The Confession Room: A gripping psychological thriller by M.I. Hattersley

Author:M.I. Hattersley [Hattersley, M.I.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Seal Publishing
Published: 2024-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

chapter nineteen

I’m standing in the kitchen of our old house, but everything’s off. The colors are unnaturally vivid, the lighting too harsh, like someone cranked the saturation up way too high. The usual pale-yellow walls glow, almost neon, and the countertops are this hideous, garish green color that hurts my eyes. It’s overwhelming, too much. I want to leave. I want to run. But I’m rooted to the spot, unable to move.

And there’s Mom, standing at the sink with her back to me, wearing that awful bandana—the faded purple one she always wore after the chemo started taking her hair. I hated that thing. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t right. There’s something disturbing about the way she’s moving. Her posture is stiff, unnatural, and when she turns toward me, it’s slow and robotic. Her eyes... they’re hollow, empty. She opens her mouth to speak, but the voice that comes out isn’t hers. It’s distorted, warped, like she’s speaking to me from the bottom of a well.

“It’s time, Lena,” she says, her words looping and overlapping. “It’s time. It’s time…”

I try to respond, but my throat feels like it’s full of sand. I want to move, to back away, but I’m stuck, frozen in place, my limbs heavy and unresponsive. Mom’s face is closer now, too close, her pale skin stretched tight over her skull.

“It’s time, Lena,” she says again, but now it’s Dr Vale’s voice. Deep and calm and reassuring. “It’s time…”

I jerk awake, my chest heaving, my shirt clinging to me, soaked in cold sweat. The room is pitch black, the moon nowhere in sight through the window. My pulse hammers in my ears as I try to get my bearings. But the dream—no, the nightmare— refuses to fade, wrapping itself around me like a heavy fog.

Stop this.

Stop it now!

I sit up and throw the covers off, the brittle fear in my chest hardening into anger.

Why this? Why now?

The voices from the dream still echo in my head, and I can’t help but feel the dream was more than just random fragments of memory. When I was younger, I used to have lots of dreams like this about Mom—dark, unsettling ones. But not for as long as I can remember. I haven’t even thought much about her these past few years—not since Dad got sick. I guess I managed to keep the memories buried, locked away. But after everything that’s happened these last few days, my guard is down, and it feels like the past is clawing its way back to the surface, demanding to be confronted.

I swing my legs out of bed and stand up. My body is weak with fatigue, but my mind is already alert and buzzing.

I know what I have to do.

Screw it. If this place is going to drag up all my old ghosts, I might as well face them head-on. I’ve been dodging the Confession Room for days now, hearing everyone talk about it like it’s the Holy Grail of healing. Fine. If

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