Page 106 of Death Valley

I flip forward through the pages, watching my sister’s journey unfold through her own words.

May 3, 2021

Mom knew. She must have. All those stories she told us about the hunger, about the thing in her blood that was passed down through generations. I always thought it was the schizophrenia talking, but what if it wasn’t? What if she was trying to warn us?

July 18, 2021

Adam thinks I’m obsessing too much. Says I need to let this go. He doesn’t understand. How could he? This isn’t his family, his blood. He hasn’t felt the mountains calling like I have, hasn’t had the dreams of snow and hunger his whole life.

My heart constricts as I recognize the pattern unfolding in these pages. Lainey’s growing obsession. Adam’s attempts to control her. The same toxic dynamic I’d witnessed in the brief times they’d been together at my apartment, but worse than I’d realized.

September 2, 2021

Adam took the car keys. Says I need a “break” from my research. As if he gets to decide what I need. As if he owns me. I may have to tell him what he wants to hear for a while. Play along. Make him think he’s won. It’s the only way I’ll get the chance to continue.

“Jesus,” I mutter, anger flaring hot in my chest. “He was isolating her, controlling her. Classic abuser tactics.”

I continue turning pages, watching my sister’s descent into obsession and Adam’s escalating attempts to stop her.

January 10, 2022

The dreams are getting worse. More vivid. I can taste blood in my mouth when I wake up. I’m starting to understand what Mom meant about the hunger. It’s not just a metaphor or a delusion. It’s real. It’s in our blood, passed down through generations, dormant until something wakes it.Something in these mountains is calling to me, Aubrey. I wish I could tell you. I wish you could understand. But I need to protect you from this. From becoming like me. Like Mom.

My name jumps off the page, sending a shock through my system. Lainey had been writing to me all along, leaving these words knowing—or hoping—I would find them someday.

March 5, 2022

Adam caught me packing. Big fight. He hit me for the first time. Said he wouldn’t let me destroy myself with this “crazy obsession.” Said if I loved him, I’d stop. I told him I’m going to the mountains with or without him. Something in him changed when I said that. He got very quiet, then said if I’m determined to go, he’s coming too. “To protect me from myself,” he said. But the look in his eyes scared me more than his anger.

April 22, 2022

Found someone who might help us. A guide named Jensen McGraw who knows the mountains better than anyone. Adam doesn’t trust him, but I do. Jensen has his own connection to these mountains—I can see it in his eyes. He understands there are things here beyond ordinary explanation.Tomorrow we head up to search the area where the McAlisters were supposed to have lived. Where Josephine was born in blood and hunger. Where it all began.

I glance at Jensen, who meets my gaze steadily despite the pain evident in his eyes. “She trusted you,” I say softly.

“And I failed her,” he replies, voice rough with emotion.

“You couldn’t have known what was waiting up here.” I turn back to the journal, to the final pages, my heart racing with dread at what I might find.

May 3, 2022 (I think. Days blur together now)

We’ve found caves. Jensen warned us not to go in too deep, but I know what I’m looking for is farther in. Adam has been acting strange since we arrived in the mountains—watching me constantly, but also seeming drawn to the caves himself. Sometimes I catch him staring into the darkness with a hunger I recognize from my own reflection.

Something is happening to me. To both of us. I can feel myself changing. The cold that starts in my bones and spreads outward. The heightened senses. The dreams more vivid than ever.

The hunger growing stronger every day.

One day I fear it might be real.

My hands shake as I turn to the final entry, dated three years ago—the last words my sister ever wrote.

May 5, 2022

Adam bit me the other day. He did it out of anger but I could tell it wasn’t him. Maybe it’s never been him. Maybe it was always something else. Someone else. I miss the man I knew.

I can feel myself changing. I’m so cold. The hunger is everything now. Adam is changing too, but differently. He’s enjoying it in the ways that I’m not.

We found others in the deeper caves. Others like us—or what we’re becoming. They recognized something in our blood. In my blood. They showed me things, taught me things. The history that doesn’t exist in books but the history I knew all along.

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