You Didn't Finish the Game

<p>Fifteen years ago Emily vanished in the dark. The town whispered theories the parents wept on camera and the years buried what really happened.</p><p>But Harriet and Alan know the truth. They buried her themselves. Telling her they were playing a game.</p><p>Now the phone rings. A woman's voice calls them <em>Mom</em> and <em>Dad</em>; a voice older steady unmistakably Emily's. Soon their home shifts around them mirrors splitting open into faces that shouldn't exist doors rearranging into coffins. Emily has returned but not as the child they lost. She has come back bound to the thing that fed on their silence the thing that has always lived beneath the town. The thing that caused them to bury her in the first place.</p><p>To protect her Harriet must descend into the bone-deep rules that have governed the town for generations; rules written in folded towels closed doors and nods that ended questions before they began.</p><p>Each step deeper brings her closer to the truth. One of them must stay. One of them must walk out. And when the final silence breaks nothing will be left the same.</p>