Chapter 6: Elena's Perspective

Chapter 6: Elena's Perspective

The knowledge from the forum post was a weapon, but it was a double-edged sword. It gave Liam a path forward, a sliver of hope in the form of a severance ritual, but it also confirmed the full, terrifying scope of his enemy. The Crooked Man wasn’t just a ghost; it was a cosmic predator, and his body was the prize.

The house seemed to know he had found its secrets. The subtle hisses and whispers coalesced, taking on a more definite, malicious shape. He could hear the dry scrape of its movement in the walls, the faint tap-tap-tap of something thin and hard against the windowpanes, keeping time with his frantic heartbeat. It was no longer hiding in the periphery. It was cornering him.

He needed to think, to plan. He went to the kitchen, his mind racing through the logistics of the ritual. A perfectly preserved, silver-backed antique mirror. Where would he even find such a thing? An antique shop? An old estate sale? The task felt monumental, impossible.

He poured himself a glass of water, his hand shaking so badly that water sloshed over the rim. He gripped the edge of the granite countertop, forcing himself to take a deep breath. He needed to be methodical. He needed to be the architect again, not the victim. He stared down into the glass of water, watching the ripples slowly still. The surface became a perfect, tiny mirror.

That was his mistake.

He saw the reflection of the ceiling light above him, a bright, white star. Then, the light began to warp, to twist. The reflection didn't just bend; it smeared, the white light bleeding into a blot of inky darkness, like a drop of ink in clean water. The darkness spread, consuming the small circle of light, and from its center, something began to rise.

The world around him dissolved. The cold granite under his hands faded away. The hum of the refrigerator was replaced by the low rumble of a car engine, the familiar sound of his own sedan. The scent of old paper and dust in his office was gone, replaced by the faint scent of Elena’s lavender perfume and the clean, sterile smell of a doctor’s office clinging to their clothes.

He wasn't in his kitchen anymore. He wasn't even in his own body.

He was looking out through Elena's eyes.

He felt the gentle weight of her pregnant body, the press of the seatbelt low on her hips. He saw his own hands on the steering wheel, his knuckles relaxed as he drove. He could feel her overwhelming love for the man beside her, a warm, radiant wave that was so powerful it was physically painful to experience now. He felt her hand rest protectively on her stomach as the baby gave a soft, fluttering kick.

Then, he felt the first flicker of her fear.

Her gaze, now his, drifted to the passenger-side wing mirror. The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. The road unspooled behind them, a ribbon of grey flanked by dark trees. Against the vibrant colors of the sunset, she saw it. A smudge of black. At first, it looked like a bit of dirt on the glass, but it moved, keeping pace with the car.

He felt her heart rate quicken. He felt her try to rationalize it—a trick of the light, a shadow from an overhanging branch they’d just passed. But the smudge remained, a persistent blot in the corner of her vision. She glanced at him, at the calm, happy man driving them home, humming softly to a song on the radio. He felt her desperate desire not to break that peace, not to sound like a hysterical, paranoid fool.

The vision accelerated. Minutes bled into one another. Her gaze kept snapping back to the wing mirror, then to the rearview mirror. The smudge was growing clearer, more defined. It was a shape now, unfolding limb by limb in the reflective glass like a stop-motion horror film. It was tall and thin, a stick-figure man made of broken twigs and stretched-out shadows, its movements jerky and unnatural. It ran alongside the car, its crooked legs pumping with impossible speed, always confined to the world within the glass.

He was experiencing her silent, mounting terror from the inside. He felt her throat tighten, the scream she wanted to unleash dying before it could form. He felt her hand grip the door handle, her knuckles white. Liam, look, he could feel her thinking, the words a frantic prayer. Please, just look without me having to say it. See it. But he didn't. He was lost in the music, in the simple joy of heading home to start their life.

The creature in the reflection grew bolder. It drew closer until its smudged, featureless face filled the entire wing mirror. For a single, horrifying moment, she saw it raise a hand, its long, spindly fingers pressing against its side of the glass as if trying to push through.

That’s when she made her choice. He felt the shift in her completely—the terror didn't vanish, but it was superseded by a fierce, protective resolve. She couldn't tell him. She knew his logical mind, his architect's brain. He would be confused, he would slow down, maybe even stop. He would try to understand, and that hesitation would be fatal. She knew, with a chilling certainty, that the thing wanted them to stop. She squeezed his hand, a silent signal of love that he returned with a smile, completely oblivious. It was the last time they would touch.

The final moments arrived, exactly as he had remembered from the crash site, but this time they were saturated with her terror.

The world outside the car was nearly dark. His high beams cut a tunnel through the night. And then it was there.

No longer a reflection, no longer a phantom. It was standing in the middle of the road, having finally crossed over from its world of glass. It was a pillar of pure wrongness, a physical slash in the fabric of reality, its limbs bent at excruciating angles.

He felt her intake of breath, a sharp, ragged gasp. He felt the scream that had been building for miles finally tear from her lungs, not a sound of fear for herself, but a desperate, one-word warning.

"Liam!"

He felt the violent lurch of the car as his own hands, in the memory, wrenched the wheel to the right. The world became a chaotic nightmare of spinning trees and screeching metal. He saw the massive trunk of the oak tree rushing toward them, filling the windshield. He experienced the explosive force of the impact, the shattering of the passenger-side window, and a blinding, all-consuming pain.

Then, darkness. A profound, absolute silence that was deeper than death.

Liam gasped, collapsing to the floor of his kitchen, the broken glass of water soaking his shirt. He was back in his own body, his heart hammering as if it would burst from his chest. He was choking, sobbing, the phantom pain of the impact still echoing through his nerves.

He had just died through his wife's eyes.

He had seen what she had seen. He had felt what she had felt. The last remnants of his doubt, the last whispers of his guilt, were gone, scoured from his soul by the horror of her final moments. She hadn’t been a passive victim. She had been a warrior, fighting a silent battle to protect him, to get them both home safely. She had faced that monster alone, in the reflections, for miles.

He pushed himself up, his body aching, his mind reeling. The whispers of the Crooked Man still slithered from the corners of the room, but they had lost their power over him. The entity had meant to break him with that vision, to drown him in a tidal wave of terror and guilt.

It had failed.

It had shown him not only its own true face, but the true depth of Elena’s courage. It had given him more than a reason to survive. It had given him a reason to fight. He would not just banish this thing. He would honor her sacrifice. He would destroy it.