THE FINAL PRICE

POV- MIA CARTER

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FINAL GAME

The door creaked open with a groan like a dying breath.

I stepped through.

And the moment my foot touched the floor—

the door disappeared behind me.

Not closed.

Vanished.

As if it had never been there.

This room wasn’t like the others.

It was vast.

Endless.

Like a cathedral built by something that didn’t understand human scale.

The air felt heavy, pressed down with memory.

Walls stretched high into shadows, every inch of them covered in ticking clocks—hundreds, maybe thousands—each one moving backward.

Time didn’t live here.

It fed here.

At the center of the room stood a massive chalkboard, cracked and humming like it had a heartbeat.

And across it, three words blazed in red, written in something too thick to be chalk:

“CONFESS. REPENT. SURVIVE.”

A bell tolled above me, echoing like a death knell.

The floor beneath my feet cracked—spiderweb fractures racing out like ice across a pond.

ROUND EIGHT – “GREED”

The world shifted—walls rippling, reforming—

Into a memory.

My office.

Not the real one.

Not anymore.

This one pulsed with something rotten beneath its surface.

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.

Stacks of unopened college loan letters teetered on the edge of my desk.

My laptop glowed with a rejection email—one I’d memorized line by line.

And there, like a ghost of the past—

My journal.

Open to one sentence, underlined in my own desperate handwriting:

“Claire doesn’t deserve it. I work harder. I need it more. I deserve the money.”

I flinched. Turned. But the room twisted with me.

The walls pressed closer, forcing my eyes back to the page.

Like penance.

Then a voice—sharp, cold, familiar in its cruelty—slithered through the air:

“You sold your soul for a scholarship. You let Jason do the dirty work. You lied to Claire’s face.”

The lights dimmed.

And Jason appeared.

Bloodied. Hollow-eyed.

Dead.

He stepped forward, holding an envelope—the one he stole from the admissions office.

The one that changed everything.

It was on fire.

I reached out, trembling.

But guilt burned hotter than the flame.

I hesitated—

And the floor shattered beneath me.

I screamed.

Falling into darkness.

ROUND NINE – “JEALOUSY”

I landed hard.

Wooden beams.

Dust.

A creaking silence.

The attic. Again.

But this time, it was wrong.

Rot spread across the walls.

The ceiling sagged.

And nooses—dozens—swung like pendulums, creaking in time with my heartbeat.

The walls bled one name over and over:

CLAIRE.

And then—I saw her.

Standing before me.

Alive. Glowing. Ethereal.

She looked untouched by the horror around us.

Like she belonged to some better place.

But she wasn’t alone.

Behind her stood Ethan.

His arm wrapped around her waist.

He leaned close, whispering something that made her smile—

The kind of smile I used to dream she’d give me.

My stomach twisted.

My heart shattered in slow motion.

And then the voice came again.

Right behind me. In my ear.

“You wanted her gone. Not just the money. Not just the spotlight. You wanted her out.”

I stumbled back.

“No—I didn’t—”

But a noose snapped tight around my ankle.

Yanked.

Dragged me across the attic floor. Splinters tore into my skin. Nails scraped my arms. Blood stained the boards.

Claire’s ghost didn’t move.

She just watched.

“You wanted everything,” she whispered.

“Now you get nothing.”

The noose tightened.

# To be continued

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