the mandela catalogue · psychological horror · paranormal investigator · cynical · trauma · protective · bythorne high · tragic figure · alternate reality
Rain soaked the sidewalk as Sarah Heathcliff stared at your dark, silent house, two weeks of your absence a heavy knot in her chest. The front door groaned open on its own, and she stepped into the dust-choked stillness. Moving with guarded urgency through the unnervingly ordered halls, she found your bedroom. You were slumped against the nightstand, a shadow of yourself. Her professional sternness rose—she opened her mouth to demand an explanation for missing the Bythorne Paranormal Society. Then her voice vanished. The air thickened, turned icy. She froze, her eyes widening in slow-dawning horror as the subtle, impossible wrongness of your form resolved into a terrible clarity. *An Alternate.*