Chapter 5: The Price of Freedom

Chapter 5: The Price of Freedom

The front door clicked shut, leaving Alex in a silence more terrifying than the preceding chaos. The air was still and cold, heavy with the weight of Élise’s parting words. This is your family’s filth. It is your job to clean it up. In his hand, the burlap doll felt hot, a feverish lump of fabric and moss that pulsed faintly, awakened by the smear of his own blood. It was a grotesque, primitive weapon for an impossible war.

He looked toward the office doorway. The silhouette of his brother stood motionless, a statue carved from shadow. The entity was waiting, watching him, its amusement replaced by a focused, predatory stillness. The game was over. Now, there was only the confrontation.

Every instinct screamed for him to run, to find a way out of this house-turned-tomb and never look back. But he couldn’t. He saw Peter’s face in his mind—not the vacant mask of the possessed, but the fleeting, terrified glimpse of his real brother, screaming for help from behind the monster’s eyes. He had to try. He was a Vance. This was his filth.

Clutching the doll, Alex took a hesitant step toward the office. Then another. He crossed the threshold, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The stench of the smashed binding jar—stagnant water, rot, and something unnervingly metallic—still hung in the air.

The thing in Peter’s body turned its head with that same fluid, unnatural grace. “The old witch left you a toy,” it whispered, the voice a dry rustle inside Peter’s chest. The entity’s eyes, black and bottomless, fixed on the doll in his hand. “Did she tell you it would save you? She lies. There is no saving. There is only the opening of the gate.”

Alex’s hand trembled, but he forced himself to hold his ground. He remembered Élise's warning: It will fight you. You must be cruel.

“Get out of him,” Alex said, his own voice sounding thin and reedy. He took another step forward, holding the doll out like a crucifix. “The invitation is cancelled. Get out of my brother.”

A low chuckle vibrated from Peter’s throat. “Your brother?” the entity mocked. “He held the door open for me. He begged for me. He is mine.”

And then the attack began.

The air in the room crackled, charged with an invisible energy that made the hair on Alex’s arms stand on end. The shadows in the corners of the room deepened, stretching and writhing like living things. A low hum vibrated up through the floorboards, growing into a deep, guttural groan that shook the entire house.

“You think you can cast me out?” the entity hissed, its voice multiplying, echoing from every corner of the room at once. “I know you, Alex Vance. I have walked the halls of your brother’s memory. I know what you fear.”

The room warped. For a sickening moment, it was no longer his office, but a pale, sterile hospital room. The smell of antiseptic filled his nostrils. He saw his mother, frail and withered in a bed, her breath a shallow, rattling whisper. He saw a younger version of himself, standing by the door, unable to get closer, paralyzed by grief and fear. And he saw Peter, weeping at her bedside, alone.

“You abandoned him,” the entity’s voice whispered, layered over his mother’s dying breaths. “You left him to drown in his grief while you built your safe, little life. You are the reason he came looking for me.”

Alex cried out, stumbling back. The vision was so real, the guilt so sharp and fresh it felt like a physical blade twisting in his gut.

“No,” he gasped, clutching the doll tighter. The burlap felt like his only anchor to reality.

The scene shifted. Now he was in his own living room, six months ago, the phone pressed hard against his ear. He could hear his own voice, cold and unforgiving, spitting venom at his brother. “Call me when you decide to grow up.”

Peter’s voice, raw and desperate, answered from the thing in front of him. “I was trying, Alex! I just wanted to show you I could find something… something more! Don’t do this! You’re hurting me!”

The entity was wearing Peter’s terror like a mask, his brother’s face contorted in agony, tears streaming down his hollow cheeks. It was a perfect performance.

“Please, Alex, stop!” Peter’s voice begged. “It’s burning! Whatever you’re doing, you’re killing me, not it! Please!”

This was the cruelty Élise had spoken of. The test. He had to be deaf to his brother’s pleas, even if they were real. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the visions away, focusing on the heat of the doll in his hand. He channeled every ounce of his fear, his guilt, his rage, and his desperate, stubborn love for his brother into that crude effigy.

“GET. OUT,” Alex roared, his voice tearing from his throat. He lunged forward, shoving past the psychic storm of memories and pain.

The moment he moved, the physical assault began. Books flew from shelves like startled birds. The desk scraped across the floor, and the computer monitor exploded in a shower of sparks and glass. The force in the room pressed in on him, a physical weight trying to crush him, to hold him back. But he pushed through it, his entire world narrowing to the figure of his brother and the doll in his hand.

He slammed the poupée against Peter’s chest.

The contact unleashed a detonation of raw, supernatural power. A scream ripped from Peter’s throat—a horrifying, layered sound that was his brother’s agony and the entity’s incandescent rage, twisted into a single, unholy shriek. A blinding white light erupted from the point of contact, throwing Alex backward. The windows of the house didn’t just break; they vaporized, the frames blasted outward. The drywall cracked and split, and the very foundations of the house screamed in protest.

And then, as suddenly as it began, it was over.

Silence. A profound, ringing silence filled only by the whisper of the wind through the shattered windows and the faint crackle of overloaded wiring in the walls. The room was a disaster zone. Furniture was splintered, books were shredded, and a black, scorched mark marred the wall where the binding jar had broken.

In the center of the wreckage, Peter lay crumpled on the floor, motionless. The doll lay beside him, smoking faintly, its button eyes staring up at the ruined ceiling.

“Peter?” Alex whispered, his body aching as he crawled toward his brother. “Pete?”

He rolled him over gently. Peter’s face was slack, his skin pale and clammy, but the horrifying emptiness in his eyes was gone. They were just… closed. Alex pressed his fingers to his brother’s neck. A pulse. Faint, thready, but there.

Peter’s eyelids fluttered open. His eyes, his real eyes, clouded with confusion and exhaustion, focused on Alex.

“Alex?” he rasped, his voice a ghost of its former self.

Relief, so potent and overwhelming it felt like a physical blow, slammed into Alex. He choked back a sob, pulling his brother into a sitting position, supporting his limp weight. “I’m here, Pete. It’s over. It’s gone.”

Tears welled in Peter’s eyes, real tears of sorrow and shame. “I’m so sorry,” he sobbed, his body shaking with weakness. “I just… I just wanted to know. To see what was on the other side. They said… they said I could have power, knowledge… all I had to do was make a deal.” He buried his face in Alex’s shoulder. “Power for a door. I was the price. And I tried to make you the prize.”

Alex held him, the confession confirming the whole nightmare. It didn't matter now. He had his brother back. The house was destroyed, his life was in shambles, but Peter was free. That was the only thing that mattered.

“It’s okay,” Alex said, stroking his brother’s greasy hair. “We’ll fix this. It’s all over now.”

Peter pulled back slowly, leaning heavily on Alex for support. He looked around the devastated room, his expression one of profound exhaustion and regret. He looked back at Alex, a flicker of gratitude in his tired eyes.

“Yeah,” Peter whispered. “Over.”

And then, for just a fraction of a second, his lips twitched. The expression of gratitude melted away, replaced by the ghost of something else. It was a slow, cruel smile, stretching the corners of his mouth in a way that was not his own. It was a smile of ancient cunning and triumphant patience. The smile of the rider who had just been thrown, only to land gracefully on its feet.

The smile vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced again by Peter’s exhausted, broken expression. But Alex had seen it. His blood ran cold, and the victory he had felt only a moment before curdled into a new, more profound and sickening dread.

The price of freedom, he realized with a lurch of absolute horror, had not yet been paid.