Claimed by My Bully Alpha Chapter 306

Aurora’s P.O.V

I screamed.

A raw, bloodcurdling one that ripped straight from my lungs as I stumbled away from the window, my legs tangling in the hem of my nightgown. My back hit the floor with a dull thud, pain jolting up my spine, but I hardly noticed. My eyes were still fixed on the window, on the thing that had no right to be real.

A shadow. A figure.

It had no clear face, just empty sockets where eyes should’ve been, and a skeletal form wrapped in swirling darkness. It should have stayed outside. It should have vanished. But instead, it floated straight through the glass like it was nothing but air, like walls and reality didn’t apply to it at all.

“No,” I whispered, voice shaking. “No, no, this isn’t happening—this isn’t real—”

But it was. God, it was.

The room felt like it was closing in on me, and the air had turned thick and heavy, like I was breathing in smoke. I tried to crawl backward, my hands scraping against the wooden floor, but every movement I made felt slowed, like I was moving through water, like my limbs weren’t listening to me anymore. I could feel the cold from its presence even before it reached me. It wasn’t just temperature—it was emptiness. A hollow, bone-chilling absence of life.

“Aurora…” it called out my name in a voice so broken and distorted it made my stomach turn. It was like a hundred whispers layered over each other, each one filled with venom. “You will pay… for what you did…”

“I didn’t do anything!” I cried, my voice cracking. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about! Please—please just go away!”

But it kept coming. Floating closer. Slower. More deliberate. Like it was savoring my fear.

I turned, clawing at the floor, dragging myself toward the door as if I could somehow make it before it touched me, before it did whatever unspeakable thing it was planning. My fingers grasped the doorknob and just as I began to twist it open—

BANG!

The door burst open with a deafening slam that made me scream again, my heart nearly leaping out of my chest. I froze. My breath caught in my throat as I stared at the doorway.

Standing there was a girl.

She looked about twelve, but there was something terribly wrong. Her skin was pale, sickly pale, and stretched tight over her bones like paper. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes sunken into their sockets, glassy and lifeless. She wasn’t alive—she couldn’t be. Her long, tangled hair hung in greasy strands around her face, and her dress was torn and filthy, clinging to her emaciated form. Her arms hung at her sides, but her fingers were bony, curled like claws.

She took one step forward and the boards beneath her creaked under her nonexistent weight. Her head tilted slightly, and her mouth—oh god, her mouth—opened far too wide, revealing rows of teeth that didn’t belong in a child’s skull. Sharp. Hungry.

“Do you remember me, Aurora?” she asked softly, though her voice echoed like it came from the bottom of a well. “Because I remember you…”

My blood turned to ice.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. The shadow behind me was still there, and now this girl—this… thing—stood in front of me. Trapping me. Their presence filled every inch of the room, pressing down on me like invisible hands choking the life out of me. My back hit the wall, and I slid down, my nails scratching against the plaster as if I could dig my way out.

“I didn’t mean to—I don’t know who you are!” I cried, tears spilling down my cheeks. “I swear, I don’t know!”

But they didn’t care. The shadow moved closer. The girl stepped forward again.

And I realized, with a sinking horror that twisted deep in my gut, that whatever this was… it was far from over.

The cold seeped in first.

It curled its claws around my ankles, creeping up my spine like an unwanted whisper in the night.

I looked at the girl again, a sense of foreboding settling in my stomach. Why did it feel like I did know her? Her long hair matted and hung over her face, her limbs barely skin and bone. I stepped forward, cautiously, my heart hammering against my ribs like it wanted to escape me.

"Who—?" I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "Who are you?"

She didn’t answer. Just shifted slightly, and that sound—bones dragging against wood—echoed far louder than it should have.

I knelt, inching closer, a strange mix of dread and guilt rising like bile in my throat. "Can you hear me?" I reached out, trembling, unsure whether I even wanted to touch her. Something deep inside me was screaming not to, that this—this moment—was a reckoning. That which sat before me wasn’t a child. It was a memory. It was a consequence.

And that’s when she looked up.

Violet eyes. Empty, sunken sockets wrapped in pale, tight skin. But I knew. Goddess help me, I knew. "Violet," I breathed, my voice cracking like glass. I staggered back, the blood draining from my face as guilt punched the air out of my lungs.

She rose slowly, each movement unnatural, jarring—like a puppet being yanked by a sadistic hand. Her skeletal arms extended toward me, bones rattling beneath translucent skin. Her lips, gray and cracked, pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "You remember me now, don't you, Aurora?" Her voice sounded like a thousand whispers bleeding into one. "You remember what you did."

“No, no, I didn’t—” I choked, stumbling back on my hands as I shook my head violently. “I tried—I didn’t mean for any of it—I tried to save you—”

“But you didn’t.”

Her words were venom, each syllable dragging memories from the pit I had buried them in. The fire. The screams. The way I had run… and not looked back. “You left me,” she said, stepping closer, her shadows now twisting around her like a thousand grasping fingers. “You left me to die.”

The air turned heavy, suffocating. Shadows slithered across the walls, crawling like ink across my skin, whispering in her voice, whispering in mine. I couldn’t move. My legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the cold floor, my hands instinctively flying to cover my ears. I couldn’t hear this. I couldn’t hear her scream again. I had heard it too many times in my nightmares. "I didn’t mean to—"

"But you did," she snarled. "And now, you’ll pay."

I sat still. Frozen. My eyes squeezed shut. My palms pressed so hard against my ears that the pressure stung. I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to hear her. Not again. Not like this. The shadows reached me then, brushing against my arms like frostbite, like death itself was creeping into my skin. Violet’s presence loomed over me, and I could feel her breath—cold and bitter—against my neck.

“No more running, Aurora.”

I whimpered, curling into myself as the darkness swallowed me whole.

And I waited—waited for the past to devour me, for her hatred to consume every last shred of me that remained.