The morning after my wedding, I got a call from the registry office. “I’m sorry, but your file… has a problem.” I went cold. “What do you mean?” The voice lowered. “The paperwork was altered. Are you sure that man is legally your husband?” I looked at him—still smiling. I didn’t tell anyone. I simply went back inside, locked the door… and started digging into every secret he’d hidden.
THE SOUL POSSESSOR
Chapter 1: Dawn on the Cliff
The morning sun in Oregon pierced through the thick fog, reflecting off the still, mirror-like surface of the lake. I woke up in the minimalist villa on the cliff, the lingering taste of my wedding night still on my lips. Arthur was in the kitchen, the hum of the coffee maker filling the air with the aroma of toasted bread.
Everything was perfect. Arthur Sterling – a brilliant architect, the man who had entered my life two years ago like destiny. He was gentle, refined, and possessed a smile that could melt any heart.
Until my phone vibrated on the dressing table.
“Hello?” I answered, my voice still sleepy.
“Hello, this is Miller from the Lane County Marriage Registry Office. I’m really sorry for calling at this hour, but your file… has a serious problem.”
I sat up abruptly, a cold shiver running down my spine. “What do you mean? We completed the paperwork yesterday afternoon.”
The voice on the other end suddenly lowered, carrying an almost unmistakable tremor. “Our system just issued a red alert. Your husband’s identification documents were illegally altered at the programmatic level shortly after you left the office. The fingerprints and biometric data on the original registration don’t match the Social Security record under the name Arthur Sterling.”
I froze, my breath catching in my throat.
“Ms. Vance… are you sure the man in your house is your legal husband? We’ve checked the name Arthur Sterling. He’s actually a…”
A long beep sounded. The call was cut off.
I looked up. Arthur was standing in the bedroom doorway, holding two steaming cups of coffee. He was still smiling – his perfect, warm smile as always. But for the first time, I saw that smile didn’t reach his eyes. Those eyes were as deep and cold as the bottom of the lake outside.
“Who called, my love?” he asked, his voice low and frighteningly warm.
Chapter 2: The Mask of Perfection
I took a deep breath, forcing myself to stay calm. “Just… the old hotel housekeeping service, they told me I forgot a few things.”
“Oh, really?” Arthur stepped closer, setting his coffee cup down on the table. He gently stroked a lock of hair on my forehead, a gesture usually so loving but now making me shudder. “You look a little pale. Maybe you need some more rest.”
I forced a smile and went into the bathroom. As soon as the door closed, I locked it. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t call the police right then because I knew that if this Arthur Sterling could interfere with the government system, he wasn’t an ordinary person.
I turned around and saw Arthur had gone downstairs to prepare for his morning walk. I silently watched him through the stained-glass window until his figure disappeared behind the old pine trees.
I began to investigate.
Arthur’s office was always an “off-limits” area because it contained sensitive blueprints. I used a bobby pin, employing the basic lock-picking skills my father – a watchmaker – had taught me since childhood.
Click.
The room was filled with the scent of new paper and cedar wood. On the desk was a brand-new laptop, but what caught my attention was a secret drawer under the desk. Inside was a thick stack of files titled: “The Reality Correction Project.”
Chapter 3: Shadows in the Basement
Inside the file weren’t blueprints for a house. They were candid photographs of… myself. For the past three years.
Every habit, every friend I met, every medicine I took when I was sick—everything was meticulously documented. But even more horrifying, there were photographs of another man. A real Arthur Sterling. This Arthur was older, had a small scar on his eyebrow, and in the last photograph, he lay on an operating table in a stark white room.
I flipped to the last page. It was a death certificate.
The real Arthur Sterling had died in a car accident five years ago. Who was the man smiling at me downstairs?
The front door slammed shut. My heart pounded. He’d come home earlier than expected.
I quickly gathered my things, slipped out through the balcony door, and returned through the front door as if I’d just come back from a walk. Arthur was standing in the living room, holding a small apple-peeling knife.
“Where have you been?” he asked without turning around.
“I… I went to the garden to pick some flowers,” I said, holding up a handful of weeds I’d picked at random.
Arthur turned around. The knife in his hand gleamed in the sunlight. “Elena, you know, in architecture, a deviation of even a millimeter can cause an entire tower to collapse. I’ve spent so much time building this life for us. Don’t let it fall apart.”
Chapter 4: The Climax – The Truth in the Mirror
That night, I pretended to be fast asleep. Arthur lay beside me, his breathing steady, but I could feel him watching me. When he left the room to go down to the wine cellar, I immediately grabbed my phone and accessed a dark web site I knew about from a journalist friend.
I uploaded the image of Arthur’s fingerprints that I had secretly collected.
On my morning coffee.
The results appeared after five minutes of waiting that felt like an eternity.
No name. No nationality. Only a title: “The Sculptor.” A professional assassin specializing in “Life Swaps.” He not only kills his victims, he undergoes plastic surgery to become their names, taking over their assets and… their wives.
And I realized I was the final target. My father wasn’t just a watchmaker. He held the keys to a Swiss bank account containing billions of dollars belonging to a failed organization. Arthur – or this imposter – needed me to sign the debt ownership papers he had secretly embedded in the marriage contract.
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Slow. Heavy.
I ran into the shed and locked the door. Arthur knocked softly on the wooden door.
“Elena, open the door. I know you’ve been in the office. I know you’ve seen the death certificate.”
“Who are you?” I screamed, my hand gripping the iron hammer.
“I’m the one who loves you most,” his laughter rang out, dry and harsh. “Arthur was a real jerk; he betrayed you from the start. I freed you from him. I spent two years becoming your dream man. Don’t you see how happy we are?”
Bang!
He began to break down the door. I recoiled, my hand brushing against a large mirror covered in black cloth in the corner of the warehouse. I ripped the cloth away.
Behind the mirror wasn’t glass. It was a secret passageway leading down to a small room. And there, sitting on an electronic chair, was a thin man, his eyes dull but still breathing.
It was the real Arthur Sterling. He wasn’t dead. He kept him there to scan his retina and voice whenever high-level security verification was needed.
Chapter 5: The Twist and the Rise
The warehouse door collapsed. The imposter entered, his face now devoid of any humanity.
“It’s over, Elena. Sign here, and I’ll leave you to live with this worthless husband in the basement forever.”
He held out the marriage contract I had signed yesterday, but beneath the thin paper was a completely different property transfer clause.
I looked at him, then at the real Arthur, who was barely alive. A surge of hatred burned through me, consuming all fear.
“You’re right, ‘The Sculptor,'” I said, my voice surprisingly calm. “A millimeter off will bring down the tower.”
He froze at the mention of his alias.
“You’ve spent two years studying me,” I continued, moving closer to him. “But you forgot one thing about my father. He didn’t just teach me lockpicking. He taught me how to build the smallest devices… from the simplest things.”
I pressed a button on my wristwatch – a relic of my father.
Immediately, the fire suppression system in the mansion activated. But instead of water, a thick, pungent anesthetic gas sprayed out. This was the protective system my father had secretly installed for me years ago, which I always thought was an air filtration system.
The imposter staggered, trying to lunge at me, but I was faster, wearing the small oxygen mask hidden in a wall cavity. I used my hammer, delivering a fatal blow to his head.
He collapsed.
Chapter 6: The Final Answer
When the police and federal agents stormed the mansion, they found me sitting next to the real Arthur Sterling, my hand clasped tightly with his. The imposter was chained up, his face disfigured from the impact, revealing layers of surgical silicone underneath.
But the real horror was only just beginning.
While the agents were taking my statement, an official from the Marriage Registry – the one who had called me that morning – approached. He looked at me with a strange expression.
“Ms. Vance… there’s something I didn’t get to tell you over the phone.”
“He’s an imposter, I know,” I replied wearily.
“No,” the official shook his head, his face pale. “We checked your records. Your husband’s documents were altered to match yours. You’re the one whose fingerprints don’t match the Social Security records under the name Elena Vance.”
I froze.
“Elena Vance actually died in a drowning at summer camp 15 years ago,” the official continued in a whisper. “Who… who are you?”
I looked at my reflection in the glass window. A beautiful, gentle woman, seemingly completely harmless. A fleeting smile crossed my lips – the smile Arthur had once said was the most beautiful in the world.
It turned out that in this mansion, there wasn’t just one imposter. Two monsters had met, fallen in love, and married in a dance of perfect deception. The imposter lost only because he didn’t know that his prey was also a hunter of a higher caliber.
I turned back into the house, watching the real Arthur being carried onto a stretcher. I had to begin uncovering the next secret… the secret I myself had forgotten about my true self.
The game had only just begun.
Returning home from work, my husband suddenly froze. He stared at the shirt I was wearing, his face pale: “What… what is that?” I looked down, my heart pounding. “I… I don’t understand… what it is?” He swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on the mark. “You really don’t see it?” I moved closer—and in an instant, the blood in my veins froze. I understood… that thing was absolutely inexplicable.
Twelve days later, my mother-in-law watched some video and screamed in panic, calling my name repeatedly. Because that was the moment she realized… what the mark on my shirt that day truly meant.
The December snowstorm in Chicago paralyzed everything. When I inserted the key into the lock of my suburban home, the clock showed past 7 p.m. The wind howled through the cracks in the door, icy cold as blades.
I stepped inside, shaking off the thick snow from my coat, breathing a sigh of relief as the warmth from the heating system brushed against my face.
“Honey, I’m in the kitchen!” Mark’s voice called out.
I took off my thick coat, hung it on the rack, and went into the kitchen in my thin white silk shirt. Mark was stirring pasta; he turned and smiled at me, his usual warm smile. But then, that smile vanished.
His eyes were fixed on me. Not on my face, but on my right shoulder. His pupils constricted, and the wooden spoon in his hand fell to the floor with a dry clatter.
“Mark? What’s wrong?” I asked, stepping closer.
He recoiled, his face pale, drained of all color.
“What… what is that, Sarah?” His voice trembled, his finger pointing directly at my shoulder.
I looked down at my chest, seeing nothing. “I… I don’t understand… what it is?”
He swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on the mark. “You really don’t see it? On your right shoulder. Turn around. Slowly.”
I walked to the hallway mirror and turned around. And in an instant, the blood in my veins froze.
On the pristine white silk fabric of my right shoulder, a handprint was imprinted.
It wasn’t an ordinary stain. It was a dark gray, sticky handprint, as if made from a mixture of burnt grease and coal dust. The fingers were long, gaunt, and strangely thin, each knuckle clearly visible on the fabric. Its location was right below my shoulder blade – a place I couldn’t reach with my hand in that position.
“Did… did you bump into something?” Mark asked, his voice faltering.
“No way,” I stammered, my heart pounding. “I wore my coat all day. I buttoned it up from the moment I left the office until I walked through the door of my house. I never took it off.”
It was true. It was minus 20 degrees Celsius outside. I was wearing a thick coat that covered me completely. If someone had touched me, the stain would have been on the coat, not penetrating 5cm of my stomach to transfer onto the silk shirt underneath without leaving a mark on the outside.
Mark rushed to the coat rack. He flipped my coat over.
Clean.
Inside, outside, lining… not a single stain.
We turned to look at each other. Silence enveloped the kitchen, broken only by the howling wind outside the window.
“Sarah,” Mark whispered, moving closer to me. He reached out with trembling fingers to touch the stain on my jacket.
He recoiled instantly, horror etched on his face.
“It…it’s still wet.”
I shuddered.
If the stain was still wet, and my jacket was dry…that meant the mark wasn’t made this morning. Nor in the office.
It was made right now.
It was made in the brief ten seconds between the moment I took off my jacket at the door and walked five meters into the kitchen.
In those ten seconds, as I walked down the dimly lit hallway before turning on the lights…something was right behind me.
It had touched me.
Mark grabbed a kitchen knife. I trembled and recoiled behind him. We turned on all the lights in the house. We searched every room, every closet, under the beds, the basement, and even the dusty attic.
No one was there. The front door was still locked. The back door was bolted shut. The windows were closed because of the snowstorm.
There were no wet footprints on the hardwood floors. No signs of forced entry.
That night, we huddled in the bedroom, the door locked, Mark’s gun at the head of the bed. I had thrown that shirt in the trash, but the cold, sticky feeling on my shoulder still haunted me.
Twelve days passed. Life seemed to return to normal, but the atmosphere in the house had changed forever.
We tried to explain it rationally. Maybe I had gotten some car oil on me that morning without realizing it? Maybe my jacket was leaking? Maybe Mark misjudged the “wetness” of the stain?
But strange things began to happen.
The cereal boxes in the kitchen cupboard had been moved.
There were very light footsteps on the ceiling at 3 a.m., which Mark insisted were “heat-expanded pipes.”
Our Golden Retriever, Buster, normally very affectionate, now stood growling, staring blankly into space at the bottom of the stairs leading to the basement.
And I always felt like I was being watched.
Every time I showered, I felt eyes peering through the curtains. Every time I slept, I felt a cold breath on the back of my neck. Mark said I was paranoid due to work stress. He installed security cameras on the front and back doors to reassure me.
But he didn’t install cameras inside the house. He said, “I don’t want to turn our house into a prison, Sarah.”
I wish he had.
On the afternoon of the twelfth day, I was at the office when the phone rang. It was Eleanor, my mother-in-law.
Eleanor lives in Florida, but she has access to the “Pet Cam” system we installed in the living room so she can occasionally watch her pet.
“I’m calling Buster to ease my longing.”
“Sarah?” Eleanor’s voice sounded strange. Not the usual cheerful greeting. Her voice was choked, breathless, and full of fear.
“Yes, it’s me, Mom. What’s wrong?”
“Sarah… where are you?”
“I’m at work. Mark is at work too. What’s wrong, Mom?”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. I heard her take deep breaths, trying to calm herself.
“I just rewatched the video…” she said, her voice trembling. “I was going to check on Buster because I saw him limping yesterday. I rewound the video from the day before yesterday… and the day before that too…”
“Mom, can you be more specific? What happened to Buster?”
“It wasn’t the dog!” Eleanor shrieked, her scream so piercing I had to hold the phone away. “It wasn’t the dog! It was THAT GIRL!”
My heart skipped a beat. “Which girl?”
“Sarah, listen to me. Don’t come home. Call Mark, tell him not to come home. Call the police immediately.”
“Mom, you’re scaring me. What did you see?”
“I saw…” Eleanor sobbed. “I saw the day you said there were handprints on your shirt… I rewound the video to that exact time. 7:15 p.m. on December 12th.”
A chill ran down my spine.
“In the video… when you walked through the door and took off your coat…” Eleanor said quickly, as if afraid someone would stop her. “You were standing in the hallway. You had your back to the shoe cabinet to hang your coat. And from… from the narrow gap between the shoe cabinet and the wall… it came out.”
“What came out?” I whispered, tears welling up.
“A woman. Thin. Her hair matted. She was wearing tattered gray clothes that matched the color of the walls. She… she came out right behind me. She sniffed my hair.”
I covered my mouth with my hand, trying to suppress a gag.
“And as I was about to turn and go into the kitchen,” Eleanor continued, her voice breaking, “she reached out her dark hand… she held onto my shoulder for balance as she climbed up…”
“Climbed up where?”
“She climbed up the alcove above the shoe cabinet. The ventilation alcove that Mark said was sealed. She lives there, Sarah. She was right behind you. And Sarah…”
“Yes?”
“I watched the other videos. Every night. When you and Mark were asleep… she came out. She went around the house. She ate your leftovers. She… she stood watching you sleep for hours. And… my God…”
Eleanor screamed.
“What else, Mom?”
“In the video this morning… at 8 a.m., after you two went to work. It didn’t go back into the air vent.”
I was speechless.
“It went into the closet in your bedroom,” Eleanor groaned. “It took a fruit knife. It went in there and closed the door. It hasn’t come out yet, Sarah. IT’S WAITING FOR YOU TO COME HOME.”
The phone slipped from my hand, crashing onto the glass office desk with a loud thud.
I dialed 911 with hands shaking so much that I dialed the wrong number twice.
Fifteen minutes later, Mark and I stood across the street, watching armed police surround our house.
They broke down the door. Dogs barked. Screams. The sound of things crashing. And then, two gunshots rang out.
Bang! Bang!
The room was silent for a few long, drawn-out minutes. Then the police chief came out, drenched in sweat despite the freezing weather. He signaled to the medical team.
They carried a stretcher out. On it lay a woman – if one could even call that a human being. She was emaciated, her skin as pale as a fish from a deep cave, her fingernails long and black. Her eyes were wide open, staring up at the gray sky, her mouth still curved in a maniacal smile. She was dead.
“We found her in the closet, just as your mother said,” the police chief told us, his voice still tinged with shock. “She was wearing your old wedding dress, Sarah. And she was holding this knife.”
He held up an evidence bag. Inside was our family’s fruit knife. But the most horrifying thing wasn’t the knife.
The most horrifying thing was the Polaroid photos scattered in that woman’s jacket pocket.
The police officer hesitantly showed them to me.
They were photos of Mark and me sleeping. Very close-up. So close I could see the pores on Mark’s face. So close that I realized, to get this angle, she must have been lying right between us on the bed.
And the last photo…
The last photo didn’t show us. It showed a positive pregnancy test on the bathroom sink. The pregnancy test I’d thrown in the trash this morning, planning to surprise Mark with it tonight.
Below the photo, scrawled in black charcoal, was a line:
“OUR CHILD.”
I collapsed onto the cold snow. Mark held me tightly, and we both trembled.
That woman wasn’t just living in our house. She wanted to become me. She wasn’t waiting in the closet to kill me. She was waiting to kill me, skin me alive, and take over my life, my husband, and the child growing inside me.
The black handprint on my shoulder that day… wasn’t an accident. It was a mark.
Like how people mark the items they’ve chosen to buy.
She chose me.
