Excerpt from Nova's journal:


The smiley came to me three nights after the storm took the others. It said the sickness would spread unless a price was paid. I begged for my child's life, and it agreed, but a debt can't vanish. It only waits. It said my line would carry the mark until balance is restored.


If she ever sees the red moon, she'll know the debt is coming due. One life spared... one claimed. That is the rule, like it or not.


I pray she never learns my name and if she does... I'm so sorry, my love. 


Sydney's hand shook as she closed the book. The sun outside was already sinking, the light turning the sky to the color of rust.


On the horizon, the first sliver of a red moon was rising.

The last streaks of daylight bled out behind the trees. 


Sydney sat on the floor of her mother's old room, the red-leather journal open beside her. The house seemed to breathe around her. The boards were creaking, walls settling, as if the building itself remembered what had happened here. She wish she knew, so she could put an end to this madness. 


She whispered the final line again.


"One life spared... one life claimed."


A chill pressed against the windows. The air grew thin. Outside, the red moon cleared the horizon.


Just like in her creepy dream...


The light that poured through the glass wasn't warm like moonlight should be. It was heavy, pulsing faintly, a heartbeat of its own. Dust lifted from the floorboards and drifted upward as if gravity were slowly forgetting her.


Sydney stood.


Her reflection in the window watched her a half-second too late.


Then the reflection in the window started talking to her and it said:


"The debt is due."


The Smiley, as my mother called it stepped from the shadow of the stairwell, taller than ever before, its edges rippling like smoke caught in a draft. Where its eyes should have been, two points of crimson burned brighter than hell.

Sydney's instinct was to run, but unfortunately her legs wouldn't obey. The air between them felt thick, humming even.  


"Why me? She was the one who made the deal!" She shouted, the words breaking apart.


The figure tilted its head, once again. 


"Blood remembers. The promise travels with it." It said.


It moved closer, and for a moment the cold coming from it almost felt like sorrow.


"The spared must choose their ending. Yield, or pass the debt to another." It said softly. 


Sydney's stomach dropped, her palms were all sweaty. 


"You mean... someone else dies instead?"


The Smiley said nothing. The silence was answer enough.


Her mind raced. The lights above her flickered, stretching her shadow across the ceiling until it met the creature's. They merged, just for an instant. She felt her heartbeat falter, replaced by the slow rhythm of another pulse. Ancient, steady and endless.


"I won't do it. No one else." She whispered.


The Smiley's outline trembled. The house shuddered, then slowly it stepped back into the dark.


Its voice was faint now, fading with the wind:


"Then the line ends here."