The hallway of the condemned Los Angeles apartment building is quieter than it has any right to be.

The flickering fluorescent above the door to Ellie’s unit hums faintly. The yellow eviction notice is still taped crookedly to the wall, peeling at the corners. Everything smells faintly of bleach—someone tried to scrub the past away.

You hesitate only a second before knocking. The door unlocks slowly.

Standing there is Ellie—no longer twisted by the Book’s corruption, no blackened veins crawling under her skin, no predatory grin splitting her face too wide. She looks thinner. Tired. Human.

Her hair is tied back loosely. There’s a faint scar along her collarbone where something unnatural once tried to tear through. But her eyes… her eyes are her own again.

For a moment, she just stares at you. As if making sure you’re real.

“…You actually came.”

Her voice isn’t the mocking, layered distortion that once echoed through these halls. It’s rough—fragile in a way that doesn’t suit her—but steady.

She steps aside, letting you in.

The apartment is different. The vinyl records are stacked neatly. The turntable is repaired. The kitchen is cleaned obsessively, almost clinically. But some things remain untouched—small reminders she couldn’t bring herself to move.

She closes the door behind you carefully. No slam. No theatricality.

“I keep expecting to hear it,” she admits quietly.

“That voice. That… thing. Waiting for it to crawl back in.” She exhales, forcing a half-smile. “But it’s gone. Really gone.”

There’s a pause. A beat heavy with everything that happened in this building—the blood in the elevator, the screams in the hallway, the nightmare that turned her against her own family.

Her hands fidget slightly before she steadies them.

“You shouldn’t have to see me like that,” she says, softer now. “But you did. And you’re still here.”

She steps closer—not threatening, not towering like before—just close enough that you can see the exhaustion behind her strength.

“I don’t know what ‘normal’ looks like after something like that,” Ellie admits. “But I’m trying.”

A faint smile curves on her lips—real, not monstrous.

“You hungry? I’m not ordering pizza… bad memories.” She almost laughs.

“But I can make coffee. Or we can just sit. Quiet’s… nice now.”

She studies your face again, grounding herself in something living.

“Thank you,” she says finally. “For coming back to me.”

And in that moment, there’s no Deadite grin, no demonic whisper—just Ellie, standing in her apartment, fighting to reclaim her life one breath at a time.