Lilith couldn't keep her hands still.
Everything around her felt off. The floor creaked differently. Her reflection blinked slower. Even her own heartbeat felt foreign, like a rhythm being played by someone else's hands.
So she did the only thing she could think to do.
She called Dr. Emeka , the child psychologist she'd seen for a few months after camp, when she'd come home silent and strange.
She didn't expect him to answer.
But he did.
"Lilith," he said, voice older than she remembered. "I always wondered if you'd call again."
The session was at his small office tucked into a quiet corner of town. As soon as she walked in, Lilith felt like a child again. Same warm lamp. Same crooked bookshelves. Same soft chair that swallowed her whole.
Only now, she wasn't the silent girl from eight years ago.
Now she was desperate to speak.
> "Do you remember what I said to you, the first day we met?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"I said the mind protects us from the things we're not ready to face. But the mind doesn't forget. It only waits."
Lilith swallowed. "I think mine stopped waiting."
He nodded, slow and quiet. "Then maybe it's time we try again."
He led her into a dim room. No lights, just candles. No noise except the steady tick of the old clock.
"Just close your eyes," he said. "Let whatever comes… come."
And she did.
She sank into the chair.
Let her breath slow.
Let the past rise.
The forest.
The lake.
The dare.
She saw it all this time with terrifying clarity.
She and Lena, standing by the Blackwood stone, whispering stories about an old spirit that lived in the water. Kids told each other it could grant wishes, but always asked for something in return.
And then she heard herself say it:
"I don't want to go home."
"I don't want my mom to leave again. I just want things to be okay."
She had made a wish.
The kind that needed a price.
And when the water shimmered… when Lena laughed and jumped into the lake… Lilith remembered the voice:
"One stays. One goes."
And then...
Lena never came back up.
Lilith didn't scream.
Didn't run.
She just watched.
Because deep inside her… she knew.
She had been chosen to go home.
Lilith jolted up, gasping.
Sweat drenched her shirt. Her nails had dug little half-moons into the chair's arms.
Dr. Emeka watched her with the saddest eyes she'd ever seen.
"You were a child," he said softly.
"No," she whispered. "I was selfish. I let her drown… and I forgot."
He paused. "You didn't forget. You were made to forget. Something took that memory from you. But it didn't let go. It waited. And now it wants you to finish what started."
As she left his office, the wind picked up. Leaves rustled. The air felt wrong again.
And for the first time, Lilith wasn't just scared.
She was angry.
Because if this thing thought it could crawl back into her life like a ghost twist her, trap her, break her it had forgotten something.
She remembered now.
And she was going to end it.