Chapter 4: The Tainted Room

Chapter 4: The Tainted Room

The bark was a lifeline. A single, sharp, desperate sound that sliced through the suffocating blanket of Elias’s terror. It wasn’t a memory. It wasn’t a hallucination. It was real. It was Milo.

Love, fierce and blinding, became a fire in his veins, cauterizing his fear. The monster in his living room, the impossible smile filled with black needles, faded to a secondary threat. His only goal, his only desire, was to get to that sound.

"Milo!" he yelled, his voice cracking.

He scrambled to his feet, stumbling through the oppressive darkness of the hallway. His hands slid along the cool plaster of the wall, his only guide in a world stripped of sight. The memory of the strobing lights left phantom flashes on his retinas, ghost-images of the grotesque girl and her unwavering smile. He pushed them away. They didn't matter. Only the dog mattered.

His outstretched hand found the familiar cold brass of the bedroom doorknob. It was closed. He didn’t remember closing it. With a surge of adrenaline, he twisted the knob and threw the door open, slamming it against the inside wall.

"Milo? Buddy, where are you?"

The bedroom was a landscape of shadows, barely illuminated by the sickly purple glow of the storm outside filtering through the window. His bed, usually a symbol of comfort and rest, loomed like a mausoleum in the center of the room. His dresser was a hunched, monstrous shape in the corner. For a heart-stopping second, he saw nothing. The room was empty.

Then, a faint whimper.

It came from under the bed.

"Oh, thank god," Elias breathed, the words catching in his throat. He dropped to his hands and knees on the hardwood floor, the rough wood cool against his palms. He peered into the darkness beneath the bed frame.

And there he was. A small, trembling ball of white fur, pressed as far into the corner against the wall as he could possibly get. Milo’s eyes were wide, reflecting the dim light with a glassy sheen of pure terror. He was shivering violently, his whole body wracked with tremors, but he was alive. He was whole.

An overwhelming wave of relief washed over Elias, so potent it almost brought him to his knees. The horrors of the night receded. The screaming crows, the black-toothed entity—they were a nightmare from which he had momentarily woken. Here, in his most personal space, his sanctuary, he had found the one piece of his life that still made sense.

"Hey, it's okay, buddy," Elias whispered, his voice soft and trembling with emotion. "It's okay. I'm here. It's gone."

He reached a hand under the bed. Milo flinched at first, then seemed to recognize his scent, his voice. He let out a low, pathetic whine and crawled forward, pushing his head into Elias’s palm. His fur was damp and cold. Elias gently coaxed him out, pulling the small, shaking dog into his arms and holding him tight against his chest. Milo buried his face in the crook of Elias’s neck, a living, breathing anchor in a world that had come unmoored.

For a moment, they just stayed there on the floor, the man and his dog, a tiny island of warmth in a sea of encroaching dread. Elias closed his eyes, focusing on the frantic beat of Milo’s heart against his own. He had him. They were safe.

That’s when he felt it.

A single drop of liquid, cold and thick, landed on the back of his exposed hand.

He flinched, thinking it was just water from a leak in the old roof. But it wasn't the right consistency. It didn't run. It clung to his skin, viscous and heavy.

He opened his eyes and looked down at his hand.

One perfect, black, iridescent bead sat on his skin. It was the same oily substance that had bled from the twisted crow. The same ooze that was even now consuming his living room carpet. The smell, faint but unmistakable, rose to meet him—ozone and something anciently sweet, like rotting flowers.

The fragile bubble of his relief popped, a silent, sickening burst. The cold dread came rushing back in, ten times stronger than before. This place wasn't safe. This room, his last refuge, was already compromised.

His gaze, wide with a dawning, horrifying realization, lifted from his hand. Upwards. To the clean, white plaster of the ceiling directly above him.

There, a dark stain was blooming. It looked like water damage at first glance, a damp, ugly patch of gray. But it was spreading as he watched, its edges darkening and curling, the white paint seeming to dissolve around it. It wasn't dripping from a leak in the roof; it was weeping from the house itself. The corruption wasn’t just an intruder anymore. It was becoming part of the very bones of his home.

As he stared, paralyzed, another drop of the black fluid gathered at the center of the stain. It swelled, growing heavy, shimmering with a rainbow slick of colors in the dim light. It hung there for a long, pregnant moment before detaching and falling, spattering on the hardwood floor beside him with a soft, wet splat.

Drip.

The sound was a death knell.

SLAM!

The bedroom door crashed shut with the force of an explosion, the impact vibrating through the floor and up Elias’s spine. The old latch clicked home with a deafening, metallic finality.

Milo yelped, a high-pitched cry of pure panic, and tried to burrow deeper into Elias’s arms. Elias lurched to his feet, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He stumbled to the door and grabbed the knob, twisting it frantically.

It wouldn't turn. It was locked. Held. Sealed.

He threw his shoulder against the solid wood. It didn't budge. It was like pushing against a wall of solid steel. He pounded on it with his fists, the dull thuds echoing in the suddenly claustrophobic space.

"No! No, no, no! Let us out!"

His only answer was the slow, rhythmic sound from the ceiling.

Drip… drip… drip…

He was trapped. This room, once his sanctum of rest and privacy, was now a cage. A tomb. The darkness seemed to press in on him, thick and heavy, stealing the very air from his lungs.

Then, a voice filled the silence.

It wasn't a whisper beside his ear. It echoed from the corners of the room, from the walls themselves, as if the house had grown a mouth. It was the voice of a little girl—of his Lily—but it was distorted, stretched and warped like a cassette tape being eaten by the player, layered with a wet, sibilant hiss.

"You could've opened the door..."

The words hung in the air, dripping with a cold, malicious glee that curdled his blood. Elias froze, his fist still raised to beat against the door. He knew what it meant. The woman's voice. Please, let us in. His refusal. His choice.

The distorted, childish voice savored a long, terrible pause, letting the weight of his failure crush him. Then, it delivered the final, soul-shattering blow.

"...Dad."