The manor fell silent the moment Lena stepped through the door.
No more creaking walls. No pulsing chandelier. The air grew thin—like the moments just before a show begins, before the first line cracks the silence, before the first laugh, before the first wound is exposed.
Then, almost imperceptibly, the floor shivered beneath their feet.
Not violently, but deliberately. Like it had been waiting for this moment—the reckoning.
They stood where they had made their choice: Vivian, Darren, Marc, and Theo.
Lena was gone. The door shut tight behind her, swallowed by the architecture of memory.
Eden's voice drifted then—soft now, yet everywhere—like a mist curling through the rafters.
"The ribbons bind the willing," her voice whispered, "but choice is not the same as confession."
They exchanged uneasy glances. Each ribbon on their wrists glowed red, pulsing with a slow tightening—like a noose drawn tighter around their truths.
"Speak now," Eden's voice urged. "Not what sounds good. Not what sounds brave. Speak what festers. What scalds. Only truth will loosen the house's teeth."
Vivian was the first to step forward.
"I already confessed," she said quickly, voice sharp from years of stage discipline. "I admitted what I did at the roast."
The house groaned in response—a deep, rattling sound like air escaping a long-held breath.
Vivian flinched but then rolled her eyes.
"Fine," she snapped. "I'll say it slower, for the walls."
She straightened, shoulders squared.
"I knew Eden couldn't handle it. I knew it." Her voice cracked beneath the weight. "And I still went too far. Not because I hated her—but because I was afraid. She was younger. Funnier. Hungrier. And I'd spent too long being the only woman getting booked. I told myself that spotlight was mine, and anyone else—especially someone like her—was a threat."
She exhaled hard, as if releasing a trapped breath.
"So yeah. I stabbed her in the back. With a mic."
Silence fell.
Then, laughter.
Not Eden's.
The audience's—warped, mechanical, endless. A loop of cruel applause, rising like smoke from a broken speaker, mocking, vicious.
Vivian spun toward the others, eyes wild.
"No! No, I told the truth!"
The ribbon on her wrist flared redder, almost burning her skin.
The laughter exploded again, growing louder, until the walls behind her split open like velvet curtains—and shadowy hands reached out.
"No—don't—" Vivian screamed, but the house was already pulling her backward, swallowing her into the black void behind the walls. The laughter chased her, echoing like canned applause from hell.
Then silence returned.
Darren looked down at his hands. The ribbon around his wrist vibrated softly—like a muted phone buzzing in his pocket.
He reached inside his jacket. A phone pulsed with an eerie white light against his chest.
He pulled it out.
No screen. Just a bright, insistent glow.
And ringing.
Always ringing.
He held it to his ear.
And spoke.
"I missed her call," he said quietly. "Everyone knows that. But it wasn't just that call. I missed them all. I never called her back—not really. I told myself she was dramatic. That she made everything a performance. That she wanted too much. Felt too much."
The phone's light grew hotter, almost burning.
"I didn't ignore her because I didn't care. I ignored her because I didn't want to care. Because caring meant work. Listening. And I—I wasn't ready for that. So I let her ring out."
The ringing stopped abruptly.
And then, a voice answered.
Not Eden's.
His own.
Repeating the words he never said:
"Sorry. I didn't pick up."
The phone cracked in his hand.
Then shattered.
And Darren… vanished.
His form fizzed like static, dissolving like a bad signal. Only the broken shards of the phone remained, humming faintly on the floor.
Marc stepped back, horror spreading across his face.
"What the hell is this place doing?"
Theo didn't answer. He stared at the red ribbon on his wrist, which was dimming.
Marc turned away, exhaling roughly.
"Okay. Okay. I get it. You want truth? Fine. Here's mine."
He lifted his eyes to the cracked ceiling, to the unseen eyes watching from shadows.
"I made a career out of her."
He spat the words like poison.
"Every good line I ever wrote started in her notebook. I saw her pain and I bottled it. Branded it. Sold it. When she died, I cried for the press. For the likes."
He paused—long enough to make it sting.
"I don't regret it."
Theo looked at him sharply.
Marc shrugged.
"Regret won't bring her back. Regret won't rewrite sets or erase specials. We're all vultures. I just stopped pretending I wasn't one."
Silence hung heavy.
No laughter this time.
But the house seemed to lean closer, waiting.
"Is that what you want to hear?" Marc snapped. "That I feel bad? I don't. She was brilliant. But I survived. She didn't."
The walls creaked, the floorboards groaned underfoot.
Still, Marc stood tall.
"I told you the truth. Maybe it's not pretty. But it's mine."
The ribbon around his wrist loosened, uncoiling just slightly.
It didn't vanish.
But it loosened.
Theo stepped forward then.
His laptop still slung over his shoulder, he set it on the ground and knelt beside it.
"I was going to sacrifice this," he said quietly. "Walk away. Stop writing."
He flipped the lid open.
Fire sparked beneath the keys.
"But that's not enough. Because what I really did…" He hesitated. "I shaped her story to fit mine."
He stared into the flickering flames.
"I took the last words Eden wrote me and turned them into a headline. I thought I was giving her a legacy. But I was just editing her silence."
Theo reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled sheet—a joke Eden had written, the real one, scrawled in her handwriting:
"Even God would heckle me."
He fed the paper into the fire.
Then the laptop.
Then the stack of printed articles.
Then his press badge.
The fire swallowed everything.
He looked at Marc.
"I don't want out. I want to earn staying."
And then his ribbon turned black.
Not dead.
But resolved.
The two of them stood alone in the foyer.
The manor no longer groaned.
It breathed.
Softly.
Settled.
From the far wall, a stage curtain peeled back slowly.
Lena stood behind it.
But she didn't speak.
She looked at Marc and Theo.
Then turned and walked backward into the darkness.
The curtain closed behind her.
Gone.
The manor had judged.
And only two remained.