The House Cracking Open
The manor groans under the weight of its unraveling heart.
Outside, the night is a whirl of cold rain and moonlight, but within these walls, time peels back like damp wallpaper layer after layer of buried sin.
Lila stands at the edge of the music room, barefoot on splintering floorboards, her breath fogging in the unnatural cold. Theo is beside her, bloodless but breathing for now.
Around them, the walls split. Black ink seeps like veins beneath plaster. Here, in this dying architecture, truth no longer hides behind locked doors.
She touches Theo's wrist. He flinches at first, like her warmth might remind him he's meant to be dead.
"Stay with me," she says. The plea curls in the hollow of her chest where her courage used to live.
He tries to smile, but his teeth chatter. "Always."
2️⃣ The Corridor of Memory
A corridor unfurls where the ballroom should be: walls lined with mirrors so tarnished they reflect not the present, but fractured yesterdays.
They step inside, hand in hand.
Each mirror flickers a moment:
Theo as a boy, pounding scales into the old upright piano until his fingers bled.
Vincent burning sheet music under a moonless sky, praying this would sever his brother's deal.
Lila, sketching a cradle that never held a child ink whispering promises it never meant to keep.
Theo watches the images like a condemned man forced to witness his own sentencing.
She feels him tremble. His voice breaks:"I remember the gun now. How cold the barrel was behind my ear. How Vincent sobbed before he pulled the trigger."
3️⃣ Witness to Death
A new door appears. Old oak, brass handle slick with damp.
Lila knows. Her body resists every nerve screaming Don't open it, don't remember this.
But she must.
She pushes the door wide.
The scene replays, fever-bright:
Theo at the grand piano, delirious from sleepless nights, fingers bruised and skin thin as paper.
Vincent, pacing behind him young, desperate, pockets stuffed with letters begging the Collector to end the bargain.
"Stop playing, Theo!" Vincent shouts in this echo.
Theo doesn't stop. The keys ring out like gunshots.
"ONE MORE SONG" Theo cries, tears and spit flying.
Vincent's hand trembles. The pistol's weight drags him down like guilt made solid.
"Forgive me "
The shot explodes. Theo jerks. The keys slam dissonant. Blood arcs across ivory.
Vincent collapses beside the body, screaming into his palms.
4️⃣ Lila's Scream
The vision fractures. Lila drops to her knees in the dirt of that memory-room, sobbing until her throat splinters.
Theo her Theo ... kneels with her, ghost-flesh solid in this half-world. He cups her face, smears her tears with ink-stained thumbs.
"It wasn't your fault," he whispers.
She chokes on the word. "But I bound myself to this place. I kept it alive. I thought if I stayed near you, I could undo it."
"You loved me. That's all you did wrong."
Outside the cracked door, Vincent's echo still cries for forgiveness that never came.
5️⃣ The Ruin's Collapse
The floor pitches sideways the entire manor shifts on its rotten foundation. Rafters break. Shingles rain down in muffled thunder.
Through a shattered window, moonlight floods in, silvering the blood still dripping from Theo's phantom brow.
Lila stands. Her body fights to obey. Her vision doubles. The ruin wants to swallow her, drag her into the same black well where the Collector sleeps.
But Theo steadies her. "Look at me."
He kisses her slow, searing and in that touch she feels the gunshot, the last chord, the contract burning to ash.
He pulls away just as a beam crashes down inches behind him.
"Not yet," he says. "One more escape."
6️⃣ Fleeing the Living Tomb
They stumble through the collapsing hallway. Doors rip from hinges. Mirrors explode in glittering confetti of cursed reflections.
Behind them, the piano shrieks a final note alive even without keys to press.
They burst through the front doors together.
The night air swallows them: cold rain needles their skin; thunder claps like the final applause.
Behind them, Holloway Manor sighs its last. Walls fold in. The roof caves inward, pulling decades of secrets down with it.
7️⃣ A Wound That Breathes
In the muddy garden, Lila drops to her knees, dragging Theo with her.
Up close, he's terrifying: half-corporeal, ribs showing where the bullet dug deep. His pulse flickers in and out like a faulty star.
She cups his face again. Her tears mix with the rain. "Don't you dare vanish on me now."
He laughs, soft and ragged. "I don't think I have a choice."
"You do! You always do. We survived the house. We can survive the time wound too...."
Thunder silences her.
Theo's eyes roll skyward. His breath rattles out in wisps of ink.
For a moment just a heartbeat..... she sees what he sees:A world without the Collector.A world where his music lives, but not at the cost of his soul.A world where she sketches not to bind, but to remember.
8️⃣ The Guilt Unspooled
A shadow falls over her. Vincent, older now, dripping with rain.
His face is ruin raw grief, bone-tired sorrow.
"I tried to kill him to save him," he rasps. "And I failed twice."
Lila lifts her tear-wet gaze. "You gave him freedom tonight. You broke the loop."
He kneels, kisses Theo's limp hand. "Brother, forgive me."
The ruin behind them exhales dust and dies for good.
9️⃣ A Pulse After Death
Minutes pass. Maybe centuries. Lila's world shrinks to Theo's heartbeat a flicker under her palm.
Then impossibly a flutter.
He coughs. His eyes flicker open. He breathes.
He is not quite ghost, not quite boy. He is Theo raw, unfinished, but hers.
She sobs laughter into his throat. He mumbles a curse against her lips. Vincent grips their shoulders as if anchoring them to earth.
🔟 Epilogue in the Mud
Dawn crawls over the ruin like forgiveness.
They sit in the garden where roses once choked on poison ivy.
No house behind them. No Collector. Just three survivors with mud on their knees and rain in their lashes.
Theo leans against her shoulder, heavier now. Human now.
"You'll stay?" she whispers.
He hums. "As long as you draw me, I'll play for you."
Vincent sighs a prayer to the sunrise. Maybe, for the first time, he believes it might be heard........