Part 2 My fingers froze the moment I saw the ultrasound.
My fingers froze the moment I saw the ultrasound.
It wasn’t just old paper.
It was recent.
Too recent.
The edges were still crisp, like it had been carefully hidden rather than forgotten.
And there—faint but undeniable—was a tiny shape inside the image.
A baby.
My breath stopped completely.
“No…” I whispered. “This can’t be…”
On the phone, Marisol’s voice turned urgent.
“Mom, don’t stay there. He’s close.”
The knocking stopped.
That silence was worse than the noise.
Because now I knew he wasn’t trying to scare me anymore.
He was listening.
I turned slowly toward the back door window.
The fog on the glass was gone.
So was the hand.
For a moment, I thought maybe he had left.
Maybe fear had driven him away.
Then I saw the footprints.
Wet.
Fresh.
Leading around the side of the house.
Toward the back yard.
Toward the well.
My stomach twisted violently.
The well.
The baby.
The notebook.
Everything suddenly connected in a way my mind didn’t want to accept.
I grabbed the phone tighter.
“Marisol… what is in the well?”
There was a pause.
A long, trembling pause.
Then she whispered:
“Proof.”
Another silence.
Then:
“And me.”
My knees gave out.
I dropped onto the floor, the ultrasound shaking in my hand.
“You’re dead,” I said. “I buried you. I saw the coffin. I—”
“I wasn’t inside it,” she interrupted softly.
Her voice cracked for the first time.
“I was already gone before they put it in the ground.”
A cold wave ran through my entire body.
Outside, something metal clanked.
The cover of the well.
Being moved.
I forced myself to stand.
“No…” I whispered, shaking. “No, no, no…”
I ran to the back door.
The moment I opened it, the cold night air hit my face like a slap.
The yard was empty.
Except for the well.
The metal sheet was half slid off.
One of the stones had rolled into the grass.
And footprints circled it.
Fresh.
I stepped forward slowly.
“Marisol?” I called out, voice breaking. “Honey, what is this supposed to mean?”
The phone went silent.
No static.
No breathing.
Nothing.
Just dead air.
Then—
From the well.
A sound.
Not a voice.
Not yet.
Something like movement.
Like something shifting far below the earth.
I stepped closer, trembling so badly I could barely stand.
“Who’s there?” I whispered.
A pause.
Then a man’s voice answered from inside the well.
Calm.
Familiar.
Too familiar.
“Mrs. Elena,” Mr. Vargas said softly. “You shouldn’t have listened to her.”
My blood turned to ice.
Behind me, the phone came alive again.
Marisol—but now her voice was different.
Strained.
Broken.
“Mom… don’t believe him…”
Then a second voice overlapped hers.
A third voice.
Like interference.
Like something pulling her away.
“She’s not there,” Vargas said from the well. “She hasn’t been for a long time.”
I backed away, shaking violently.
“That’s not true…” I whispered. “I’m talking to her right now.”
A soft laugh echoed up from below.
“You’re talking to what I left behind,” he said.
The metal cover shifted again.
Slowly.
As if something underneath was pushing upward.
My vision blurred with tears.
“No…” I whispered. “No, I buried my daughter…”
“And I helped you,” he said gently. “You signed the papers.”
The words hit harder than any scream.
I remembered.
The hospital.
The signature.
The trembling hand.
The pressure.
“Don’t make this harder, Mrs. Elena.”
I staggered back.
From the phone, Marisol screamed suddenly:
“RUN FROM THE WELL!”
I turned—
But it was too late.
The metal cover flew off completely.
Something inside slammed upward—
And a hand shot out from the darkness.
Not reaching for me.
Reaching for the surface.
For air.
For escape.
And in that instant, I realized something that shattered everything I believed:
My daughter hadn’t been calling me from the past.
She had been calling me from where they left her.
Still alive.
Still trapped.
And Mr. Vargas wasn’t coming to deliver a message.
He had come to make sure she never spoke again.
The ground behind me creaked.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Approaching.
And Marisol whispered one last thing into my ear through the phone:
“Mom… I’m under the house too.”