The Return of The Forgotten Son

The Choice

Victoria's POV

Mother didn't leave her room after Father died.

I brought her food but she wouldn't eat. Water but she wouldn't drink. She just sat in her chair, staring at the ritual book like it held some answer she'd missed.

"It's my fault," she kept saying. "All of it. My fault."

For once, I didn't argue with her.

The house was falling apart. Literally. Cracks spread across the walls. Windows shattered for no reason. The temperature stayed below freezing even though the heating worked. The entity was done playing games. It was ready to finish this.

I found myself in the chapel that night. I don't remember deciding to go there. My feet just carried me down the old servants' stairs and through the sealed door that wouldn't stay closed anymore.

The stranger was already there. He stood by the altar, running his hands over the stone.

"This is where it happened," he said without turning around. "Where Elias took his last breath. Where the entity consumed his soul."

I stayed by the door. "What happens now?"

"Now Mother pays. Then you make your choice. Then it's over."

"What choice? You keep saying that but you won't tell me what it means."

He turned to face me. In the moonlight, he looked more like Elias than ever. Young and lost and hurt.

"The entity needs to be fed," he said. "It was promised four souls. Four people who prospered from Elias's death. But there's a loophole."

"What loophole?"

"A willing sacrifice can replace an unwilling one. Someone innocent, someone who wasn't part of the original contract, can offer themselves in place of someone who was."

Understanding crashed over me like cold water. "You want me to die instead of Mother."

"I don't want anything. I'm just telling you the rules. The entity doesn't care who it gets, as long as the debt is paid."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then Mother dies screaming. Just like Elias did. And you live with that memory for whatever short, miserable life you have left."

I looked at the scorch marks on the ceiling. The outline of my brother's body, burned into stone.

"Why are you giving me this choice?" I asked. "Why not just take us both?"

For the first time since he'd arrived, something human flickered in his eyes. "Because somewhere inside this thing, Elias is still screaming. And he remembers that you tried to help him once. When we were kids, when Father was angry, you'd distract him. Take the blame for things you didn't do. You protected your brother when no one else would."

Tears ran down my face. "I should have protected him that night. I should have done something."

"You were fifteen. What could you have done?"

"Something. Anything. Instead I just watched."

"And now you get a chance to make it right. To do what you couldn't do then."

I thought about Mother. About her trembling hands and her nightmares. About how she'd held me when I was small and sang me songs. About how she'd read to me when I was sick.

I also thought about how she'd murdered her own son. How she'd chosen money over his life. How she'd never apologized, never shown real remorse until it was too late.

"If I do this," I said slowly, "what happens to you? To the thing wearing my brother's skin?"

"I go back down. Back into the dark. Back into whatever hell the entity came from. And I take Elias with me. His suffering ends. His soul finally rests."

"That's what he wants? What does Elias want?"

"More than anything. He's been screaming for twenty years. He just wants it to stop."

I walked to the altar. I placed my hands on the cold stone where my brother died.

"I'll do it," I said. "I'll take Mother's place. But only if you promise Elias gets peace. Real peace. No more suffering."

The stranger studied me for a long moment. Then he nodded. "Deal."

"When?"

"Now."

The air shimmered. The entity manifested around us, a darkness so complete it swallowed the moonlight. I felt its hunger, its cold satisfaction. I had waited twenty years for this meal.

"Lie down," the stranger said softly.

I climbed onto the altar. The stone was freezing against my back. Above me, the scorch marks seemed to glow.

"I'm scared," I whispered.

"I know. So was he." The stranger took my hand. His touch was ice cold. "But I'll be with you. You won't be alone. Elias promises."

"Tell him I'm sorry. Tell him I love him. Tell him…"

The entity descended. Darkness wrapped around me like a shroud. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't scream. A cold fire burned through my veins.

This was what Elias felt. This was what they did to him.

I heard Mother screaming somewhere far away. I heard her running down the stairs. But it was too late.

The entity took me. Pulled me down into darkness. Into cold and screaming and endless nothing.

But in that nothing, I felt something else. A hand in mine. Warm and real.

"Thank you," Elias whispered. The real Elias, not the thing wearing his face. "Thank you for setting me free."

Then the darkness swallowed everything.

I woke up in the chapel.

The sun was rising through the broken windows. My body ached but I was alive.

The stranger stood over me. He looked different. Softer. More human.

"What happened?" I croaked. "Why am I alive?"

"The entity changed its mind," he said. "Your sacrifice was willing. Innocent. That broke the contract. The debt is paid."

"But I'm not dead."

"No. You're not." He smiled. It was Elias's smile, genuine and warm. "The entity took your suffering instead of your life. Your willingness to die for someone who didn't deserve it satisfied the balance."

"And Mother?"

"Alive. Broken, but alive. She felt everything you felt for exactly one second. That was enough. She knows now. Really knows what she did."

I sat up slowly. "And you? What happened to you?"

"I'm free too. Elias is at peace. And the thing that wore his face is gone. Sent back to whatever hell it came from."

He helped me stand. For a moment, we looked at each other. Brother and sister, separated by death but connected by love.

"I missed you," I whispered.

"I missed you too."

Then he faded. Like morning mist burned away by the sun. One moment he was there. The next, just empty air.

I walked back through the house alone. Mother sat at the top of the stairs, her hair white, her face aged ten years overnight.

"Victoria," she sobbed. "Oh God, Victoria, I'm so sorry."

I looked at her. At the woman who'd killed one child to save her fortune. Who would have let another die in her place.

"I know," I said. "But sorry doesn't fix anything."

I walked past her and out the front door. Away from Ashbourne Manor. Away from the bodies and the ghosts and the blood money.

I never went back.

The house burned down three days later. Electrical fire, they said. Mother died in the flames. I didn't go to the funeral.

Sometimes, late at night, I see Elias in my dreams. He's smiling. At peace. Free.

And I know that some debts can only be paid in suffering. Some sins can only be washed clean with sacrifice.

The Ashbourne family is gone now. The name died with that house.

But I'm still here, carrying their story. Making sure no one forgets what happens when you value money more than love.

When you trade a child's life for gold.

When you forget that every choice has consequences.

And some consequences come with teeth.