Chapter 2 - THE SEALED ROOM
The silence in the room became heavier than the storm raging outside.
Claire stared at her husband, the sound of the rain against the second-floor window fading into a dull, hypnotic roar. Twelve years of marriage—twelve years of shared coffee mornings, shared bills, holding hands in hospital waiting rooms, building a life together—and suddenly, the man sitting across from her felt like a complete stranger.
"Rebecca," Claire repeated, the name sounding foreign, almost dangerous, on her tongue. "You have a sister named Rebecca? Ethan, how could you keep something like that from me?"
Ethan didn’t answer right away. He walked over to the small wooden desk in the corner of their bedroom, his movements stiff and mechanical, like a man moving under water. He picked up his cup of coffee, long cold, and set it down without drinking. When he turned around, his eyes were hollow.
"I didn't keep it from you because I wanted to hurt you, Claire," he said, his voice barely a rasp. "I kept it from you because if I said her name out loud, I knew the nightmare would come back. And look—now it has."
Across the flooded street, the dark shape of the abandoned house loomed like a rotting tooth against the grey sky. The lightning flared again, jagged and bright, casting violent shadows through their bedroom window. For a fraction of a second, the girl in the window across the street was visible again, her small hand pressed against the glass, holding the plush white rabbit with the single lavender ear.
"Mom," Lily whispered, her fingers digging into Claire’s jeans. "She’s not waving anymore. She’s tapping."
Claire leaned down, wrapping her arm tightly around her eight-year-old daughter. "She’s just trying to get our attention, sweetie. It’s okay."
"No, Mom," Lily said, her voice eerily calm for a child in the middle of a natural disaster. "She’s not tapping on the glass. She’s tapping a rhythm. Like the song you sing me before I go to sleep."
Claire felt a cold drop of sweat trace its way down her spine. "Ethan, we need to call someone. The police, the rescue teams—"
"The phones have been dead for three hours, Claire," Ethan interrupted sharply. "The cell towers in this part of the valley drowned when the dam overflowed. We’re cut off. The floodwater is eight feet deep out there. No boat is coming down this residential street until the main river recedes."
"Then what is a child doing in an abandoned house?!" Claire shouted, her patience finally snapping. "If she’s trapped in there, she’s going to drown if the water rises any higher! The lower floor of that place must be entirely submerged!"
Ethan shook his head slowly, refusing to look back out the window. "That house doesn't have a basement, Claire. But it has an attic. A reinforced attic. My father built it before he left."
"Your father?" Claire stepped forward, her hands clenching into fists. "Ethan, talk to me. Stop giving me cryptic answers. If we are stuck in this house together, trapped by a flood, with a ghost or a trapped child looking at us from across the street, I deserve the truth!"
Ethan dropped into the leather armchair, burying his face in his calloused hands. Outside, the wind howled, rattling the glass panes. When he finally looked up, his eyes were wet.
"Thirty years ago," Ethan began, his voice trembling, "my family lived right there. House number 404. My dad, Marcus, was an architect. A obsessed, quiet man who spent months in his workshop downstairs. My mother, Eleanor, was... sick. Not physically, but in her mind. Some days she was bright and loving, and other days she couldn't get out of bed. And then there was Rebecca."
Claire watched him closely, holding Lily close to her side. "What happened to Rebecca?"
"She was six years old when she disappeared," Ethan whispered. "It was during the Great Flood of 1996. Almost identical to the storm we're in right now. The water came up fast. The power went out. My father told me to stay in my bedroom upstairs while he went down to secure the basement windows. My mother was frantically trying to find Rebecca. But Rebecca was nowhere to be found."
He paused, swallowing hard.
"The next morning, when the water drained away, the authorities searched the house. They found her stuffed rabbit—that exact white rabbit with the lavender ear—floating near the back door. The back gate was wide open. The police concluded she had panicked, opened the door, and was swept away by the current. Her body was never recovered."
"Oh, Ethan..." Claire’s voice softened, her anger melting into sudden, heavy grief. "I'm so sorry. But why didn't you ever tell me?"
"Because that wasn't the end of it," Ethan said, his voice dropping an octave. "Three weeks after the funeral—the symbolic funeral, since there was no body—my father boarded up the entire house. He sealed the attic door from the outside with heavy iron bolts. He grabbed me, threw our bags into the truck, and we drove away. He swore never to speak her name again. He said the house was corrupted. He said... he left something behind."
Lily pulled away from Claire’s hip and walked back toward the glass window. The water outside was churning, muddy brown and filled with floating debris—snagged tree branches, plastic bins, a submerged lawnmower.
"Dad?" Lily asked quiet.
"Yes, Lily?"
"If your sister went away thirty years ago..." Lily turned around slowly, holding her identical rabbit against her stomach. "...then who is holding the rabbit right now?"
Claire ran to the window and pushed the curtain aside.
May you like
The storm seemed to pause for a heartbeat. Across the street, in the upper window of the ruined house, the figure of the girl was still there. But she wasn't alone anymore.
Behind the child, emerging slowly out of the shadows of the unlit room, stood the tall, gaunt silhouette of an adult.
