Chapter 5: An Unlikely Ally

Chapter 5: An Unlikely Ally

The voice on the other end of the line was a splash of cold, clear water in the suffocating heat of Elara’s terror. "Elara? What's wrong? You sound awful."

"Chloe," Elara repeated, her voice a thin, reedy thing. "You have to come over. Please. Something's happening."

"Happening? What's happening? Is it a break-in? Did you call the police?" Chloe’s paralegal mind immediately leaped to procedure, to logical steps.

"No, it's—it's not like that. I can't explain over the phone. You'll think I'm crazy." A dry, hysterical sob escaped her. "Maybe I am. I don't know anymore. Please, just come."

There was a pause, a brief moment where Elara could picture her older sister perfectly: pinching the bridge of her nose, her brow furrowed with a mixture of annoyance and genuine concern. "Okay," Chloe said finally, her voice softening. "Okay, Ellie. I'm on my way. Don't go anywhere. Lock the door. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

The twenty minutes felt like a lifetime. Elara paced the length of her small apartment, a caged animal in a zoo of her own making. She looked at the clean floor where the turquoise shard had been, at the empty space on the bookshelf. The lack of evidence was somehow more terrifying than its presence. It meant the entity was tidy. It cleaned up after itself.

When the sharp, authoritative knock came, she nearly jumped out of her skin. She fumbled with the chain and locks before pulling the door open.

Chloe Vance stood on the threshold, a stark contrast to the wreck her sister had become. Dressed in smart, practical trousers and a crisp blouse, her dark hair pulled back in a neat, efficient ponytail, she looked like an anchor to the real world. Her sharp, intelligent eyes took in Elara’s state—the disheveled hair, the dark-ringed eyes wide with fear, the trembling hands—and her expression softened from professional concern to sisterly alarm.

"My God, Ellie," she breathed, stepping inside and closing the door firmly behind her. "You look like you haven't slept in a week." She placed a cool hand on Elara’s forehead. "You're not feverish. Have you been eating?"

"It's the book, Chloe," Elara whispered, pulling away and gesturing vaguely at the empty apartment.

Chloe’s gaze swept the room. It was messier than usual, but otherwise normal. "What book?"

And so, it all came tumbling out. The late-night Vinted purchase, the seller's cheesy warning of a curse. The unnervingly good stories. The first night, the smiling reflection in the window. The nightmares of drowning in ink. The book moving on its own, its relentless return to her nightstand. The shattered vase, the failed, smokeless fire in the alley, and the scorched, taunting message. Finally, she told her about the anonymous email, the photograph of her own bookshelf sent to her at work, and the phantom turquoise shard that was there one minute and gone the next.

She spoke in a frantic, disjointed rush, her narrative jumping from one horror to the next. She knew how she sounded. Unhinged. Paranoid. A textbook case of a breakdown brought on by stress and isolation.

Chloe listened patiently, her expression unreadable. She didn't interrupt. When Elara was finished, breathless and shaking, Chloe was silent for a long moment.

"Okay," she said, her voice calm and measured. "Okay, Ellie. That's… a lot. It sounds like you've been under an incredible amount of stress."

"It's not stress!" Elara’s voice cracked. "It's real!"

"I'm not saying it's not real to you," Chloe said carefully, her tone gentle, the one she used to use when Elara was a child, convinced of monsters under the bed. "But look at it from my perspective. A scary book gave you nightmares. You're overworked, you're not sleeping, and your mind is playing tricks on you. The email could have been a very cruel, targeted prank. It's not impossible."

"The fire, Chloe. It wouldn't burn."

"Damp paper, maybe? A chemical treatment on the leather?" Chloe offered, already reaching for rational explanations. "And the book is gone now, right? Maybe you threw it out in a panic and don't remember. Maybe the prankster who sent the email also stole it."

The condescension, however gentle, was a physical blow. Elara felt her last hope begin to crumble. "So you don't believe me."

Chloe sighed, her shoulders slumping. She walked over and put her hands on Elara’s arms, forcing her to make eye contact. "I believe that you are terrified. And that's enough for me. So, here's what we're going to do." She switched into her take-charge, paralegal mode. "We are going to search this apartment, top to bottom. We'll be methodical. We'll look for this book. If we don't find it, you're packing a bag and staying with me for a few days. Get some sleep, eat a real meal. We'll figure this out."

It wasn't belief, but it was help. Elara nodded numbly, grateful for any port in the storm, even one that thought the storm was all in her head.

For the next hour, they searched. Chloe was as good as her word, methodical and thorough. They emptied bookshelves, cleared out closets, looked under the bed, in the oven, inside the cistern of the toilet. They found dust bunnies, a missing sock, and a few old receipts, but no thick, leather-bound manuscript. With every empty space they checked, Elara’s despair deepened, and Chloe’s look of concerned certainty grew stronger.

Finally, they stood in the middle of the living room, the search concluded. The apartment was more chaotic than before, but definitively book-free.

"See?" Chloe said softly. "It's gone. Whatever it was, it's over now." She reached out to squeeze Elara's shoulder. "I'll make us some tea, and then we'll pack you a—"

She stopped mid-sentence. Her nose wrinkled.

"What is it?" Elara asked, her own senses on high alert.

"What is that smell?" Chloe asked, turning her head slightly, trying to place it. "It's like… a damp basement? And old metal?"

Elara froze. Her blood turned to ice. She knew that smell. The musty scent of ancient, rotting paper and the sharp, metallic tang of old pennies or dried blood. The scent of the manuscript. "You can smell it?" she whispered.

Before Chloe could answer, the lights in the apartment flickered violently, once, twice, casting the room in strobing, epileptic flashes. Then, with a soft pop, they died. The low hum of the refrigerator cut out. The digital clock on the cable box went dark. Elara's laptop screen, sitting on the coffee table, blinked off. They were plunged into an absolute, suffocating darkness and a profound silence.

"Power cut," Chloe stated, her voice tight but still clinging to logic. "Stay put, I've got a torch on my phone."

Elara didn't hear her. She was listening to the silence. A silence that was suddenly broken.

From across the room, in the direction of the main bookshelf, came a soft but distinct sound.

Thud.

It was the sound of a heavy book being placed flat on a wooden surface.

Both sisters heard it. In the blackness, Elara could feel the shift in the air as Chloe’s body went rigid with shock.

A moment later, as abruptly as they had died, the lights flickered back on. The refrigerator hummed to life. Everything was exactly as it had been. The bookshelf was unchanged. The coffee table was empty. Nothing was out of place.

Except for one thing.

On the coffee table, Elara’s laptop, which had been powered down, was now open and awake. Its screen glowed with a bright, sterile white light, illuminating the stunned faces of the two sisters.

And displayed on the screen, in a simple, stark black font, were four words. The message wasn't a scorched mark this time, but a digital scar, typed out for them both to see. A shared, unexplainable, undeniable truth.

it's too late now.

Chloe stared, her mouth slightly agape. All the logic, all the rational explanations, all the condescending pity drained from her face, replaced by a dawning, horrified belief. She looked from the laptop screen to Elara’s terrified eyes, and for the first time, she truly saw what her sister had been seeing.

She slowly sank onto the sofa, her gaze locked on the glowing words. The anchor had been cut loose. The real world had just shown its teeth.

"Okay," Chloe whispered, her voice shaking but laced with a new, steely resolve she didn't know she possessed. "Okay, Ellie."

She looked at her younger sister, no longer seeing a victim of stress, but a survivor of an attack. Her protective instinct, fierce and absolute, surged to the forefront, eclipsing her fear.

"You're right," she said, her voice growing stronger. "It's real. So we fight it. Tell me everything again. From the very beginning. Every detail about the Vinted listing. We're going to find out where this thing came from."