Chapter 5: The Room of Secrets

Chapter 5: The Room of Secrets

The laptop screen was black, but the image was seared onto the back of Clarice’s eyelids: the ghost in her room, his pale fingers performing a silent, meticulous surgery on the air where she should have been sleeping. Fátima had made tea, strong and sweet, but the mug felt cold in Clarice’s trembling hands. The warmth couldn't reach the ice that had formed in her veins.

“We’re going to the police,” Fátima said, her voice a low, determined hum. She paced the small, colorful living room, a stark contrast to Clarice’s rigid stillness. “Right now. We take the laptop, we show them the footage. This isn’t just creepy, Clarice. This is… this is something else. Something sick.”

Clarice shook her head, the motion slow and deliberate. The fear was still there, a thick, suffocating blanket. But beneath it, something new and volatile was beginning to burn. The footage hadn't just terrified her; it had validated her. It had proven she wasn't crazy. And with that validation came a white-hot surge of rage.

“No,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. “Not yet.”

“What do you mean, ‘not yet’? He was miming cutting you open!”

“And the police will do what, Fátima? Arrest him for weird hand gestures? They’ll take the laptop as evidence. They’ll question him. He’ll give them his perfect, empty smile and his perfect, empty alibi. He’ll erase everything. We saw how the door opened on the camera—it was like he didn’t even touch it. What if he can make the footage disappear? What if he can make the whole house change? I’ll be left with nothing again. Just a story no one believes.”

Her desire was no longer just for safety. It was for answers. The horrifying video had opened a door in her mind, and she couldn't stand on the threshold. She had to see what was on the other side. What was this thing that wore a human suit and practiced on the empty air? Why was it studying her? The need to know was a physical craving, more powerful than her instinct to run and hide.

“I have to go back,” she said, setting the mug down with a clatter.

Fátima stopped pacing and stared at her, her expression a mixture of disbelief and horror. “You are out of your mind. We are not going back there. I will tie you to this chair if I have to.”

“One last time,” Clarice pleaded, the rage making her bold. “I have to. He has a room. A room I’ve never seen inside. What is in there? How can something be so perfect, so scheduled, so… blank? There has to be something in that room. A clue. An explanation. Anything.”

She stood, the adrenaline coursing through her. “His schedule, Fátima. It’s the only weakness we have. It’s 2 p.m. now. He won’t be back for almost four hours. I’ll be in and out in thirty minutes. You can wait down the street, on the phone with me the whole time. If I’m not out by three o’clock, you call the police. You send them the video file. You tell them everything.”

It was a terrible, reckless plan, born from a venomous cocktail of terror and fury. Fátima argued, pleaded, threatened, but she saw the unyielding hardness in Clarice’s eyes. This was something she had to do. Finally, with a heavy, defeated sigh, Fátima grabbed her car keys. “Thirty minutes, Clarice. Not a second more.”

The third trip back to the house felt like a descent into the underworld. The afternoon sun cast long shadows, making the perfectly manicured lawn look sinister. The house itself sat silent and waiting, a predator sleeping in the light. Clarice’s key slid into the lock, the sound deafeningly loud.

“I’m in,” she whispered into her phone, Fátima’s anxious breathing the only sound on the other end.

“Okay. Clock is ticking. Be careful.”

Clarice crept through the sterile living spaces, her sneakers silent on the polished floor. Each step was a gamble. The air was cold and still, carrying the faint, antiseptic smell she now associated with André’s presence. She reached his bedroom door. It was closed, of course. She had never seen it open. Her hand hesitated over the knob, her heart hammering a frantic beat that felt loud enough to wake the dead. This was it. This was the point of no return. She turned the knob and pushed.

The door swung open without a sound.

The room beyond was an anticlimax, a shrine to absolute normalcy. It was a mirror of the rest of the house—impeccable, sterile, and utterly devoid of personality. The bed was made with military precision, the grey comforter pulled so tight a coin could have bounced off it. A single, dark suit hung in the open closet, identical to the one he always wore. The desk was bare except for a small, closed laptop. There were no books, no photos, no clutter. Not even a speck of dust. It was the room of a person who didn’t exist, a placeholder in a human life.

“Anything?” Fátima’s voice crackled in her ear.

“Nothing,” Clarice whispered back, a wave of frustrated disappointment washing over her. “It’s empty. It’s just… a room. I was wrong.”

She moved around the space, opening the single desk drawer (empty), the nightstand drawer (empty), peering into the closet (just the one suit and a pair of polished black shoes). It was a facade, as perfect and impenetrable as his smile. She was about to give up, to admit defeat and flee this hollow place for good, when she heard it.

It was a sound so faint she thought she was imagining it at first. A soft, muffled thump. She froze, holding her breath, straining her ears against the oppressive silence.

Thump… thump… thump.

It was rhythmic. And it was coming from somewhere inside the room. Her eyes darted around, searching for the source. Not the closet. Not the desk.

Her gaze fell to the floor. To the perfectly made bed.

She dropped to her hands and knees, her phone still pressed to her ear. “Clarice? What is it? What’s happening?” Fátima’s voice was a frantic buzz.

“Shhh,” Clarice hissed, crawling closer to the bed.

The sound was slightly louder here. Thump… thump… thump. It was coming from beneath her. From under the floor. She lay flat on her stomach, her cheek pressed against the cool, polished wood, and peered into the darkness under the bed frame. Nothing. Just spotless floorboards.

But the sound was definitely coming from right here.

Ignoring the dust bunnies of a normal house that were conspicuously absent, she reached under the bed, her fingers tracing the smooth surface of the floor. She felt for a crack, a seam, anything out of place. Her fingertips brushed against a line, so fine it was almost imperceptible. She followed it. It formed a perfect square. And in the center of the square, her fingers found a tiny, shallow indentation. She pressed down, and a small, flush-mounted metal ring popped up with a soft click.

“Oh my god,” she breathed into the phone.

“What? Clarice, what is it? You have ten minutes left!”

“There’s a hatch,” she whispered, her voice trembling with a mixture of terror and vindicated excitement. “Under his bed. There’s a hidden hatch in the floor.”

Her mind reeled. The perfect room, the empty life—it was all a distraction, a stage set built over a secret. The thumping from below had stopped, as if whatever was down there knew it had been heard. The silence that replaced it was heavy, expectant.

With a surge of adrenaline that obliterated all rational thought, Clarice hooked her fingers through the cold metal ring and pulled. The hatch was heavy, but it lifted smoothly on well-oiled hinges, revealing a square of perfect, consuming blackness.

A rush of cold, stale air washed over her face, carrying with it a smell that made her stomach clench—the sharp, clean scent of antiseptic, mixed with the damp, loamy smell of earth and something else. Something metallic and vaguely sweet. The scent of blood.

The mystery of André’s room wasn’t in its emptiness. It was in what the emptiness was designed to hide. And it was waiting for her in the dark.