Chapter 4: A Terrible Choice

Chapter 4: A Terrible Choice

BOOM.

The sound was a physical blow, a shockwave that traveled from the rattling window frame, through the floorboards, and into Alex’s bones. He was curled into a ball against the far wall, hands clasped over his head as if he could block out the impossible reality of the thing outside. Each thunderous impact was punctuated by a high, unholy shriek that drilled through his skull.

“YOUR TURN! YOUR TURN! YOUR TURN!”

The glass groaned, long, silvery cracks spreading across its surface like lightning frozen in place. Any second now, it would give way. Any second, that deathly pale girl with a smile full of needles would be in the room with him. He was trapped. Fourteen floors of empty air separated him from the ground, and a monster of impossible origin was hammering its way through his only other exit. His mind, saturated with pure terror, was a blank slate of white noise. There was no escape. This was how it ended. He was just another pin, waiting to turn red.

Then, through the cacophony of shattering glass and demonic rage, a thought sparked. It was not a thought of hope, but of desperate, ugly survival. It was the memory of his frantic, methodical assault on the website just days before. The discovery he’d made in his frustration.

The rule.

The only rule he had found in this entire horrifying game. He couldn't delete the pin. He couldn't erase the curse.

But he could move it.

The thought cut through the panic like a shard from the splintering window. It was a vile, selfish, and monstrous idea, but it was the only one he had. He wasn't thinking about consequences. He wasn't thinking about morality. The only thought in his head, the only instinct driving him, was to make the pounding stop.

He launched himself from the floor, scrambling on all fours like a panicked animal. The overturned chair was in his way; he kicked it aside, the clatter lost in the Griever’s relentless assault. He reached the desk, hauling himself up, his sweaty palms slipping on the smooth surface. His eyes were locked on the monitor, the bright screen a beacon in the dimming room.

CRACK-SHHHH!

A larger fissure erupted across the window. He could feel a cold draft now, a whisper of the outside world, carrying with it the faint, foul scent of stagnant water and decay. She was almost through.

His hand shot out, grabbing the mouse. It felt slick and alien in his trembling grip. His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs, a wild rhythm of pure adrenaline. On the screen, the live photo of him at his desk was a horrifying mirror of his desperation. He could see the reflection of his own panicked face, pale and wide-eyed.

He jammed the cursor over the pulsing yellow pin that marked his tomb. He clicked, the plastic switch groaning under the force of his finger. He held it down, the pin now tethered to his cursor, a digital parasite he could command.

He didn't aim. He didn't look. He just moved.

With a convulsive jerk of his arm, he flung the cursor across the map. The city blurred into a meaningless grid of grey and black. He dragged the pin as far as his mousepad would allow, a desperate, blind act of transference. He wasn't choosing a target; he was throwing a live grenade into the darkness, praying only that it landed somewhere, anywhere, that wasn't here.

His hand slammed against the edge of his keyboard. He let go of the mouse button.

Click.

The silence that followed was absolute.

It was more deafening than the shrieking, more shocking than the pounding. One moment, his world was a maelstrom of violence; the next, it was utterly still. The absence of sound was a physical presence, a heavy blanket that smothered the room.

He held his breath, listening. His own ragged gasps were the only sound. He waited for the next blow against the window, but it never came.

Slowly, his eyes darted from the monitor to the window. The web of cracks remained, a permanent scar on the glass, but the face was gone. The pale girl, the Griever, had vanished. There was nothing outside but the darkening twilight sky and the distant, indifferent lights of the city.

A wave of relief so powerful it was nauseating crashed over him. His legs gave out. He collapsed back into the space where his chair should have been, landing hard on the floor. He lay there, gasping for air, his body shaking with the violent aftershocks of terror. He was alive. He had survived. The thing was gone. He pressed his forehead to the cool wood of the floor, tears of sheer, unadulterated relief streaming down his face. It was over. He had made it stop.

After a minute that felt like an eternity, he shakily pulled himself back up, using the desk for support. His legs felt like jelly. He needed to see. He needed the final confirmation that the curse had moved on.

His gaze fell upon the monitor. The map was still there, but the glowing yellow pin over his apartment building was gone. A choked laugh escaped his lips. It was real. He had actually done it.

But where had it landed?

His curiosity was a dull, morbid throb beneath the fading adrenaline. He leaned forward, squinting at the screen. The pin now sat in a part of the city he vaguely recognized. He used the mouse, his hand still unsteady, to zoom in, centering the map on the pin’s new location.

Street names came into focus. He knew this area. It was an older part of town, filled with brick buildings and large, leafy trees. The pin was hovering over one of the largest structures on the block. A label, printed in small, unassuming text, floated beside it.

St. Jude’s Home for Children.

The name didn’t register at first. It was just a place. A location. Another address on a map filled with them.

Then, understanding dawned, cold and slow and horrifying.

St. Jude’s. The orphanage. The place they always showed on the local news during the holidays, with smiling kids and donation drives. A place of sanctuary. A place filled with children who had already lost everything.

Alex stared at the screen, the joyous relief of moments ago curdling into a black, heavy dread that settled in the pit of his stomach. He saw the Henderson family’s red pin in his mind, the crime scene photo a permanent stain on his memory. He thought of David McMillan’s lonely shoe in that empty office. He knew what a yellow pin meant. He knew what it heralded.

In his blind, screaming panic, he hadn’t just moved a curse. He hadn’t just saved himself.

He had pointed that pale, shrieking thing with the needle-sharp teeth directly at a building full of innocent children. He had condemned dozens of them to the same fate that had been clawing at his window just minutes ago.

The weight of his choice crashed down on him, a moral gravity so immense it stole the air from his lungs. He was safe. He was alive. And in exchange, he had just sentenced a building full of orphans to death. The horror was no longer outside his window. It was inside him now, a cold, permanent resident in the hollow space where his relief used to be.