Chapter 3: The Price of Passage

The silence in the house was heavier than it had ever been. My parents had come home from their dinner, placated by a full meal and the creature’s cunning manipulation. They’d found ‘Charlie’ reading a history textbook in the living room, the picture of a diligent student, and my fate was sealed. I was the hysterical, jealous one. He was the mature, misunderstood victim. Now, hours later, every creak of the floorboards, every sigh of the house settling, sounded like a threat.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, my bedroom door locked for the first time in my life. On my nightstand lay my journal, open to a fresh page. The 'cheat code', I'd started calling it in my head. A way to track the glitches in the program. I’d already filled half a page with frantic scrawls.

Item 1: Voice. Deeper, no inflection. Monotone. Sounds rehearsed. Item 2: Posture. Stiff, straight. Doesn't fidget. Ever. Item 3: Vocabulary. ‘Adequate,’ ‘sufficient,’ ‘productive.’ Who talks like that? Item 4: Manipulation. Turned Mom and Dad against me in under 5 minutes. Used my concern as a weapon.

Reading the list didn’t make me feel better. It just confirmed I wasn't crazy. I was sharing a house with a phantom, a cuckoo in the nest, and I was utterly alone. I clicked my pen, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet, and added a final, desperate entry.

Item 5: Eyes. The worst part. They look, but they don't see. There’s nothing behind them.

I must have drifted into a state of shallow, anxious sleep, because the sound that pulled me out of it was soft, almost subliminal. A faint scrape, like wood on wood.

My eyes snapped open. I held my breath, listening. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat in the oppressive silence. Nothing. Maybe I’d imagined it. Maybe it was a branch against the house.

Then I heard it again. Scrape. Thump.

It came from Charlie’s room.

Adrenaline dumped into my system, cold and sharp. I slid out of bed, my bare feet silent on the carpet. I unlocked my door with an agonizingly slow turn of the knob and crept into the hallway. The moonlight streaming through the landing window cast long, distorted shadows. Charlie’s door was slightly ajar.

I peered through the crack. His bed was empty, the covers thrown back. The window