipes?
Why would they make that noise?
Why is none of this bothering you at all?
***
That night, she hears scratches above her when she’s laying in bed.
From behind the ceiling—slow, but sure.
Her husband lays next to her, fast asleep, somehow not hearing the noise at all. It grows louder, more persistent.
Almost like something was trying to get out.
***
Mal suggests a date, that she needs to get out of the house.
It’s not a bad idea. She has been cooped up here, after all, and dinner with her husband sounds nice after being under such stress. It’s almost easy to think things could be normal, that something wasn’t happening, that she wasn’t slowly losing the grip she had on her sanity.
She’s leaving the bathroom and returning to the bedroom when her steps falter.
No.
No, no, no, no.
“Have you seen my necklace?”
“What?” Mal asks.
“My necklace, the one I’ve had since I was a kid,” Alina responds. The one she’s been wearing everyday of her life, the one Mal met her in, the one she wore the day they got married. “I put it here before I got in the shower.”
She taps their dresser repeatedly, the empty spot where she knows she left it. The same spot she always left it.
“I don’t know babe, maybe it fell?”
Alina frowns at him but he’s still got his back turned to her, staring at himself in the mirror as he continues to get ready.
“It didn’t fall,” she manages. “It’s gone.”
“Relax, Linka, you probably just forgot where you put it.”
“I didn’t—” she has to swallow to contain the rage that wants to come out, “I left it right here.”
“I’m sure it’ll turn up.”
Tears of frustration well in her eyes and she tightens her grip on her towel as she returns to the bathroom, searching the counter for her familiar dainty gold chain with nothing but a black gem on the end of it. It’s nowhere to be found, not on the counter, not in the drawers she pulls open, or on the floor, behind the shower curtain. She returns to the bedroom and starts opening the drawers of her dresser, her heart rate beginning to pick up in panic.
“Christ, Alina,” Mal mutters, “It’s just a necklace. We’re going to be late if you don’t start getting ready.”
“It’s not just a necklace Mal!” she snaps at him. “It’s the only thing I have left of my family so either help me or fuck off.”
“Whatever.”
He grumbles and leaves the room, the door slamming behind him so loud it makes her shoulders jump. Her bottom lip trembles and she can’t stop the tears from flowing down her cheeks.
“Fuck,” she mutters, wiping her eyes. “Fuck.”
She drops her towel and forces herself to start getting dressed, slips her underwear on and flits to her closet in a daze, head foggy as she chooses a comfy dress to wear.
If she can’t find her necklace she’s not sure what she’s going to do. She got it the day before the fire, it was the only thing of hers that survived the blaze, the only thing she still had to remember her family by.
Alina leaves her closet and pulls her dress over her head, adjusts the thin straps and smoothes her hands over the flowy yellow bottom.
Her eyes catch a glint of light on her dresser and her stomach drops, everything coming to a halt.
There’s no way, there’s no fucking way.
She looks quickly to the door, still shut, then back at the dresser where her necklace lays.
Her hands are shaky as she picks it up and she struggles to get it clasped around the back of her neck. She gets it after a few tries and lets her fingers run over the stone, trying to soothe the buzzing in her head.
She feels so overwhelmed, confused, trying to understand how it just reappeared.
She’s just confused, she must be. That’s why—why—
Why it feels warm under her touch.
***
Alina rubs her temples at her desk, the tiredness from the past few days weighing on her.
She can’t remember the last time she slept through the night. The noises have only gotten louder, and everytime she shuts her eyes, something startles her back into alertness. Mal continues to remain unbothered by the noises and she can tell he’s starting to get frustrated with her constant stress over sounds he still claims are normal.
Nothing about it feels normal and all she wants to do is sleep.
Alina glances at the time on her laptop and it’s only a bit after two, not a bad time for a nap especially when her work for the day is mostly done.
She decides she’ll go and lay down for a bit, maybe try and sleep for an hour, even just thirty minutes to get some kind of rest. Her decision is made and she shuts her laptop and leaves her office, heading down the upstairs hallway.
“Karina?” she calls.
“Downstairs, Mama.”
She pads down the stairs to check on Karina and let her know she’s going to take a small nap. As she makes her way into the living room she sees Karina sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, her crayons thrown about, scribbling away on a sheet of paper.
Alina gets closer to her and peers down at the drawing and frowns. She recognizes herself, her daughter, the both of them mirror images of each other, Alina just drawn slightly taller. Those are easy to decipher, but the figure she’s drawn next to them, taller than the both of them, larger than them, colored only in black crayon, gives her a feeling of uneasiness.
While she and her daughter are drawn with human features, the third is clearly anything but.
“Who’s that, honey?” Alina asks carefully.
“Me, you, and Sasha,” Karina explains.
“Where’s daddy?”
Karina shrugs and keeps coloring, oblivious to her mother’s concern.
She stares at the drawing, of the black depths of the eyes her daughter has given the large figure.
Alina forces herself to leave, forces herself to retreat to her room and lay down.
Forces herself not to think about the fact that the monster she drew looked familiar.
***
She’s putting away the groceries when she remembers the name of her imaginary friend.
Aleksander.
***
“Karina, honey, time to go.”
She’s met with giggles and Alina sighs, walking down the hallway towards Karina’s room. They were supposed to be at Genya’s an hour ago, but Alina was exhausted, fell asleep in the middle of getting ready, slumped over her vanity.
She woke with drool stuck to her chin and two missed calls from Genya, one from her husband who was probably already at their friend's house with a beer in his hand.
When she walks into Karina’s room, she’s half convinced she’s still dreaming.
“What the—”
Dark, shadowy smoke, large, billowing in front of her daughter, her laughing daughter that seems pleased this presence is in front of her.
Alina takes another step forward, needs to get to her baby but the thing is gone, vanishes before her brain can comprehend if what she saw was real at all.
Her steps falter but she rushes forward in the next instant, crouching down in front of Karina to hold her tiny face in her hands, eyes scanning her features for some kind of fear, injury, something.
“Are you okay?” Alina questions, “What was that—are you—”
“M’fine, Mama,” Karina promises, grinning, “We’re gonna be fine.”
“But what was that? Who—”
“Come on,” Karina replies, ignoring her question. She leaves Alina’s grip and skips past her out of her room, “We’re already late for Genya’s!”
Alina swallows and remains crouched down, eyes flitting around in the quiet room.
Empty.
But she saw, well she doesn’t know what she saw, and maybe, maybe she really was dreaming, she’s been so tired after all, maybe she didn’t see anything at all.
Alina stands and leaves the room on shaky legs.
Convinces herself the smell of ash is all in her head.
***
It comes to a head that night when she’s tucking Karina into bed.
Alina had tried to relax at Genya’s, had a few drinks, laid in the sun, but she couldn’t get what she saw out of her head.
That figure, that darkness.
“Sleep well, baby,” Alina murmurs.
“Goodnight, Mama, see you soon.”
Alina wiggles her brow but gives Karina a smile, giving her forehead a small kiss. Her blanket is tucked to her chin and she shuts her eyes, holding her stuffed elephant close. Alina leaves her bed and tidies up some of the clutter in her room as she goes. She’s picking up her crayons when she sees that drawing Karina drew the other day, the one of Alina, her daughter, and Sasha.
Karina’s added more things to it now and Alina picks it up with a frown.
Symbols she doesn’t recognize, scratched in so roughly there’s indents in the paper.
She looks back at Karina whose eyes are still closed and Alina’s heart begins to race because what if something is happening to her baby, what if something is happening and instead of stopping it she’s doing nothing?
Alina picks up the drawing and leaves Karina’s room, her breathing labored as she quickly descends the stairs into the living room where Mal still sits on the couch.
“Mal,” she breathes, “Mal, something’s wrong.”
He rises from the couch and starts moving towards her, looks upstairs clearly thinking something happened to Karina.
“She’s okay,” Alina tells him. “I mean—I don’t know, I think something’s going on, Mal, I think something bad is going on here.”
“Woah, woah, woah, Linka, slow down,” he says. “Take a deep breath,” he orders, she does. He takes her forearms in his hands and squeezes, confusion clear on his face. “Better?”
Alina nods slightly and takes another breath.
“Okay, tell me what’s wrong. then.”
“Well, you know— you know the noises we’ve been hearing, right?” Alina starts. Mal nods and she continues, trying to get her words out right, “And Karina’s imaginary friend? And now there’s this—this drawing, and I saw a figure in Karina’s room earlier, this figure, and—”
“You saw a figure?” Mal repeats.
“I don’t know, I don’t know what it was, but…”
She trails off when she looks into Mal’s eyes and sees that he’s not convinced at all. He’s supposed to be her husband, he’s supposed to be on her side. She takes a step back from him, out of his grip and blinks.
“You don’t believe me,” she states.
“Alina,” he sighs, “You haven’t been sleeping. You probably just think you saw something, yeah?”
“What? I tell you I think I saw—” a ghost, a shadow, a demon, “—something in our daughter’s room and you think I what? Made it all up?”
“I think you’re stressed out, Linka.”
“Are you fucking—Mal,” she practically growls, “There was an earthquake in our house that no one else felt, Karina is seeing things, and drawing all these fucking symbols,” she continues angrily, waving her hand around. “Something is happening, something bad is happening.”
“You’re overreacting, she’s a kid. Kids do weird shit.”
“Not this,” Alina argues. She’s shaking as she shoves the drawing she found in Karina’s room towards him, the one with the symbols that still have her on edge, “Where would she even learn this?”
Mal takes the drawing and looks at it with barely concealed boredom. He doesn’t believe her. He doesn’t even care.
“Maybe she watched a scary movie when you weren’t paying attention.”
She blinks at him and tries to process the words that left his lips.
“Are you insinuating this is somehow my fault?”
“You are the one that watches her all day, aren’t you?”
She snatches the drawing back from him and shakes her head angrily.
“Fuck you, Mal,” she spits. “I’m scared, I’m terrified all the time and you don’t even give a shit.”
“I care.”
“Do you?” she cries. “Look at me and tell me you believe me, tell me you don’t think I’m insane.”
His silence speaks volumes and she shakes her head angrily, the tears falling against her will.
“You never believe me about anything, you’re supposed to believe me. I’m your wife.”
“I don’t even know you when you act like this, Linka, it’s insane, you’re—”
“Finish that sentence. I fucking dare you.”
Mal smacks his lips and shakes his head at her, raising his hands in surrender or frustration.
“I’m gonna go stay at Dubrov’s tonight,” he tells her.
Frustration, then.
She stands unmoving as he stalks past her up the stairs, no doubt to collect some things before he leaves the house. She squeezes her eyes together and her tears slip through, streaming down her cheeks.
Alina knows what she saw, she knows what she’s been hearing.
It’s not all in her head.
It’s not.
***
She dreams of fire.
Of smoke and ash, of cracking beams and a house crumbled.
Darkness.
Of shadows embracing her.
***
She wakes with a start, chokes on the taste of ash in her throat.
Her dream was so real, felt like she was back in her home, so strong that she could smell—
Why does she smell smoke?
Alina’s out of bed in a flash, half-delirious, stumbling towards Karina’s bedroom as the smell of smoke increases and all at once she’s back in her childhood home, crying as the house crumbled around her.
She pushes herself forward and registers the sounds of rumbling, so loud her ears ring. Alina slams Karina’s door open and lets out a scream, her daughter standing in front of her tea table, a knife in her hand, a bowl in front of her on fire as the house groans so much cracks begin to run up and down the walls.
“Karina, stop! Put that down!”
It’s too late, she’s too late, because her daughter has already cut a line through her own palm, the blood dripping from her small hand into the bowl on her tea table.
The whirling in the room stops and the fire extinguishes on its own. Alina scrambles forward to grab Karina, the kitchen knife clattering onto the carpeted floor and smearing blood against the white. She pulls her into her side and grabs her wrist to inspect her hand, releasing a small sigh of relief when she realizes the cut isn’t deep at all.
“Why on earth did you— what were you thinking, Karina?”
“I did it, Mama,” Karina replies with a grin. “I got Sasha out.”
“Out?”
She looks to the bowl and sees something glinting, a gemstone attached to a chain that’s all too familiar. Alina touches her neck, bare, and she makes a noise of confusion, not understanding how Karina got it, how she got a knife, how there was a fire and another earthquake inside their home.
There’s a rumbling from Karina’s tea table and the bowl she cut herself over suddenly sparks, catches fire again and Alina shouts, watching in terror as it ignites further.
She covers as much of Karina as can, pulls her girl to her chest and turns her back to the table. Alina hopes, prays, for it to stop, her eyes squeezed shut as the rumbling continues, louder and louder until it ends with a sickening crack.
It’s silent then but Alina doesn’t let go, keeps hold of Karina and keeps her eyes shut, far too afraid to open them and process what’s just happened.
It’s not even like she knows what’s occurred at all, focuses on nothing but her daughter's heartbeat and breathing, she’s okay, she’s still okay, her girl.
She needs to get her the hell out of here, keep her girl okay, safe.
“Time to go baby,” Alina murmurs. “Time to go.”
She starts to pull back when she feels all the hairs on her arms stand up, a sudden electric presence sucking all the air from her lungs.
Karina lets out a gasp into her neck, pleased.
Alina wills herself to turn to see what’s gotten Karina’s attention, her stomach plummeting in fear. It can’t be, it can’t.
There’s a man in her daughter’s room.
Though the longer she looks at him the quicker she realizes this thing isn’t a man at all. It’s tall and lean, but still massive, takes up so much space it makes her shudder. It’s got dark hair with black eyes, like a sharks, black as the robe he wears, black as the veins or shadows, this something crawling up his fingertips and up and around his arms.
It's like nothing she’s ever seen before and yet something about this monster screams in a familiarity that she nearly chokes on it.
She knows in her heart with a startling clarity that this is the thing that’s haunted her home, her daughter, her, since they arrived here.
“Ah,” it says in greeting. “My beautiful girls.”