Chapter 7 - The Breaking Point
She took another step into the room, and the temperature plummeted so violently that my breath froze into tiny ice crystals mid-air. The shadowy tendrils trailing behind her swept along the cabin walls, turning the warm pine wood white with instant frost.
I stepped directly into her path, raising the heavy iron poker. "Stop right there!"
The mother's head snapped toward me with a sickening, unnatural jerk. "You..." she hissed, the shadow's resonant voice completely smothering her human tone. "You stopped the ambulance. You interrupted the quiet."
"I am an EMT," I said, digging my boots into the icy floorboards, positioning myself as a physical barrier between her and the girls. "My job is to keep people breathing. My job is to bring people back when they're slipping away. And you are slipping away, Sarah!"
Hearing her real name caused her to freeze for a split second. The glowing blue eyes flickered, shrinking within the mass of dark mist.
"You lost your husband!" I shouted, using every ounce of authority in my voice. "You lost your home in that fire! It hurt so much you wanted to rip your own heart out just to make it stop! But you didn't die in that house!"
"Stop... talking..." she groaned, raising her pale hands to her head. The shadowy tendrils thrashed violently, shattering the cabin's side windows and knocking over heavy wooden furniture.
"Lily and Clara survived!" I yelled over the roaring, freezing wind blowing through the broken glass. "They needed you! But instead of holding them, you locked your heart in the dark because you were too terrified to feel the pain!"
"No... no!" she screamed. It was a human scream this time—a mother’s desperate, agonizing cry of sudden realization.
Lily and Clara peeked over the back of the couch, seeing their mother weeping as she fought against the black mist attempting to wrap around her throat to silence her.
"Mother!" Lily cried out, breaking away from behind the couch despite my warning.
"Lily, stay back!" I shouted.
But Clara was right behind her sister. The two barefoot girls ran across the icy floor and threw their arms around their mother’s waist, burying their faces in her frozen, dark-stained gown.
"We missed you!" Clara sobbed loudly. "It hurt us too! Dad is gone, and our house is gone, but we didn't want to lose you too!"
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"Please don't go back into the box!" Lily wept, holding on with all her strength. "We love you even when it hurts!"
The shadow entity roared—a deafening, unnatural shriek—and lowered its dark tendrils toward the girls, attempting to swallow all three of them into the vortex of black smoke.
