Chapter 1: The Train (Marcus)

The ticket in Marcus’s pocket felt like a thin blade of ice against his hip, a cold reminder that he was finally running toward the one place he had spent ten years trying to forget. He watched the rain smear across the reinforced glass of the train window, blurring the jagged pines of the Pacific Northwest into long, dark streaks that looked like bruises against the gray sky. He wasn’t coming back for the funeral, and he wasn't coming back for the inheritance. He was coming back because the silence from Cypress Bend had finally become louder than the noise of the city.

Marcus adjusted his collar, the wool of his coat suddenly too heavy, too restrictive. He was thirty-two, a man who had built a life on spreadsheets and steel in Seattle, yet as the conductor’s voice crackled over the intercom announcing their approach to the valley, he felt the familiar, suffocating grip of the boy he used to be. The boy who knew which floorboards creaked in the house on the hill and which shadows in the woods stayed still when the wind blew.

The train groaned, metal screaming against metal as it began the long, winding descent into the gorge. Across the aisle, a woman in a thrift-store shawl stared at him, her eyes milky and unfocused. She’d been muttering to herself since Portland.

"You smell like it," she whispered. Her voice was thin, like dry parchment tearing.

Marcus didn't turn his head. He kept his gaze locked on his own reflection—the sharp jawline, the eyes that looked tired even after eight hours of sleep. "I’m sorry?"

"The silt," she said, leaning across the gap. Her breath was cloyingly sweet, like rotting apples. "You’ve got the river silt under your nails, boy. You think you washed it off, but the Bend never lets a body go clean."

Marcus tightened his grip on the armrest, his knuckles turning a waxy white. He didn't answer. He couldn’t. If he acknowledged her, he acknowledged the sudden, frantic thudding in his chest. He reached into his bag and pulled out his father’s last letter—three lines of jagged, desperate handwriting that had arrived a week before the police found Thomas Thorne's car submerged in the Blackwater.

*Don't come if I call. But if they tell you I’m gone, check the cellar. The foundation is shifting, Marcus. Not the stone. The ground beneath it is hungry again.*

The train lurched. A suitcase slid off a rack three rows down, hitting the floor with a hollow thud that sounded like a gunshot. Marcus didn't flinch, but his vision flickered. For a split second, the rain on the window didn't look like water; it looked like dark, thick oil, bubbling against the glass, trying to find a seam.

"Station's coming," the woman said, sitting back and wrapping her shawl tight. "Better pray the tide is low."

Marcus shoved the letter back into his bag. He stood up as the brakes began to hiss, the steam rising from beneath the cars to swallow the platform in a white shroud. He was the only passenger to disembark. 

As he stepped onto the wood-plank platform of the Cypress Bend station, the air hit him—damp, smelling of cedar and something metallic, like old blood. The station was smaller than he remembered, the paint peeling away in long, curled strips that fluttered in the wind like dead skin. There was no one behind the ticket counter. The lights hummed with a low, rhythmic vibration that Marcus felt in the soles of his boots.

He walked toward the exit, his footsteps echoing too loudly in the hollow space. He stopped at the heavy oak doors, his hand hovering over the iron handle. He could hear the Blackwater River from here. It wasn't the sound of rushing water; it was a rhythmic, heavy thrumming, like a giant heart beating deep within the mud. 

He pushed the door open. 

The town of Cypress Bend sat nestled in the crook of the river, a collection of Victorian bones and rusted corrugated metal. The mist clung to the streets, hovering at knee-height, hiding the potholes and the cracks in the sidewalk. Marcus began the walk toward the Thorne estate, his luggage wheels clattering violently against the uneven pavement. 

He passed the general store, its windows boarded up with plywood that had started to rot at the edges. A man sat on a bench outside, his face obscured by the brim of a salt-stained cap. He didn't look up as Marcus passed, but his whittling knife stopped moving. The shaving of wood fell to the ground, and as Marcus glanced back, he saw the man watching him, his eyes two dark pits in the shadow of his hat.

The ascent to the house was steep. The road, once paved, had been reclaimed by the forest. Roots as thick as a man’s thigh had buckled the asphalt, forcing Marcus to lift his suitcase and carry it. Every step felt heavier than the last. The atmosphere in the valley was thick, the oxygen seemingly replaced by something denser, something that wanted to be inhaled but refused to leave the lungs.

Then, he saw it. 

The Thorne House sat at the very top of the ridge, overlooking the bend in the river. It was a three-story Victorian monstrosity that looked less like a building and more like a predator hunched over its prey. The black paint had faded to a bruised purple, and the wrap-around porch sagged on the left side, giving the entire structure a deranged, lopsided grin.

The gate was rusted shut. Marcus had to heave his shoulder against it, the screech of metal on metal echoing across the valley like a scream. He stumbled into the overgrown yard, where the weeds reached his waist, their dry stalks scratching at his trousers.

He reached the front door. He didn't use the key right away. Instead, he leaned his forehead against the damp wood, listening. 

From deep within the house—or perhaps from beneath it—came a sound. A slow, wet scraping. It sounded like something very large and very heavy being dragged across stone. 

Marcus took a breath, the cold air stinging his throat. He pulled the heavy brass key from his pocket, the one his father had sent him years ago "just in case." He slid it into the lock. It turned with a sickeningly smooth click, as if the house had been waiting for him to unlock it.

He stepped over the threshold into the foyer. The air inside was stagnant, smelling of dust, old paper, and a sharp, ozone scent that made the hair on his arms stand up. His flashlight beam cut through the dark, illuminating the grand staircase. 

On the third step from the bottom sat a single, wet boot. 

It was his father’s. Marcus recognized the worn leather and the specific way the heel was ground down. It was soaked through, a small puddle of river water dark and shimmering on the polished hardwood around it. 

"Dad?" Marcus’s voice was a ghost of a sound. 

The house didn't answer with words. Instead, the floorboards beneath him groaned, and from the kitchen at the end of the hall, a soft, rhythmic thudding began. *Thump. Thump. Thump.*

It was the sound of the cellar door, swinging on a broken hinge. 

Marcus moved toward the sound, his flashlight shaking. He passed the parlor, where the furniture was covered in white sheets that looked like huddling specters in the gloom. He reached the kitchen. The smell was stronger here—the smell of the river, of silt and decay. 

The cellar door was open. Beyond it, a staircase descended into absolute, velvety blackness. 

He stood at the edge of the void, his light failing to reach the bottom. He remembered his father’s letter. *Check the cellar. The foundation is shifting.*

Marcus took the first step down. The wood didn't creak; it felt soft, almost spongy beneath his weight. He descended five steps, six, seven. The air grew colder, the pressure in his ears increasing as if he were diving deep underwater. 

At the bottom of the stairs, his light hit the floor. It wasn't stone anymore. The concrete of the cellar had been buckled upward, shattered from beneath. In its place was a gaping maw of black mud and swirling, dark water. 

In the center of the muddy hole stood a shape. 

It was a man, or it had been. He was covered from head to toe in thick, shimmering river silt. He stood perfectly still, his back to Marcus. 

"Dad?" 

The figure didn't turn. It didn't speak. But as Marcus took a step forward, the water in the hole began to churn, and he realized with a jolt of pure, primal terror that the figure wasn't standing on the floor. It was being held up by something beneath the mud.

The cellar door behind him slammed shut with a force that rattled the entire house. 

Marcus spun around, his light catching the silhouette of someone—or something—standing on the other side of the heavy wooden door. A pale hand pressed against the small glass pane, the fingers unnaturally long, the skin translucent. 

Then, the floor beneath Marcus’s feet gave way. 

He didn't fall far, his boots sinking into the freezing, viscous mud of the riverbed that had somehow swallowed the foundation. As he struggled to pull his legs free, a voice whispered from the darkness of the crawlspace, right next to his ear. It wasn't his father’s voice. It was a chorus of voices, layered over one another, sounding like the rush of the water outside.

"The Thorne returns," the voices hissed. "The river always gets its due."

Marcus lunged for the stairs, his hands clawing at the muddy earth. His fingers brushed something hard—not a rock, but a bone. A human rib, picked clean and polished white by the subterranean flow. 

He pulled himself up, gasping, as the light of his flashlight flickered and died. In the sudden, oppressive dark, he felt a cold, wet hand wrap around his ankle. 

It didn't pull him down. Not yet. It just held him there, a firm, possessive grip that told him he wasn't a guest in this house anymore. He was an anchor.

The house above him exhaled, a long, low whistle of wind through the gables, and Marcus realized the thrumming he’d heard earlier wasn't the river at all. 

It was the house, breathing. 

He kicked out, his boot connecting with something that felt like wet leather. The grip on his ankle loosened just enough for him to scramble up the last two steps and throw his weight against the cellar door. It was locked from the outside. 

He hammered on the wood, his screams swallowed by the thick insulation of the old house. 

"Help! Someone! Let me out!"

From the other side of the door, he heard the floorboards of the kitchen creak. Footsteps. Slow, heavy, and wet. They stopped right in front of the door. 

"Marcus?" 

The voice was his father's. It was perfect. It was the voice he had remembered from his childhood, before the drinking and the madness had taken hold. 

"Dad? Dad, open the door! Something’s down here!"

"I can't open it yet, son," the voice said, sounding heartbreakingly sad. "The silt hasn't finished with you. You have to let it in. You have to let it fill the empty spaces."

Marcus backed away from the door, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "What are you talking about? Open the door!"

"Listen," his father whispered. 

Marcus went still. Behind him, in the dark of the cellar, the sound of the churning water had changed. It was no longer splashing. It was rising. A slow, steady lap-lap-lap against the bottom step. 

He turned his head slowly. Even without the light, he could see the shimmer of the black water. It was halfway up the stairs. It was rising faster than any tide. 

He looked back at the small glass pane in the door. The pale hand was gone. In its place was an eye. It was wide, the iris a milky blue, staring at him with an ancient, predatory hunger. 

"Welcome home, Marcus," the eye seemed to say, though the lips on the other side didn't move. 

The water reached his knees. It was ice-cold, smelling of old graves and deep-sea trenches. Marcus reached for the door handle one last time, screaming until his throat felt like it was tearing open. 

As the water reached his chest, the house began to groan again, but this time, it was accompanied by a sound from the valley outside—the low, mournful wail of the train whistle as it departed the station, leaving him behind in the dark.

The water reached his chin. He tilted his head back, catching the last few inches of air near the ceiling. 

Then, the light in the kitchen clicked on. 

A thin sliver of yellow light bled through the crack at the bottom of the cellar door. Marcus saw a pair of feet standing there. They weren't wet. They were wearing polished black shoes. 

The door creaked open an inch. 

"Are you ready to see what's under the floor, Marcus?" a new voice asked—a voice that was cold, precise, and entirely too human. 

The water suddenly vanished. 

Marcus fell forward, crashing onto dry, dusty concrete. He gasped, his lungs burning as he inhaled the stagnant air. He looked down. His clothes were dry. The mud was gone. The gaping hole in the floor was nothing but a series of harmless cracks in the foundation. 

He looked up. 

Standing in the doorway was a man he didn't recognize, holding a kerosene lamp. The man was thin, dressed in a sharp black suit that looked out of place in the derelict house. He smiled, and his teeth were a little too white, a little too straight. 

"The mind is a treacherous thing in Cypress Bend, isn't it?" the man said. 

Marcus scrambled backward, his back hitting the stone wall. "Who are you? Where’s my father?"

The man lowered the lamp, the shadows dancing wildly across the cellar walls. "Your father is where we put him, Marcus. But we found something out after he passed. He didn't tell you the whole truth about the Thorne line."

The man stepped into the cellar, the door swinging shut behind him with a finality that made the air vanish from the room. 

"You didn't come back to bury him," the man whispered, leaning in close. "You came back to take his place."

Marcus looked at the floor again. The cracks in the concrete began to bleed. Not water. Not mud. 

Thick, dark blood began to seep upward, spelling out a single word across the floor of the cellar.

*MINE.*

Marcus felt the cold grip return to his ankle, and this time, there was no water to hide what was pulling him down into the dark.