In the suffocating darkness of her dreams, Ali found herself standing alone in her childhood home. The familiar walls seemed to pulse and twist, and the air felt thick, tinged with the metallic scent of fear. She took a shaky breath and moved down the hallway, her footsteps echoing as if the house were hollow.
A faint sound—her brother's laugh. It was distorted, like a recording playing too slowly, reverberating through the hall.
"Hunter?" Ali whispered, her voice trembling. She felt her heartbeat pounding as she followed the sound, moving through warped, shifting shadows. But when she reached the nursery door, she was too late. Her father, grim-faced and bloodied, stood over the crib. His eyes were hollow, dark pits that stared right through her.
He opened his mouth, but instead of words, an eerie whisper spilled out, repeating, "It's too late, Ali. It's coming for you. It's always been coming."
She stumbled back, her breaths shallow and rapid. The shadows shifted, and suddenly her father's face melted into her brother's. His tiny hand reached out toward her, marked with the same dark symbols she'd seen in the cursed footage. His eyes, once innocent and bright, now held a dark, hollow look that made her stomach lurch.
"Ali…" His voice was a whisper, barely audible, but his tone held an impossible weight. "Run. You have to get away…before it takes you too."
She wanted to scream, to reach out for him, to somehow pull him back into the light, but her feet were rooted to the floor. The darkness coiled tighter around them, her father and brother dissolving into smoke as the shadows swallowed them whole.
With a sudden, jarring snap, she woke, gasping for air, her skin clammy and cold. But the sensation of hands on her remained, lingering like an echo. She glanced down, her heart dropping at the sight of angry bruises encircling her wrists, as if someone—or something—had been holding her down in her sleep. Small cuts lined her arms, jagged and raw, as though scraped by unseen claws.
Ali clutched the blanket, trying to steady her breathing. The room was silent, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching, lurking just beyond her line of sight.
Every night since Martine's warning, the visions had grown stronger, the bruises deeper, the cuts more precise. She knew these weren't just nightmares. They were messages, remnants of the curse clawing its way through her defenses, trying to drag her back into the shadows.
But she wouldn't give in. Not yet.
With a heavy sigh, she reached for her phone, fingers trembling as she typed a message to the gang: "We need to meet. Tonight."
Ali paced her living room, chewing on her thumbnail as she waited for their reply. The message sat unread for a long, agonizing moment. Her mind replayed the nightmare on a loop, each detail digging deeper into her nerves. Finally, her phone buzzed with a reply. It was Raul.
Raul: "Tonight? Thought you wanted to lay low."
Ali: "This thing doesn't care if I lay low, Raul. It's getting worse."
Raul: "Alright, same spot. Bring whatever info you got."
She threw on her jacket and grabbed her bag, a makeshift survival kit she'd put together in the hopes it might ward off whatever darkness was closing in. Her hands still bore faint bruises, and she could feel the cuts sting as she gripped the straps tightly.
When she arrived at their meeting place—a back room in an old bar that Raul's cousin ran—the atmosphere was already tense. The gang was sitting around the table, faces hardened. Raul looked up as she entered, his eyes narrowing.
"So what the hell's going on, Ali?" Raul leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.
Ali didn't waste any time. She dropped her bag on the table and pulled out some printed frames from the footage she'd found, images of Anna marking people, a few of the symbols she'd seen in her visions. "I've been having these…dreams. Nightmares, whatever. And every time, it's like they're trying to tell me something."
Manny snorted. "Dreams, huh? Let me guess. Little messages from beyond the grave?" He gave a dry laugh, but the fear in his eyes betrayed him.
Raul held up his hand, silencing him. "Look, Ali, you're talking like this is personal. Like it's after you specifically. You really think this has to do with that Jesse kid?"
Ali's expression tightened. "Yeah. And it's not just about Jesse. It's about every single one of you that's been marked by this thing." She shoved the images closer to Raul. "You think it's just a gang problem, but this is way beyond that. This thing—it's in my bloodline. It's been haunting my family for years."
Raul's gaze flickered to the bruises on her wrists, then to the scratches on her arm. "So, what's the plan, Sherlock? What do we do about it?"
"First, we find out exactly what's in that footage and who else is marked," she said, her voice low and resolute. "Then we figure out how to break this curse before it kills us all."
The room went quiet. Each member's face was a mix of skepticism and dread. But there was something else there, too—a simmering desperation. They all felt the pull of the curse, and Ali could see it in their eyes. Whatever disbelief they had, it was thinning.
Manny muttered something under his breath in Spanglish, glancing around the room. "La neta, this is messed up. But if we're doing this, we go all in, yeah? We find every damn clue, figure out why we got this 'mark' on us in the first place."
Ali nodded. "Right. Let's start with Anna's place—there's more there we haven't seen."
"Fine," Raul said, clapping his hands once as if trying to shake off the chill of the conversation. "But I swear, if I see any shadows moving by themselves, I'm out."
They all let out a dark chuckle, though it was more nervous than amused.
The gang gathered what little gear they thought might help: flashlights, a few crowbars, and, as Raul suggested with a grin, "a bit of holy water, just in case." They pulled up to Anna's old apartment complex, a beat-up building that looked more like it belonged in a slasher movie than in the middle of Carlsbad. Shadows loomed around every corner, and the air was thick with that feeling—the one that made your skin crawl and your heart race.
Raul killed the engine, and they sat in silence, the only sound being the soft ticking of the cooling car. Manny was the first to speak, his voice barely a whisper. "If something jumps out, I'm throwing you at it first, Ali."
Ali scoffed. "Real chivalrous, Manny."
They headed toward the building, sticking close. The windows of Anna's apartment were blacked out, like a void waiting to swallow them. Raul pulled out the crowbar, jimmied open the door, and they crept inside, each step echoing in the empty, eerie silence.
Once in, they split up. Ali went straight for the bedroom, drawn by some sick pull, as if the energy of the place was guiding her. Manny took the small living area with Raul, searching shelves, flipping through old books and papers, anything that looked like it held a clue.
Ali knelt by a dusty stack of tapes near the bed, the old kind used in camcorders. She picked one up, seeing a scribbled date: 03/17. Her stomach tightened. That was close to the day Jesse had gone missing.
"Yo, Raul," she called softly. "I think I got something here."
Raul joined her, and they found an old VHS player in the corner of the room, hooked up to a TV that looked like it hadn't been touched in years. The power flickered as they plugged everything in, but it worked. The grainy footage came to life, showing Anna performing one of her rituals in that very room, her face hidden behind a veil, her movements slow and hypnotic.
Ali's breath hitched as the camera panned to the markings on the walls, the very same symbols she'd seen in her nightmares.
As they watched, the TV crackled, and a face flickered into the frame for a split second. Ali froze.
It was Jesse. Or what was left of him.
"Holy… Did you see that?" Manny muttered, his face pale.
They rewound the footage, but this time the screen only showed static.
Ali's voice wavered. "It's like it knows we're watching."
Raul shook his head, trying to stay grounded. "Nah, that's just paranoia. Probably some messed-up tape glitch."
But even he didn't sound convinced. The air felt heavier, and Ali could swear the temperature in the room had dropped.
"Look, we need more," she said, fighting the urge to bolt out of there. "More info on this curse—why us, why Jesse, and what the hell Anna's part in it was. There has to be something here."
They resumed searching, their tension thick enough to cut with a knife. As they sifted through the scattered belongings, Raul muttered, "If we don't find anything, I say we torch this place. Ain't worth keeping around."
Manny nodded in agreement. "Si. You think she's here with us? You know, watching?"
Ali didn't answer. She just kept digging, her hands trembling as she unfolded a tattered notebook hidden beneath the bed.
Ali flipped through the pages of the notebook, the handwriting scrawled and frantic. It was filled with sketches of symbols, rituals, and what looked like a diary of Anna's thoughts. As she read, her heart sank further. Anna's obsession was apparent—her descent into madness reflected in the ink.
"Look at this!" she exclaimed, holding up a page that showed a crude drawing of a dark figure looming over a family, its hands raised as if to grasp them. "It's the same thing I saw in my dreams."
Manny leaned in, his brows furrowing. "What the hell? Is that what she was trying to do? Sacrifice her own family?"
Raul stepped closer, glancing at the next page. "This is sick. She's talking about power, about becoming a 'Bruja'—a witch—by marking others. She thought she could control the spirit."
Ali felt a chill creep down her spine. "But at what cost? There's no way it ended well for her."
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the other room. They all jumped, and Ali's heart raced as they exchanged terrified glances. "Did you hear that?" she whispered, adrenaline surging through her.
"Yeah, let's check it out," Raul said, voice barely above a whisper as he motioned for them to follow.
They cautiously crept toward the living area, where shadows danced along the walls. Just as they reached the doorway, a dark form darted past the window, a flicker of movement that felt almost alive. Ali's breath hitched.
"What the fuck was that?" Manny asked, his eyes wide.
"Probably just the wind," Raul replied, though the tremor in his voice suggested otherwise.
Ali shook her head, clutching the notebook tightly. "No. We're not alone in here."
They stepped into the living area, and it felt like the air had thickened, pressing down on them. The overturned furniture and the broken glass painted a chaotic picture of someone—or something—having been here recently.
"Maybe we should split up and find the source of whatever that was," Manny suggested, but it sounded more like a plea than a plan.
"Hell no," Ali replied, her voice firm. "We stick together. We need to leave this place before whatever it is decides to make its move."
But just as she finished speaking, the TV flickered back on, showing static before cutting to a live feed of their very room. The camera swung wildly as if someone was holding it, capturing their fear-stricken faces, the darkness behind them closing in.
"Shit! It's us! How the hell—?" Raul's voice trailed off as they watched the screen, horror dawning on all of them.
Then the feed cut to a scene of the three of them standing in the room, their backs to the camera, as an ominous whisper echoed: "Get out... now..."
The voice, raspy and low, felt like ice running through Ali's veins. Panic surged through her, and she turned to the others. "We need to go. Now!"
But as they bolted toward the door, it slammed shut, an unseen force trapping them inside. The shadows twisted, and Ali's heart raced as she realized they had just stepped into the dark side of Anna's world.
"Get off me, man! I can't breathe!" Manny shouted, panic seeping into his voice as the shadows wrapped around him, tightening like a vice.
"Hold on!" Raul yelled, trying to pry the door open, but it wouldn't budge.
Ali felt the presence pressing in around them, the air growing colder, her breath visible in the dim light. "No! No! We're not dying here!" she screamed, feeling the darkness close in.
But just as it felt like all hope was lost, Ali's eyes caught the glimmer of the notebook in her hand. With every ounce of strength she had left, she shouted, "We break the curse! We end this! I know how!"
The shadows hesitated, as if weighing her words, and the pressure released slightly, allowing them to breathe.
"Let's get the hell out!" Raul shouted, adrenaline pumping through his veins.
As they pushed against the door, it creaked open, and they stumbled out into the cool night air, gasping and disoriented.
"What the fuck was that?" Manny panted, looking back at the building that loomed over them, the shadows retreating behind its cracked walls.
"Whatever it is, it wants us," Ali said, determination hardening in her voice. "And I'm not letting it take any more lives. We need to figure out how to stop this."
As they stood in the night, adrenaline coursing through their veins, Ali felt a newfound resolve settle in her chest. They were in deep, but she wouldn't let the darkness win. Not again.
The chapter closed with Ali glancing back at the apartment one last time, a flicker of the dark figure catching her eye as the door swung closed, sealing their fate in the unfolding chaos.