The Last Message in the Rain – Part 4: Shadows of the Past

The storm was a beast that night, its fury lashing against Elara’s home with a force she had never felt before. The thunder rumbled through the hills like some ancient, forgotten warning, and each flash of lightning fractured the darkness, casting jagged shadows across her kitchen floor.

Elara sat at the kitchen table, her eyes fixed on the latest letter. Her hands gripped the envelope so tightly her knuckles were white, her breath shallow.

“He will wear your father’s coat. But it is not your father.”

She read it again. And again. But the words stayed the same, chilling her to the bone.

Impossible. No one could have known. The coat—her father’s old navy trench coat, worn with age, the brass buttons slightly tarnished, the fabric frayed at the seams—had been tucked away in the attic for years. Elara had kept it locked away, hidden beneath boxes of forgotten holiday decorations and relics of the past. Not even Maddie, her younger sister, had ever seen it. The coat was her last piece of her father, the one thing that connected her to him after his sudden passing all those years ago.

Her pulse quickened. Fear knotted in her stomach.

The letter had to be a mistake. Or a cruel prank. But the last few weeks had proven one thing: nothing had been a mistake. Not the letters, not the strange events. Everything was connected. And that connection led to something—or someone—she could not yet understand.

With her hands trembling, Elara stood up. She had to check.

She didn’t bother turning off the lights as she hurried upstairs. The attic was always cold, and tonight it felt colder still, as if the walls were holding onto secrets she wasn’t meant to know. The ladder creaked under her weight as she climbed into the suffocating darkness above.

The flashlight beam bounced off the boxes, casting long, crooked shadows across the walls. She moved through the clutter, her breath caught in her throat. The trunk was still there, its lid slightly askew, surrounded by old blankets and faded photo albums. But there was no coat.

Her chest tightened.

The trench coat was gone.

Her mind raced, searching for an explanation. Had Maddie been in here? Had she taken it, maybe without telling her? But no, that didn’t make sense. Maddie wouldn’t even know where it was. Elara had kept it locked away for a reason. For herself.

A chill gust of wind swept through the attic, but there were no open windows. The sudden cold made the hairs on her neck stand up. She stepped back, almost tripping over a box labeled Elara – Childhood.

That’s when she heard it.

A creak. Not from the attic, but from below.

Her heart skipped a beat. Someone was in the house.

Another creak, followed by a soft thud.

Elara froze.

“Maddie?” she called out, her voice tight. But the silence in the house only deepened. No answer.

She descended the attic stairs slowly, the old wood groaning beneath her feet. Her heart was hammering in her chest, every creak of the floorboards echoing in the dark quiet of the house.

“Maddie?” she called again, her voice trembling now.

Still, nothing.

The house felt wrong. There was something about the way the stillness settled in the rooms that made it feel too quiet, too empty. As if the walls themselves were holding their breath.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes fell on the front door. There, lying just inside, was another letter.

Her throat tightened as she walked over, the dread in her stomach spreading like ice water. She reached down and picked it up, her fingers cold against the damp paper.

The message was simple but gut-wrenching.

“Do not let him speak your name.”

Her breath hitched, and panic swept over her. Someone—something—knew things about her. About her father. About the coat.

She quickly locked the door and bolted every other window and door in the house, but the fear in her chest wouldn’t subside. Nothing in this house could keep her safe. Not anymore.

Back in the kitchen, Elara gripped the two letters in her hands, trying to steady her breathing. The coat was gone. And someone had been inside.

Someone knew.

Her mind raced, her thoughts tumbling over each other. There was no time to make sense of it all. She couldn’t sit still any longer. Her father’s journal—his old, weathered journal—lay on the table beside her.

Her father had received these letters too. He’d written about it in the last pages of his journal, his handwriting growing more erratic, more desperate.

“They come with the rain.”

“She will receive the last letter.”

“The one in the mirror is not me.”

The words blurred before her eyes. She grabbed the journal, flipping through the pages until she reached the last entry. Her father’s final words had been a warning.

Suddenly, a faint sound broke the silence.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It was coming from the hallway. Elara’s heart stopped. She didn’t dare move, didn't dare breathe. The sound was soft, but it was unmistakable. A rhythmic tapping. Like fingernails tapping on glass.

Slowly, she stood up, the hairs on her neck rising. The hallway mirror. It had always been there, reflecting the emptiness of the space, a silent observer to her late-night wanderings. But now, there was something wrong with it. Something in the reflection that wasn’t quite right.

She stepped forward cautiously, her eyes meeting her own reflection in the dim light.

And then, in the glass, she saw him.

A man. Wearing her father’s coat. The familiar navy trench coat, frayed at the edges, the brass buttons gleaming in the faint light.

Elara gasped, stumbling backward, her pulse racing. The figure in the mirror smiled, but it wasn’t her father’s smile. His eyes were hollow, black voids that seemed to draw her in, swallowing her whole.

A cold sweat broke out over her skin. She turned to run, but before she could move, she heard it. The whisper.

“Elara…”

The voice was soft. It wasn’t coming from the mirror. It was coming from inside her head.

She clutched her ears, trying to block it out, but the voice continued, more insistent now. Her breath quickened, and her legs felt like lead. She couldn’t move.

And then, just like that, the lights flickered.

The whispering grew louder. The figure in the mirror grinned wider, its hollow eyes never leaving hers.

To be continued...