Chizzy sat cross-legged on the bedroom floor, the letter trembling in her hands. The paper was worn, yellowed at the edges, and creased with age. The ink had faded slightly, but the handwriting remained unmistakable her mother's soft, looping script. Her heart thundered as she stared at the first line, hesitant to read but unable to look away.
My dearest Chizzy,
If you are reading this, then I am gone—and it means the truth has begun to wake.
Chizzy's breath caught in her throat. Her hands trembled slightly as she continued.
I wanted to tell you everything, but I was afraid. Afraid of what it would mean for you to know what really happened that night. What your father did. What I allowed.
She froze. The fire that had taken both her parents had always been an unanswered question, a gaping wound no one in the village wanted to speak about. She had assumed it was an accident, or something too painful to relive. But her mother's words hinted at a darkness far deeper.
You must never trust the silence in this house. It holds memories you don't want, and some you will need. Find the red key. It's hidden beneath the floor in the pantry. It opens the cellar. Don't go alone.
A chill ran through her. The house seemed to groan in response to the letter, as though it, too, remembered what her mother had buried.
The rest of the letter was more personal—filled with sorrow, fragments of love, and guilt. Her mother had tried to protect her from something ancient. Something still here.
Chizzy sat in stunned silence for several minutes, staring at the red key mentioned in the letter as if it might materialize in her hand. Her thoughts reeled. The cellar. A red key. Her father's involvement. It felt like she had stumbled into the middle of someone else's nightmare, and yet every word was hers to carry.
She folded the letter with shaking fingers and tucked it into her coat pocket. The pantry was just down the hall, dark and silent. Her mother's voice lingered in her ears, soft and grave:
Don't go alone.
But alone was all she had.