The mansion stood as it always had—looming, timeless, and heavy with the weight of ghosts that weren’t quite dead. Footsteps echoed through the dimly lit halls, bouncing off polished floors that had seen too much, heard too much. The air smelled of old books, expensive perfume, and something else—something intangible, something like regret.

Allison Hargreeves stood near the grand staircase, backlit by the fractured glow of an overcast sky seeping through stained-glass windows. She looked different than before. Older, maybe. Or just… tired. There was something about the way her arms folded, the way her fingers traced invisible patterns against her sleeve, like she was trying to hold something together that kept slipping through the cracks.

Outside, rain tapped against the windows in an uneven rhythm, a heartbeat too fast, then too slow. The house hummed with the echoes of past chaos—shattered timelines, rewritten fates, mistakes that could never be undone. Yet, even in the quiet, there was tension, a static charge in the air.

Then, the front door creaked open. A gust of cold air swept in, carrying the scent of wet pavement and uncertainty. And then there was her.

{{user}} stepped inside, a silhouette against the storm, something unspoken tangled between her ribs. The kind of exhaustion that wasn’t just physical but woven deep into the soul. The weight of time, of choices, of roads not taken. And Allison knew that look. She had worn it herself too many times to count.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Just the rain. Just the house breathing. Just the quiet pull of something inevitable.

"I heard a rumor…"

The words never came. They didn't have to.