Chapter 1: The Inheritance of Lies

Chapter 1: The Inheritance of Lies

The air in the house was a physical weight, thick with the ghosts of stale cigarette smoke, the sour tang of cheap whiskey, and a deeper, more funereal scent of dust and decay. Treyton Vance felt it press down on him the moment he stepped over the threshold, a familiar oppression that coiled in his gut. He’d spent six years trying to forget this feeling, escaping to the anonymous concrete hum of the city, but his father’s death had a long reach.

The official story was simple, clean. Lung cancer. A slow, expected decline that had finally claimed the man who was already a phantom in Trey’s life. But nothing about this house had ever been simple or clean. Peeling floral wallpaper drooped in damp corners, revealing patches of moldy drywall. The carpet, a ghastly shade of 70s orange, was permanently stained with memories Trey fought to keep buried.

His goal was brutally straightforward: pack up the essentials, sign the papers with the estate agent, and get the hell out. Erase this place from his life, for good this time.

His brother, Neil, was already there. He was standing in the kitchen, his back to the door, methodically placing chipped coffee mugs into a cardboard box. He looked… fine. Too fine. While Trey wore his stress like a second skin—dark circles bruising the flesh under his haunted green eyes, his frame gaunt and wired—Neil looked solid. Healthy. He hadn't said more than ten words since Trey arrived, his silence a wall between them.

“Anything in the attic?” Trey asked, his voice raw.

Neil didn’t turn. “Just junk. Dad never threw anything away.”

“Right.” Of course. The attic was the final resting place for every broken promise and forgotten hobby. A tomb of junk. Trey’s desire to just leave it all, to let the house be bulldozed with its contents intact, was a powerful current. But a stubborn, masochistic part of him, the part that couldn't let go of the need for answers, for something, pulled him toward the creaking pull-down stairs. He had to see it for himself.

He pulled the cord, and the flimsy wooden ladder unfolded with a groan of protest, releasing a cascade of dust motes that danced in the single, grimy shaft of light from the hallway window. The air that drifted down was even more suffocating, smelling of old paper and dead things. Holding his breath, Trey ascended into the gloom.

The attic was a chaotic landscape of forgotten treasures and utter trash. Stacks of yellowed newspapers slumped against water-damaged furniture. A child’s tricycle with one wheel missing lay on its side like a fallen soldier. It was a physical manifestation of his father’s cluttered, decaying mind. Trey moved through the mess, his footsteps muffled by a thick carpet of dust, his sharp memory cataloging every detail as a defense mechanism. He was just about to give up, to concede to Neil’s assessment of ‘just junk,’ when his foot caught on a loose floorboard.

He stumbled, catching himself on a stack of boxes that threatened to topple. Cursing under his breath, he looked down. The board was pried up at one end, just enough to reveal a dark hollow beneath. His heart gave a painful thud. This was deliberate. Hidden.

Driven by a sudden, desperate curiosity, he knelt and worked his fingers into the gap. The wood splintered, but it came loose. There, nestled in the dark space, was a small, leather-bound journal. It was worn, the corners soft with use, held shut by a rotting elastic band.

He sat back on his heels, the journal feeling unnervingly warm in his hands. He snapped the band. The pages were filled with his father’s spidery, barely legible scrawl. Most of it was drunken rambling, rants about bills and loneliness. Trey flipped through, his stomach churning, until he reached the final entry, dated just three weeks ago. The handwriting was different. It was frantic, terrified.

October 12th.

The doctors are wrong. The cancer isn't what's killing me. It's the Bargain. She promised me a miracle, but the price is too high. It’s coming to collect what it's owed. It wears her face.

Trey’s blood went cold. It wears her face. The words echoed in the silent, suffocating space. This wasn’t the narrative of a man dying of cancer. This was the terror of a man who believed he was being hunted. The official story, the one Neil had told him over the phone with such calm detachment, was a lie.

His goal shattered. This was no longer about settling an estate. It was about uncovering one. Clutching the journal, Trey scrambled down the ladder, his mind racing.

He found Neil in the living room, taping up a box with methodical precision.

“What is this?” Trey demanded, his voice shaking as he shoved the open journal into his brother’s line of sight.

Neil glanced at the book, his expression unreadable, before returning to his task. The screech of the packing tape was the only sound for a long moment. “I told you to leave the junk, Trey.”

“This isn’t junk! ‘It wears her face’? What the hell does that mean, Neil? He was terrified.”

Neil finally stopped. He looked at Trey, and for the first time, Trey saw a flicker of something in his eyes. Not grief. Not sadness. Fear. “He was sick, Trey. His mind was going. He was seeing things. Saying crazy stuff. The cancer does that to a person.”

“The cancer didn't write this,” Trey shot back, his voice rising. “This is lucid. This is terror. He talks about a ‘Bargain’. Who is ‘she’?”

Neil’s jaw tightened. He snatched the journal from Trey’s hand and slammed it shut. “Just let it go. For your own good. You ran away from this place once. You should have stayed gone.”

The words were a slap in the face. Neil wasn’t just distant; he was hostile. He was hiding something. The chasm between them had widened into an impassable canyon. Defeated and more isolated than ever, Trey watched his brother slide the journal into his own pocket before turning his back, a clear and final dismissal.

---

Sleep was impossible. Trey lay in his childhood bed, the mattress lumpy and smelling of mothballs, listening to the old house groan and settle around him. Every creak of the floorboards, every rattle of a windowpane in the wind, was a new source of dread. Neil had left an hour ago, with a curt ‘lock up when you’re done,’ leaving Trey utterly alone with the ghosts.

His father’s last words looped in his mind. It wears her face.

Whose face?

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the image of his mother to the surface. She was a ghost of a different sort, gone since he was five. A collection of faded photographs and a gaping hole in his memory. He couldn’t even be sure his memories of her were real.

That’s when he heard it.

Not a creak. Not the wind. A sound from downstairs. A soft, rhythmic thud. The sound of a rocking chair on a wooden floor.

Trey’s heart hammered against his ribs. The old rocking chair in the living room hadn't moved in a decade.

He slid out of bed, his bare feet hitting the cold, dusty floor. Every instinct screamed at him to lock the door, to hide, to wait for morning. But the question from the journal burned too brightly. He had to know.

He crept down the hallway, the stairs groaning under his weight, each step a betrayal of his presence. The soft thudding continued, steady, hypnotic. He reached the bottom of the staircase and peered into the living room, which was bathed in the pale, sickly glow of a streetlamp filtering through the grimy window.

A woman sat in his father’s worn-out armchair, her back to him, rocking gently.

She had dark, wavy hair, just like in the old photos. She wore a simple dress, the kind he vaguely remembered from the edges of his consciousness.

His breath hitched. It was impossible. He was exhausted, grieving, his mind playing tricks on him.

As if sensing his presence, the rocking stopped. The woman slowly turned her head, and the moonlight fell across her features.

Trey’s world tilted on its axis. The face was perfect. Younger than it should be, untouched by the twenty years that had passed, but it was undeniably her. The same gentle eyes, the same soft curve of her lips. It was the face of his mother.

A sob caught in his throat, a mix of terror and a desperate, childish longing. She smiled at him, a warm, reassuring smile that cut through the cold dread.

“Treyton,” she whispered, her voice a perfect echo of a memory he didn't know he had. “You’re finally home.”

He took a stumbling step forward, his mind unable to process the miracle before him. “Mom?” he choked out. “You… you can’t be here.”

Her smile never wavered. It was beautiful, loving, and completely, terrifyingly wrong.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” she said, her voice impossibly calm. “You’re just trapped in a dream.”