Morning light spilled across the street like a ghost dragging its pale veil behind it. The scent of blood still clung to the house, though the sun pretended nothing happened. Neighbors gathered near Sasha's porch, whispering, confused, horrified, offering blankets and warm coffee with hands that didn't stop trembling. No one had ever seen this kind of horror up close. Not here. Not in their quiet neighborhood.
Sasha sat on the steps of someone's house, wrapped in a dull blue coat, eyes wide and unblinking. Her hands were still stained—Zhian's blood in her fingernails, Mila's blood on her sleeves. Someone gave her a glass of water. She didn't drink it. It shook in her grasp, untouched, the surface rippling with the tremble of her body.
The police arrived minutes later. Sirens didn't scream. They just sighed, softly, as if mourning too. As if the city itself was afraid to disturb what had happened inside that home.
Inside the house, they found what remained. The broken window upstairs. The shredded box. The drag marks from the hallway to the bedroom. Crimson prints like shadows frozen in time. The scent of iron lingered like old rust and death.
"She said something about a man in a Santa suit," one officer said, lowering his radio. "Carrying a machete. No sign of forced entry. Just... madness."
Detectives moved like ghosts through the scene. One of them found the twisted blanket-rope tied to the cabinet upstairs. Another bagged the shattered cell phone still sticky with blood. The walls felt wrong. Cold. Whispering.
Outside, Sasha was led to a car and driven to the station.
The building was full—neighbors, reporters, curious onlookers. Some were crying, others just hungry for news. A young reporter scribbled notes with shaking hands. Cameras flashed. News vans parked outside like vultures waiting to feed.
Sasha sat in the interview room, pale and silent. Cameras blinked. Microphones leaned in like curious insects.
"How did he look?"
"What did he say before he—"
"Was your daughter already dead when—"
She didn't speak. Her mouth was dry. Her throat sealed by shock. Everything she wanted to say drowned beneath a weight she couldn't lift.
Then her phone vibrated.
SAM.
She answered with a shaking hand.
"Sasha," Sam said, his voice urgent, distorted, like it was calling from beneath the sea, "you need to go. Now."
"What? What do you mean?"
"They're not stopping. Michael's already ahead of you. And Shah... It's not bound to one face anymore."
Sasha looked around the room. None of the officers noticed the call. It was like she'd slipped into a space between spaces—no one saw her. No one heard.
Sam whispered one final warning: "Leave before the shop finds you."
In the funeral, a gray sky hung over the cemetery, heavy and silent. The ground was wet, soft underfoot. Two coffins waited by the graves. Flowers bled color into the soil. The air smelled of roses, earth, and finality.
Sasha stood alone in black.
One coffin held Zhian. The other... Mila.
The priest's voice was muffled by the wind. Words like love, memory, peace felt hollow. Useless.
Lila stood beside her, holding her hand. Zhian's older sister. Tough, sharp-tongued, once full of life—but now she looked just as broken. The two women had known each other since high school. Now, all they had left was each other.
Sasha leaned into her. "They took everything."
Lila didn't speak. She only squeezed Sasha's hand tighter.
As the bodies were lowered into the earth, soft sobs echoed between tombstones. It wasn't just grief. It was terror. Whispers about the murders, about what the police wouldn't say. Rumors of the man in red. The shop on Gallagher Street. The old curse is breathing through vents and walls.
But far beyond the crowd, standing beneath a distant tree, someone watched.
Michael.
He didn't blink. Didn't breathe. Just stared as the dirt covered what he had destroyed.
And beside him, unseen by all, stood a tall, pale figure in a long black coat and gloves—Shah Dalamadur in its human form. Its eyes were empty. Its smile was not.
They stood together, statues in mourning, feeding on grief like air.
As mourners began to leave, Sasha remained. Lila stayed with her.
"We're not safe here," Lila whispered.
"Nowhere is."
"Then let's move. Fast."
Two days later.
The plan was desperate, but clear. Sasha had to get away. Sam arranged the flight. Lila insisted on coming, refusing to let Sasha go alone. "You're not surviving this without me," she'd said, shoving clothes into a bag.
The airport buzzed with life, but Sasha only saw ghosts in every hallway. Every red scarf looked like blood. Every child's laugh echoed with Mila's voice. The tannoy announcements warped in her ears, sounding like broken lullabies.
The line for boarding was long. Impatient. Ordinary. People on business trips. A couple is going on their honeymoon. A mother rocking a newborn.
Sasha clutched her passport like a lifeline. Lila kept scanning the crowd. Her hand never left the handle of the knife tucked into her waistband.
Their flight was called. They boarded in silence.
What they didn't see was the tall man sitting four rows behind them.
Michael.
His face was calm, blank. The rage was buried deep. For now.
And two rows behind him, another figure. A man in a trench coat with pale white skin stretched too tightly over his bones. No one looked directly at him. They couldn't. Their minds blurred where he stood.
Shah Dalamadur.
It smiled beneath its skin. The airplane was a cage. No one inside would know until it was too late.
In Greenland, after two hours, they landed on a tarmac surrounded by gray mountains and endless white. A place so cold, even spirits froze.
The cold slapped their skin immediately. Sasha and Lila hurried down the stairs of the plane, holding only one bag each. They didn't speak. They didn't need to. Fear was a language both understood fluently now.
They had no plan—just an address Sam gave them and the quiet, paralyzing fear that they were being hunted.
The cab that met them was old and silent. The driver didn't ask questions. He just took them to the edge of town, to a worn cabin near a frozen lake.
Inside was dust and cold, but it was empty. Safe—for now.
Sasha collapsed into a chair. Her hands were still shaking. Lila checked the locks, the windows, and the backdoor.
"We need heat," Sasha murmured.
Lila found the old fireplace. Wood was stacked beside it. She struck a match with trembling hands. Flame bloomed, soft and golden.
For a moment, they felt human again.
But behind them, Michael stepped off the plane.
And Shah?
He had already become someone else.
Waiting at the arrivals gate. Smiling. Always watching.