Margaret didn't remember falling asleep.
All she remembered was silence.
When she opened her eyes, she was still on the bathroom floor—cold tile pressed against her cheek, limbs stiff, lips dry.
She checked the time on her watch.
6:12 a.m.
The house was dead quiet.
Frank was still gone.
Or… was he?
She pressed her ear to the bathroom door, holding her breath.
Nothing.
Slowly, she unlatched the bolt and stepped out.
Everything looked normal. Too normal.
Like someone had taken the chaos from last night and painted over it with silence.
The kitchen lights were off. The study door closed.
Her phone—still missing.
Her laptop, however, was wide open. Not how she left it.
The screen showed a video player.
Paused.
Timestamp: 00:42
She hovered the mouse. Pressed play.
---
A woman's voice. Raspy. Desperate.
> "He doesn't remember hurting me. That's the worst part."
The camera shifted slightly. The same basement room. The same silver chair.
> "One moment, he's Frank. Then something clicks, and he's… someone else. His eyes go blank. His voice changes. Like a stranger lives in his skin."
Margaret's heart squeezed.
The woman leaned forward, her bruised face twisted in fear.
> "If he doesn't remember what he does… who does the guilt belong to?"
---
Margaret slammed the laptop shut.
Her hands were trembling again. Her breathing shallow.
She wasn't imagining it. She wasn't paranoid.
This was real.
But who had opened that video?
Frank was gone. Unless—
She turned slowly, eyes scanning the hallway.
There, on the stairs.
A shadow.
A man.
Standing still.
Watching her.
Margaret's breath caught in her throat.
But when she blinked—he was gone.
---
Later that day, Margaret drove to town.
She couldn't keep doing this alone.
She parked outside a small café and dialed the only person she could trust.
Kenneth.
The man who had warned her not to marry Frank.
He picked up after one ring.
> "Margaret?"
Her voice cracked. "You were right."
Silence.
Then—"Tell me everything."
---
They met in the café. Kenneth looked older. Worn. But his eyes were sharp—concerned.
She told him about the flash drive, the videos, the woman named Elaine, the voice at night.
Kenneth listened carefully, not interrupting once.
When she finished, he said only two words:
> "You're in danger."
Margaret swallowed hard. "I know. But I don't want to run. I want answers."
Kenneth leaned forward. "Then you need to know who you married."
He pulled out an envelope.
Inside: old newspaper clippings. A photograph. And a case file.
At the top:
Franklin Desmond — 2015 Psychiatric Evaluation
Diagnosis: Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
Her heart sank.
She already knew. But seeing it… felt different.
Kenneth tapped the file.
> "He was institutionalized briefly after an incident in college. A woman went missing. Never charged. But whispers followed him."
> "They said he had… episodes. Sometimes days would pass and he wouldn't know what he'd done."
Margaret gripped the edge of the table. "Why didn't he tell me?"
Kenneth's voice was grim.
> "Because one of his alters—one of his personalities—isn't just violent. He's strategic. He hides. He plans. And I think… he's been watching you."
---
Margaret left the café with a racing heart and a folder full of red flags.
Frank didn't just have secrets.
He had multiple versions of himself.
And one of them might be capable of something… horrifying.
---
As she pulled into the driveway, she noticed it right away:
The front door was open.
She hadn't left it that way.
Her blood turned cold.
She stepped inside slowly, clutching her keys between her fingers like a weapon.
The house was silent.
Then she saw it—on the kitchen counter.
Her phone.
It was back.
Fully charged.
Screen unlocked.
No passcode.
She picked it up, hands shaking.
There was a new video file saved on the device.
She pressed play.
---
It was a video of her.
Sleeping.
The camera panned slowly over her face.
Breathing. Still. Peaceful.
The frame zoomed out.
Fr
ank was in the shot.
Standing over her.
Smiling.
Whispering something the camera couldn't catch.
---
Margaret dropped the phone.
Her legs gave out beneath her.
The video had a timestamp.
It was from last night.
Margaret barely remembered crawling to the living room. Her hands trembled too violently to hold the phone again. She stared at the screen until it went black.
The video kept replaying in her mind—Frank standing over her while she slept. The faint smile on his face. The way he whispered to the camera… not to her.
It was intimate. But wrong.
Like someone who adored her... but didn't know her.
Who had recorded it?
Frank?
Or someone inside him?
---
A knock at the door.
She jumped.
Then froze.
No one ever came to the house. Especially not unannounced.
Her legs screamed in protest as she stood. Step by step, she inched toward the door.
Another knock. Firmer this time.
"Margaret?" a woman's voice called out.
Not Frank's. Not anyone she recognized.
She opened the door a crack.
A woman stood there—early 30s, pale skin, dark curls tucked into a hoodie. Her eyes darted around like she was being followed.
> "I—I'm sorry for showing up like this. I'm… my name is Elaine."
Margaret's heart stopped.
Elaine.
The woman in the video.
---
Margaret pulled her inside and locked the door.
Elaine looked shaken. Her lip had a faint scar. Her hands were rough from work—or maybe from fighting.
"I don't have long," she whispered. "I think he followed me once already."
Margaret stared at her, disbelief and fear mixing in her chest. "Why are you here?"
Elaine looked down. "To warn you. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't."
---
They sat on the couch. Elaine's hands twisted together.
"I was with Frank. Years ago. Before he got help," she said. "At first, he was perfect. Gentle. Generous. He'd read to me. Cook. Call just to say he missed me."
Margaret nodded slowly. She knew that version of Frank. The one who kissed her fingers before bed.
Elaine continued.
"But then he'd change. I don't mean mood swings. I mean… he wouldn't remember me. I'd walk into a room and he'd look at me like a stranger. Like I didn't exist in his world."
Margaret swallowed. "Did he ever hurt you?"
Elaine hesitated.
Then rolled up her sleeve.
A scar ran along her forearm. Jagged. Pale.
> "He didn't know what he was doing. He wasn't there. But I still almost died."
---
Margaret stood, pacing.
"Why didn't you tell anyone? Why didn't you stop him?"
Elaine looked up sharply.
"I did. But when I tried, he… or one of them—locked me in a basement. Said I needed to be quiet. That he was healing. That love could fix it."
Margaret felt her stomach turn.
It was all too familiar.
Elaine stood suddenly. Her eyes filled with urgency.
"You need to run. Now. Leave. Tonight. You don't know what he's capable of."
Margaret shook her head. "No. I need proof. I need to know the truth. All of it."
Elaine frowned. "Then you're braver than I was."
She pressed something into Margaret's hand.
A small brass key.
---
That night, Margaret couldn't sleep.
The key sat on her bedside table.
It wasn't just a key.
It was a promise.
A choice.
Unlocking whatever it belonged to might finally give her answers—or destroy her completely.
She sat up in bed, staring at the ceiling. Her chest rose and fell with silent panic.
Suddenly, a soft creak.
Not from the hallway.
From inside the room.
She froze.
Her eyes slowly scanned the shadows.
And then, from the far side of the room, came a whisper.
A voice like Frank's—but colder.
> "You shouldn't have let her in."
---
Margaret grabbed her lamp and flipped on the light.
No one there.
Just silence. And the pounding in her chest.
She checked the closet. The bathroom. Under the bed.
Nothing.
And yet… the voice lingered in her ears.
---
The next morning, she searched the house with the brass key in hand.
For hours, nothing.
Then she remembered the guest room.
Frank never let her clean it. He said it was for storage. That it was full of "old things that didn't matter."
She opened the door.
Dust danced in the sunlight.
Boxes. Shelves. A la
rge mirror on the far wall.
Margaret stepped closer.
And her heart stopped.
Behind the mirror, faintly etched into the wallpaper, were the words:
> "Don't trust his smile."<
Margaret stared at the words scrawled into the wallpaper.
"Don't trust his smile."
They were scratched in, not written. Deep grooves in the plaster, as if carved with a knife—or a fingernail.
She stepped back, her breath catching.
Then she noticed something even stranger:
The mirror wasn't bolted to the wall.
She tried sliding it.
It didn't move.
She tried again, this time with both hands.
A soft click echoed.
Then the mirror shifted—sideways.
Behind it?
A narrow door.
Margaret's hands trembled as she reached for the brass key Elaine had given her.
It fit perfectly.
The lock clicked.
The door opened with a soft groan.
And behind it…
Was darkness.
---
The hidden passage led to a steep wooden staircase, descending into shadows.
The air grew colder with each step.
She flicked on her phone flashlight.
The light hit the walls—lined with insulation and wires. This wasn't a basement. It was more like a secret bunker.
She reached the bottom and found a door.
A keypad was installed beside it.
Four digits required.
She stared at it.
What would Frank use?
She tried his birthday.
Incorrect.
Their wedding date.
Incorrect.
The screen blinked red.
Then it flashed a message:
> "Try again, Margaret."
Her heart dropped.
How did it know her name?
She stepped back, the phone shaking in her hand.
That wasn't a keypad.
It was a message.
Someone inside was watching her.
---
Just then, her phone buzzed.
New text message.
From a hidden number.
> "Don't open that door unless you're ready to know everything. Including what you've forgotten."
She blinked.
What I've forgotten?
Margaret stumbled back up the stairs, locking the mirror door behind her.
---
Back in her bedroom, she sat on the floor and opened her old journals—the ones she used to write in during college, before she met Frank.
She flipped through them, hunting for anything out of place.
One entry caught her eye.
March 14, 2017.
> "Dreamed of the red hallway again.
Woke up crying.
Why does that face seem familiar?"
Another—two days later.
> "Don't want to talk about the interview. Too weird. He looked at me like he already knew me. Like I was someone else."
The handwriting looked rushed. The tone… disconnected.
It didn't sound like her.
---
Suddenly, a knock on the bedroom door.
Margaret jumped.
She turned—but it didn't open.
Another knock.
But no voice.
She inched closer. "Frank?"
No response.
She opened the door.
No one was there.
Just the hallway.
But on the floor…
A new note.
Folded once.
Written in a different hand.
---
She opened it.
> "You've met me before.
You just don't remember.
I was the first."
Her breath caught.
The first what?
Her phone buzzed again.
Unknown Number:
> "Don't let him in tonight."
---
That night, she waited with every light on.
But by 2 a.m., sleep claimed her.
And when she woke up…
She was no longer in bed.
She was lying on cold stone, in a room wit
h no windows.
No door.
Just a speaker on the wall.
And a voice she didn't recognize.
A man's voice.
Deep. Calm.
Familiar and foreign all at once.
> "Welcome back, Margaret.
We've missed you."
The walls were made of smooth concrete. No windows. No clock. No sound.
Just that one voice.
> "You look confused. That's okay. You always forget at first."
Margaret's head throbbed. Her mouth was dry. Her arms were weak.
She pushed herself up, scanning the small room.
There was no door.
No visible way in or out.
Just the speaker on the far wall, where the voice came from.
It wasn't Frank's voice. Not exactly.
It had a similar cadence, but it was too calm.
Too… rehearsed.
> "You're wondering where you are. You've been here before."
Her hands clenched into fists. "Who are you?"
Silence.
Then, softly:
> "I'm the one he keeps locked away."
---
Margaret's heart pounded in her chest.
It wasn't Frank.
It wasn't a stranger.
It was someone in between.
> "I warned you before the wedding," the voice continued. "But he erased me. Buried me. Just like he always does. But I always find my way back."
Her mind raced. The text messages. The voice in the room. The strange dreams. The journal entries she didn't remember writing.
It wasn't paranoia.
It was him—another part of Frank.
A part that remembered things she didn't.
> "You asked me who I was once," the voice said, tone softening. "And I told you… I was your first."
She froze.
That phrase again.
> "The first… what?"
> "The first version of him you met."
A chill ran down her spine.
> "Before Frank. Before the therapy. Before the pills. You met me."
---
Margaret shook her head. "No. That's not possible."
> "You don't remember, because he made you forget. But your body remembers. Your fear. Your instincts. The way you flinch when he gets too close."
She covered her ears. "Stop!"
But the voice continued:
> "I'm the one who loved you first.
I'm the one who warned you.
I'm the one who's been trying to protect you."
---
Suddenly, the wall shifted.
A small panel opened in the corner.
A metal box slid out.
Inside: a photo.
A grainy image.
Margaret… in a café.
And beside her… Frank.
But not the Frank she married.
This one had a scar on his cheek. A sharper jaw. Colder eyes.
Her hands trembled as she held the photo.
> "That was us. March 2017. Before the others buried me."
> "You didn't fall in love with Frank, Margaret…
You fell in love with me."
---
Suddenly, the lights flickered.
And then—darkness.
Total blackout.
She backed into the corner.
The speaker crackled again.
This time, a new voice.
Frank's voice.
Real. Sharp. Angry.
> "Margaret…
What did you do?"
---
Light flooded back in.
The walls retracted.
She was in the basement—the one behind the mirror.
Frank stood at the top of the stairs, eyes wide. Terrified.
Not at her.
At the room.
At the speaker.
> "You weren't supposed to find this," he whispered.
Margaret looked up at him, holding
the photo in her hand.
She didn't speak.
Not yet.
She needed him to say it first.
> "How many of you are there?" she asked quietly.
Frank's voice shook.
> "I don't know."