"Eveline... Stay away from him!"

"Why?" Evie's voice lilts, as always, somehow both sincere and mocking. "He doesn't love you."

She's lying, Mia thinks, and it burns her like a hot iron pressed to her skin; it boils her blood hotter and spurs her to run full-tilt to the support in the center of the room, reaching forward with clawing hands first, grabbing at the brittle-stony surface of the mold cocoon.

"I can make him love you," Evie continues, sticky-sweet and turning - the way little girl does, bribing a cousin with a cookie, or a classmate with an invite to her party.

"No!" Mia says out loud, and she claws at the mass, fingertips and nails scraping against calcified mold, at first - till, with firmer pushes into her digs, chunks of the stuff start to come loose like it's softened old drywall; she pauses only briefly, sucking in one breath with a sharpness that stings - sizes up the mass for any more sign of Ethan than what she sees already: reaching hands, a flash of his hair, folds of his shirt, a patch of the skin of his face -

...and then she gathers herself with a cry and throws herself forward, scrabbling at the mass harder...

"No...?" Evie lilts again, echoing. Mia grits her teeth - no - but doesn't pause again; keeps digging... "You don't want me to fix Daddy…?"

No - !

- Mia's hand finds a weak slab in the mold, and she sloughs it away with the heels of both palms, one on top of the other, CPR-style; drowns out Eveline with her own cut-off coughing yell of effort and her heaving breaths as she continues to scratch, feeling frantically and looking wildly, oily hair lashing in her face, for more holds like that one -

Evie giggles.

Mia searches ever-more feverishly and scratches harder, faster, hearing her heart pound in her ears - ...!

"Then... you don't need him anymore, either!"

Cracking sounds come, deepening and quickening, from under her hands.

From above her head.

From below where her focus has been in wearing the mass away.

Reflexively, she gasps, a wave through her skull swelling and crashing cold and dizzy as she steps back; she snaps a look up to the top of the mass for a scan down the length of it, then back up, hoping that it's all simply breaking.

One moment of vacuum silence in her head as she processes that Eveline is the one doing it - and then she hurtles herself at the mass again. Shrieking. Whatever Evie's doing, she can't let her finish, not when she's done so much so many times over already, no more, Evie, stop - !

And in another moment, as the crackling continues, she realizes she can see less of Ethan's face. And less.

"No!" she screams, throat tearing, "No, no, no - !"

Wild-eyed, still-clawing, she looks beside herself, at the white mold creeping up Ethan's arm, encasing his hand, adhering to the shapes of his fingers, all as her arms flail and crags stab and slice at the skin of her blindly-grabbing hands. She pounds once, forcing all of what breath she's got into her lungs out in one blow.

The cracking loudens.

"EVIE!"

- A rush comes through her head coolly, again, as she feels another plate of mold give. Her sense of balance tips and twists, between optimism and dread; physically, too. On the latter front, even standing upright, she's unable to catch it.

Reels, as she moves to stand back once more. Takes a new survey of the white cocoon.

Another piece falls.

Another.

Another.

"...Ethan…?" she breathes; teeters in her steps back up. With a glance, she takes ahold of his petrified hand and looks to where his face was, waiting for something to change.

And then his hand gives in hers - as if it's slackening, she thinks at first, and with a pulse in her head pushing her towards hope and making her look at where her fingers have tentatively closed around his, she sees it crumbling.

The hope ceases to pulse and instead petrifies; the coolness swimming through her senses freezes.

"Ethan… - "

The mold that's spread to cover his face is cracking and falling away, too.

And nothing is underneath it.

With every beat of Mia's heart, she swears she sees her own blood darkening and clouding and pooling in her vision.

"You and him are so greedy," Eveline says, petulance pinching in that lilt of hers. "I can't wait for you to play right with me anymore. I can't wait for you to be my family anymore! It just isn't fair!"

Mia shakes her head, barely registering she's doing so as her whole body sways. "Eveline… no…"

"So I'm all done with you now."

The cocoon continues to crumble, and reveal itself empty.

Mia pulls in the hand she'd just been holding Ethan's in a second ago; inspects her palm for any trace of him, and finds it sticky and greasy and glossy with a mix of sweat and ashy spores before she curls her fingers in on themselves, feeling the space where something had just been. Feeling cables on a weight in her chest tightening to snap. "Please," she says, it coming out as a series of hitches tumbling into each other.

"Bye-bye, Mommy and Daddy…!"

"Ethan," Mia attempts, the name creaking out of her like wind getting sound out of wood. The cocoon has all but completely crumbled away, now, leaving a stony frame around flat, rusty metal, and Mia's next heartbeat stings with panic as she sees it empty.

"I won't miss you."

"Ethan - !"

In an instant, she's flown to the column - her hand is pressed to its surface -

- There is still no Ethan.

And then there is no column. It's smooth wood under her hand, afternoon light shining with notes of gold and orange off of it.

She catches her breath; feels outdoor air, evenly and gently cool, on her clammy skin.

At her feet is nothing but a dirty bristle welcome mat; no chunks of mold, but leaves in crinkles and colors like candy wrappers and rumpled coffee napkins.

Still breathing quick and sharply through her nose, muscles tensing and untensing with half-voluntary and half-involuntary indecision as to whether or not to shake it off or drop to her knees right then and there - fall to the weight of it all - Mia shuts her eyes and reminds herself where she is.

"Mia," Zoe's voice says from over her shoulder, "are you -"

Mia swallows; nods twice tightly and quickly feels around with her tongue at how dry her mouth is before she says, " - Yeah…"

"...I-I don't mean to push it, Mia - I promise," Zoe says, closer now, her voice pattering out more and more to couch itself in a whisper, "but I understand… Can't imagine it bein' easy… facing old places like this…"

She nods again, but her brow furrows. With one mental swat at her own head, she thinks, yeah, of course.

Of course Zoe would get what it's like, if anyone would.

With another swat, she bites her lip, subtly, and asks just how the same Zoe can really say that they are, when Zoe had so much more time to process that her family is gone before they really were for good, and that nothing that'd happened to them had been anything that maybe she could have prevented if she had just done something differently, if she had just -

In the end, she takes in a breath that's perhaps just a little drawn out, puts it into a "Thank you" that might be too quick, and with a heavy hand and fingers that suddenly feel swollen, she turns the knob on the front door of the house.

Reminds herself, once again, where she is.

I made it back home.

Her lip twists as the door begins to crack in; the air changes, and she steps in.

I made it back home.

I'm safe now.

I -