Chapter 4 4.
Chapter 4 – Cassian
The morning came colorless, as if someone had drained the world of pigment. The manor felt hollow, the silence heavier than sleep. I sat in bed staring at the folded note Ivy had left me—five words that gnawed at the edges of my mind.
Don’t go to the west wing.
Every rule ever written seems to exist only so it can be broken.
I dressed slowly, ignoring the dizziness that came when I stood too fast. The neurologist called them “episodes.” I called them cracks. Because sometimes when they happened, the world showed its seams.
Downstairs, the air carried the smell of wood smoke and damp stone. Ivy wasn’t there. She usually was—pouring tea, moving with that maddening quiet of hers. Today, nothing. Only the tick of the hallway clock that still read 3:08.
Perfect. Here’s the continuation — Chapter 4 (Part 2).
It keeps the same dark, psychological, mysterious energy, with first-person depth, sensory atmosphere, and unpredictable turns.
---
The brass handle was cold under my palm, the same way a secret feels when you first touch it. I turned it, half-expecting resistance, but it opened soundlessly.
The corridor beyond smelled of dust and lavender gone stale. The wallpaper peeled in curling tongues; portraits hung crooked, their eyes dim with neglect. My footsteps echoed, then softened as though the floor decided it didn’t want witnesses.
I hadn’t been here since the fire. Or maybe I had—my memories were uncertain things lately, like photographs left too long in the sun.
At the end of the hall, a door waited—heavy oak, scorched around the edges. The lock was broken, as though someone had forced it recently. Ivy’s handwriting returned to me like a whisper: Don’t go to the west wing.
I pushed.
The hinges groaned, and the smell hit me first—ash and something chemical, faint but sharp. The room beyond was a ruin: half-burned furniture, blackened walls, the ghost of a chandelier overhead.
And in the middle of it all, a chair.
Someone had been sitting there.
A cup on the side table still held a thin layer of tea, cold but not ancient.
Someone had been here last night.
I stepped closer. The air felt wrong—warmer near the chair, almost pulsing. Then I saw the photographs scattered on the floor. Dozens of them, curling at the edges.
Every single one was of me.
Sleeping. Reading. Standing at windows. All from angles I couldn’t have seen.
My throat closed. I knelt, shaking, and picked one up. The back of it was stamped with a date. Two weeks ago.
I wasn’t losing my mind. Someone was documenting it.
---
I heard a sound behind me and turned sharply.
“I told you not to come here.”
Ivy’s voice.
She stood in the doorway, pale under the morning light, her eyes wide—not with anger, but fear.
“Ivy, what is this?” I demanded. “Who took these?”
She didn’t answer. She stepped forward, carefully, as though approaching a ledge. “You shouldn’t be here. This room—Cassian, it triggers your episodes. You start remembering things that aren’t true.”
“Then tell me the truth,” I said.
Her mouth opened, then closed again. The pause was answer enough.
“Ivy.” My voice cracked. “Were you taking them?”
For a moment, her face was unreadable. Then something in her broke; she looked away. “Not all of them.”
The floor seemed to tilt.
“What do you mean, not all?”
“I was asked to monitor you,” she said quietly. “Before I ever came here. The board hired me after the accident—after your sister died.”
The room spun, my pulse hammering in my ears. “You said you didn’t know her.”
“I didn’t. Not until I saw the tapes.”
“Tapes?”
She hesitated, then reached into her coat and pulled out a small black cassette. “You were supposed to watch this only when you were strong enough. The doctor said you weren’t ready.”
“I’ll decide what I’m ready for.”
She nodded once, resigned, and handed it to me.
---
Downstairs, the old player in the library still worked, its red light flickering like a heartbeat. I pressed Play.
Static. Then a voice—mine.
“Day twenty-six,” the recording began. “She’s still alive.”
The sound of breathing. My breathing. Then another voice—a man’s.
“You need to end it, Cassian. Before she ends you.”
Then the tape cut to silence.
I stared at the spinning reels, my reflection warped in their glass.
Alive? End who?
Ivy stood across from me, watching. Her hands were clasped tightly behind her back, as if she were holding herself from running.
“What is this?” I whispered.
She shook her head. “You don’t remember, do you?”
“Remember what?”
“The accident wasn’t an accident.”
---
For a moment, everything went white—noise, light, heartbeat all collapsing into one blinding surge. Then images came in flashes: fire, screams, someone calling my name. A locked door. My own hand turning the key.
I gasped and stumbled back.
“Ivy, I didn’t—”
“You don’t know what you did,” she said softly. “But someone does. And they’ve been in this house longer than either of us.”
“Who?”
She didn’t answer, just glanced toward the ceiling.
The sound came then—a slow, deliberate creak, like a footstep. Then another.
Someone was upstairs.
---
We moved together down the corridor, the light dimming as clouds swallowed the sun. Ivy walked ahead, flashlight trembling in her grip. The beam caught the walls, the staircase, the portraits—all familiar yet foreign now.
Halfway up, something shifted in the shadows above us—a flicker of movement too quick to be certain.
“Ivy,” I whispered, “stop.”
But she didn’t. She climbed the last step, turned the corner—then froze.
I followed, heart pounding.
At the top stood a woman.
Her silver hair fell over her face like smoke, and her dress—my mother’s old mourning gown—hung in tatters.
But she wasn’t my mother.
She looked like me.
Older. Paler. Eyes hollow as glass.
The figure smiled faintly, tilting her head. “I told you we’d meet again.”
The flashlight fell, clattering to the floor.
“Ivy,” I whispered, “do you see her?”
But Ivy’s face had gone bloodless. “Cassian… there’s no one there.”
The hallway blurred. The woman—my mirror—stepped closer, her voice low, almost tender.
“You burned the wrong sister.”
Then the light snapped out.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Ivy screamed.
And in that instant, the whisper came again—soft, close, and inside my head this time:
Don’t trust her, Cassian. She’s here to finish what you started.
