The world bled into gold and gray as Isabelle stumbled up from the stone chapel, her breath tearing at her lungs. Her legs screamed with every step, but she didn't dare stop. Behind her, the chanting rose into something wilder, something hungry.
Jean-Baptiste and Théo—
She had no idea what had happened to them.
One moment they had been at her side, flashlights cutting through the blackness.
The next—gone.
Swallowed.
The lighthouse loomed above her now like a dying titan, its glass eye fractured and dimming with the sunset. She didn't know how she got back inside the tower itself, didn't remember crossing the threshold. Only that now she was alone.
Utterly alone.
And something was still following.
Every creak of the wood, every shift of the salt-heavy air, felt weighted with invisible fingers brushing too close to her skin.
Isabelle found herself in a narrow side chamber near the lighthouse's old generator room. It was dark, the ceiling so low she almost had to stoop. Old crates lined the walls—crumbling wood, rusted nails, forgotten relics from a past that had tried too hard to stay buried.
She shoved one of the crates aside in a blind panic, desperate for a hiding place, but froze when it tipped over.
A small wooden box tumbled free.
It hit the floor with a dull clink, the sound oddly final.
Isabelle knelt automatically, her flashlight trembling in her hand, and pried the lid open.
Inside, nestled in rotted velvet, were silver pendants.
Dozens of them.
Each one simple—oval-shaped, thin, the silver tarnished with age. Each one engraved carefully with initials, delicate and deliberate, as if whoever had crafted them believed these tiny marks could preserve something forever.
Isabelle leaned closer.
The first pendant she touched read:
M.L.
The next:
A.C.
Another:
V.D.
Vivienne.
Vivienne Delacroix.
The world tilted again, and Isabelle gripped the edge of the box so hard her knuckles went white.
Vivienne's pendant was here.
And it wasn't old. It wasn't tarnished.
It gleamed against the dirty velvet, polished like it had been placed there recently.
Fresh.
Tears burned at the corners of Isabelle's eyes. She swiped them away angrily.
She reached trembling fingers into the box, meaning to lift Vivienne's pendant free, to hold it, to cling to something tangible that hadn't yet slipped into ash and memory.
But as she moved Vivienne's pendant aside, something underneath caught her eye.
A fresh pendant.
Smaller.
Newer.
Resting atop the others like an accusation.
Her heart gave a sickening lurch.
Engraved on it, in clean sharp letters:
I.L.
Isabelle Laurent.
Her own name.
The pendant was waiting for her.
As if it had always been intended to find its way into her hands.
A sob rose in her throat, and she bit down on it hard enough to taste blood.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no..."
She stumbled back, the box tipping again, the pendants spilling out like a silver river, clinking against the stone floor. The noise was deafening in the cramped room, each impact a tiny death knell.
Outside, the sun dipped lower.
The last fingers of light slipped below the horizon, and the lighthouse's dying lens turned one last time before sputtering out completely.
Darkness rushed in to claim the tower.
And in that blackness, a soft sound broke the stillness:
Footsteps.
Deliberate.
Measured.
Approaching.
Isabelle didn't think—her body moved on pure instinct. She shoved the pendant into her coat pocket, gathered her flashlight, and bolted down the corridor.
The tower seemed to warp around her, every hallway stretching too long, every door suddenly unfamiliar. It was as if the building itself was reshaping, making sure she couldn't leave.
The footsteps grew louder behind her, slow and patient.
Whoever—or whatever—was following her didn't need to rush.
It already knew she had nowhere left to go.
Isabelle burst through a side door and found herself on the narrow balcony wrapping around the lighthouse just below the light chamber. The stone railing was crumbling, the drop sheer and jagged to the rocks below.
The sea howled around her.
Wind whipped her hair across her face, stinging her eyes. She tasted salt and fear on her tongue.
From the corner of her eye, she caught movement.
Not behind her—above.
A shadow perched high on the cracked glass crown of the lighthouse.
Watching.
Waiting.
Its shape was wrong—too lean, too elongated—as if stitched together from scraps of broken people.
She dared a step backward.
The box in her pocket felt like it burned against her ribs.
The silver pendant—her mark—pressing into her like a brand.
The figure above shifted slightly, tilting its head in an almost curious way.
And then, without warning, it leapt.
Downward.
Straight toward her.
Isabelle spun and threw herself against the door. It gave way just in time, sending her sprawling into the lighthouse's spiraling staircase.
The crash of impact sounded behind her—stone cracking, the screech of nails—or claws—on stone.
She scrambled to her feet, boots slipping, lungs aching, and ran downward.
Somewhere deep inside the tower, she knew, the real truth waited.
A place where pendants with initials were just trophies.
Where the faces of loved ones were worn like masks.
Where Vivienne's voice might still echo—or where her memory had been twisted into something unrecognizable.
The tower seemed endless now.
Down, down, down.
Every flight of stairs took her deeper into darkness, deeper into the belly of something ancient and ravenous.
At the bottom, Isabelle stumbled through a half-rotted door into what looked like an ancient storage chamber.
Rows of shelves stood in crumbling lines, sagging under the weight of old glass jars, dusty relics, scraps of parchment.
And at the center—
A pedestal.
Carved from salt-crusted stone.
Upon it, a single object rested.
A mirror.
Cracked straight down the center.
And reflected in that broken glass—
Not her own face.
But Vivienne's.
Smiling.
Wrong.
Terribly, terribly wrong.
To be continued...