The unmarked door sealed shut behind Nicole with a soft, hydraulic hiss, plunging her into absolute silence and pitch black. The glamour of The Penthouse was instantly gone, replaced by the smell of stagnant water and old concrete.
"Rene?" Nicole's voice echoed weakly.
A hand clamped over her wrist—not the small, soft hand of her friend, but a thick, rough grip that felt like wood and iron. Before she could scream, she was dragged forward, stumbling down steps carved into raw stone.
Then, light. Not the blue light of the party, but a sickly, flickering yellow from three towering candelabras.
They were in a low, vaulted chamber. In the center, under a circular opening to the concrete ceiling above, was a slab of granite—an altar. And on it, struggling weakly against thick, hempen ropes, was Rene.
"Nic, get out! Go!" Rene cried, her voice raw with terror.
But it was too late. Two cloaked men, their faces obscured by deep cowls, wrestled Nicole onto the altar next to Rene. The granite was freezing, drawing the heat out of her back. The hemp was abrasive, cutting into her wrists and ankles as they cinched her down with brutal efficiency.
"It's not fate, Rene," Nicole spat, struggling uselessly. "It's a trap. It's a slaughterhouse."
The room was filling now. Maybe twenty figures, all cloaked, stood in a tight circle around the altar, their silence profound. Nicole could hear nothing but her own frantic, shallow breathing and Rene's ragged sobs.
The man who had dragged her—the one with the massive build—stepped into the light. He was the only one unmasked. His face was unremarkable, except for his eyes: they were dull, depthless grey, and entirely without recognition.
He began to speak. It was not a language Nicole knew. It was a chain of guttural, clicking sounds, a language born in some primordial pit, vibrating deep in the stone floor. It felt less like a prayer and more like a demand.
As he chanted, the air in the chamber grew heavier, thicker, pressing down on their chests. The flickering candlelight cast their shadows, monstrous and writhing, against the wall.
Then, the cold began.
It wasn't the cold of the stone; it was a cold that started inside their bones and worked its way out. It felt like an infusion of liquid nitrogen, swift and agonizing.
Rene screamed. A high, thin sound that was instantly choked off.
Nicole felt it enter her through her mouth, a sudden, sharp inhalation of something that was not air. It was a rush of pure, focused malice, accompanied by a sound like dry, crackling static inside her skull.
The moment was agonizingly long and terribly brief. It was the feeling of being entirely evacuated, followed by the sensation of a parasitic intelligence rushing in to fill the void. It wasn't just a spirit; it was a thousand years of focused, hateful intent.
The last thing Nicole saw, before the world dissolved into a black, buzzing vortex, was Rene's wide, terrified eyes looking back at her. And then, the horror: the terror in Rene's eyes was suddenly extinguished, replaced by a slow, knowing smile that was utterly alien.
Nicole woke up in the back alley behind The House of Drennin. Her wrists were raw, her head pounding. The world felt muffled and wrong.
Rene was kneeling beside her, carefully rubbing the rope burns on her own wrists.
"They didn't hurt us, Nic," Rene murmured, her voice flat. "They just—let us go."
Nicole looked at her friend. Rene's eyes were the same color, the same shape, but the light behind them was gone, replaced by a calculating, vacant darkness. The gentle dreamer was dead.
"We have to call the police," Nicole rasped, scrambling to her feet.
Rene looked up at her, that cold, alien smile returning. It was full of malice, and something worse: familiarity.
"There's nothing to report, Nicole," Rene said. Her voice was too soft, too steady. "We just went to a party."
But Nicole knew that the girl standing before her, the one with the borrowed smile, was not Rene. She was just the shell, and the thing inside was now home. They walked the last few yards to Drennin, the house seeming to welcome them back with a profound, hungry silence.