Volume Three: The House

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 6-10

## Cast Roles

* Tomi "Tomboy" Ronnie (Kate Elliott) - The second oldest sibling. Always suspicious of adults with a bit of a rage problem from past events in her life. Cares very deeply for her younger sister and sometimes butts heads with her brother because she wants to be in control. Very brave in the face of danger.
* Cain Ronnie (Mike Ginn) - The older Brother. A senior in college. Had to grow up fast after his father suicide to become the man of the family and look after his younger sisters.
* Dr. Thandie Merit Bains-Ronnie (Markeia McCarty) - Step-mother of the Ronnie family. A radiation oncologist who cared deeply for her patients leading her to meet and fall in love with Wallace Ronnie and his three kids. Coming from a strong family she tried her best to be a good mother and make the perfect family.
* Grace Ronnie (Shelby "Shubble" Grace) - The little sister. Puts on a brave face but is stubborn. Always did well in school but could do better. Lashed out against her family to be treated as an adult and not a little kid.

 Chapter Summaries

### Prologue

The Ronnie house was built in 1975 by Wallace Ronnie Sr. Not long after it was built it was abandoned. In 2018, Dr. Wallace Ronnie Jr., widowed and with a newborn lived in the house for a year before abandoning it as well. In 2033, Dr. Wallace Ronnie Jr. returned and built a guest house at the pond behind the house over the course of five years. In August 2038 he took his own life. He was survived by his children, Cain Robbie (born from his first wife who died in childbirth.) Tomi "Tomboy" Ronnie, and Grace Ronnie, (born from his second wife who died of cancer) and his third wife of five years, Dr. Thandie Merit Bains-Ronnie. Feeling a need for a change and finding out about the house, Thandie decided to take Tomboy and Grace with her to the Ronnie house, and convinced Cain to take time off from university to help with the move.

When the Ronnie family move in they find out that someone has been living in the guest house. As they get settled they meet Mallory and his daughter Gemma Baker. Thandie learns about the living arrangement and deal Wallace had with Mallory while Tomboy cruelly tells Gemma "Dr Wally isn't coming back." As they continued getting settled, they meet Briar, who eventually gives a tour of the grounds. After Briar wanders off, the Ronnies go back inside and start going through things.

### Chapter 1

On the road to the House, we hear on the radio that turmoil between the Pacific Shelf and United Texas over water trade tariffs continues. New Eastern Coastal president Acevedo offered a bargain deal in conjunction with Mexico to present to the North American Territories at a peace summit. The Pollution Index is at an all time high due to a nasty cold front pulling United Texas state capital Houston's refinery clouds into the eastern coastal delta. No word on the advancement of the Clean Air Act between the Territories, with Acevedo promising reduction in greenhouse gasses that match those of the Alaskan Domain, if and only if those measures are shared by his geographical neighbors.

Thandie shuts off the radio and strikes up a conversation with her children. Grace clearly does not want to be moving out of the city, Tomi doesn't think the Ronnie name is something to take pride in, and Cain tries to play peacemaker between the girls and their step-mother. Cain asks about the plan for the house, the girls want to sell it and move to a city, Thandie has already put up their old house for sale and reminds the girls that they won't have to live there that long with moving away to college a possibility. Thandie also knows that just finding a house after the Eastern Expansion is near impossible, outside of renting an apartment in the city, no one can buy new land, it is only passed down. Thandie reassures her step kids that Wallace knew she would take care of his family.

A long gravel road leads them to their new home, the house isn't visible through the trees until they are almost upon it. A moving company employee meets them outside with bad news, the movers were unable to unpack any of their belongings because the crew wouldn't spend any more time out here, "bad vibes" they said. The man tells them that their 'friend' helped him get everything unloaded from the truck, someone who has lived in the guesthouse for years. The mover says he well send them an amended, heavily discounted, bill when he gets into an area with cell reception and tells them he could set up a service tower for them here in a couple days.

The House is the oldest that the Ronnies have ever seen standing without modern updates, the lawn is well kept, the trees are trimmed, there are no chips in the white paint. It's clear that someone has been taking care of the place. Around the side of the house runs a small, five year old girl, who grabs onto Tomi's leg. She introduces herself as Gemma and her father Mallory comes jogging after her.

Thandie and Mallory have a conversation, she tells Mallory that Wallace has passed away and he informs her that one weekend a month Wallace would come to Milton and check on the house and see him and Gemma. Mallory tells Thandie about groundskeeper Briar, and that Mallory and Wallace have a history, that Wallace helped him and Gemma when they needed it the most. Meanwhile, Tomi and the kids have told Gemma that Wallace won't be coming back, but that she can hang out with them.

Stepping inside, the family discovers an empty, dusty house, with all their boxes and things stacked in a hallway. Walking to the back of the house, they can see out across the pond to the guest house, where Mallory is playing with Gemma. The two girls head upstairs, hearing creaks and groans that echo through the house with every step. They claim their bedrooms and Cain brings up one of Thandie's boxes to put into the master bedroom.

Cain notices that every electrical outlet in the house has a small ring of black soot around it. Thandie cleans around the kitchen and wipes up some black soot. It appears the filters in the air filtration system need changing. There is some shattered glass on the floor of the laundry room, the window has been broken in.

A loud thump in the living room brings them all running into the living room to see an old, frail man on the floor. Thandie assumes this is Briar, the groundskeeper, they notice he is blind as Cain helps him up from the floor. Tomi bluntly tells him that Wallace killed himself and they live here now, then tries to fire him. He rambles about his duties; mowing, cleaning, plumbing. He mentions the laundry room window is broken at least once a week. He says that Dr. Ronnie payed him a thousand dollars a month in cash. "These old houses ain't like your fancy new shit. They got tricks, little things you gotta know. You can't read about it anymore...you won't find anyone else that knows how to do the things I know how to do," he tells Thandie. None of the house's systems are automated, as is the standard in 2033.

Briar takes them into the back yard to show them a patch of dead grass, as they look towards where the blind man is moving, they see that a large swathe of the grass is charcoal black. The grass hasn't been burned at all but when Tomi touches it, it crumbles in between her fingers. The darkened grass spreads out in a circle from under the back terrace and almost forms a path that leads into the pond. Briar says it's been this way since he started working here.

Walking out to the pond, Tomi and Cain see that the water is brown from the red of the local clay. Tomi pretends she's about to push Cain in, but she sees a dark shape move within the pond. Briar says it's a snake or a turtle, maybe a gator. Dark clouds appear on the horizon and Briar warns of acid rain from the Houston pollution cloud.

The family goes inside and gets back to their unpacking. Grace, exploring, finds an attic door in the upstairs hall. Grace, Thandie and Tomi head up into the attic to find chests and cabinets under old sheets. Tomi explores the first chest of drawers she comes across, the dust kicked up from the old sheet prompts Thandie to go downstairs to get the family's dust masks, another necessity in 2033. Opening the first drawer, Tomi finds some old family photo albums. In the second drawer, under some old clothes, she finds some lockboxes. The third and final drawer is filled with knives, kitchen and butcher knives mostly.

Thandie returns with the masks and Grace takes some of the photo albums. She sees her dad in front of this house, smiling and holding a baby boy. Cain realizes that this is the house his father used to talk about the two of them living in together. The next photo is a picture of Wallace with a group of nine other people, his arm around Cain's mother (Ashley Jewel). Grace notices that one of the people in the photo looks a lot like Mallory.

Thandie opens up one of the boxes from under the clothes in the second drawer. Within the unlocked box are CDs, some are labeled, some not. One of the labeled ones reads *Do Not Watch*. A pair of creaks downstairs send Cain to investigate. As he descends the ladder from the attic, the light from the windows is blotted out, plunging the house into darkness, in the distance thunder cracks. The family gathers together and in the light from Tomi's phone, creeps down the stairs, the light switches do not work as they have not yet flipped the main breaker to the on position. In a flash of lightning they see a figure in front of the fusebox, the house lights come on as Mallory flips the breaker.

Due to the acid rain, Thandie invites Mallory and Gemma to stay for dinner. They planned to order pizza, but Mallory reminds them of the lack of cell service here and tells them that the land lines in the area were removed years ago as they weren't worth the upkeep. Mallory tells them he will cook them all something and he goes out to the guesthouse for food and cooking supplies. Gemma jumps down from Tomi's arms, shouts that she want's to play hide and seek, then runs off into the house. The girls count and then give chase.

Cain helps Mallory with food prep and he tells Cain about Ashley, his mother, she was the CEO of a small gas company. He tells Cain that the day of his mother's death was a hard day for everyone, she was well- respected in the community. He talks to Thandie about how happy he is that they are here, Gemma is going to love having people around, and they talk about Wallace's wives, Ashley and Alyssa.

Tomi and Grace hunt around for Gemma upstairs, they hear footsteps and giggling coming from Grace's room. They quietly approach the wardrobe in Grace's room and Grace bravely reaches out to open the double doors, no one is there. However, Tomi notices that the wall behind the wardrobe is removable, they push the wardrobe out of the way and reveal a dark hole that goes down between floors, a foul smell wafts from within. Tomi drops a quarter down the hole and hears nothing. The adults come up st Tomi's call, Mallory says it's an access panel for the house's wiring and that a raccoon or something probably died in there.

A pot crashes downstairs and they all run down. The pot of potatoes that was on the stove is now on the floor and the flame on the stove burns high. Cain shuts off the stove and Thandie and Mallory tape some cardboard over the laundry room window to stop any drafts.

Tomi and Grace continue the search for Gemma but the upstairs lights go out, in the darkness the door to the main bedroom starts to expand, like wood absorbing water. As Tomi reaches for it, the door begins to open on its own. Playing her phone's light across the walls reveals small, red handprints. And then a can of red paint. And then Gemma, standing in the corner, back to the doorway. Tomi reaches out for her shoulder, fingers barely brushing it, and sparks jump to her hand. The lights come back on and Gemma is gone, the handprints are gone, and Gemma is in the doorway crying. "I don't wanna play anymore, something bit me!" Tomi goes to comfort Gemma, and she allows it, but shies away from Grace.

Back downstairs with the adults, Gemma says that Grace is the one who bit her. Mallory stares at Grace, then reaches out to her bottom lip. His thumb comes away bloody. Mallory takes Gemma back to the guesthouse and the girls tell their mother and brother about their experience upstairs. Thandie goes to the bottom of the stairs and only she hears crying from upstairs, "Waaaa! She bit me!" The lights upstairs flicker as Thandie moves into the hall upstairs and she calls for Cain to check the breakers. He flips the upstairs breaker and nothing happens.

With each step Thandie takes, the lights flicker. There is no paint in the master bedroom, no handprints on the wall. Thandie turns to leave the bedroom and shut the door behind her, but the door snags on something, then begins to move back the other way. Thandie checks the hinges and sees a flash of movement in the room, She stumbles back into the hall as the door slams shut. The door won't budge and she hears a growl from inside the room, she puts her shoulder to the door and heaves. It opens about two inches and there is a loud growl as the door is flung closed so powerfully that she is thrown down the hallway, tumbling down the stairs. She is knocked unconscious as the back of her head slams onto the ground. Cain puts some towels against the wound and they tie them there tightly.

Placing a garbage bag over her head to protect the wound from the rain, they run out to the Prius. They lose all hope when the car won't start.

#### Truths

* Discovery: Cain Ronnie has an old pocket watch that was given to him by his grandfather, who got it from his grandfather before him. While it no longer tells time, is very important to Cain. Inside the cover of the watch is a picture of a Great Dane.
* Discovery: Grace finds a lovely wooden music box. It appears old and weathered but well made. Opening it reveals the initials JR burned into the inside of the lid. The song that plays is slow, almost like a lullaby, but it always jams on the last two notes. (Zac adds that she found it in one of her boxes but doesn't remember packing it, or anyone else owning it)
* Discovery: Someone finds a knife. (Zac chooses Thandie) The rough edged blade made of flint, the handle of bone which is wrapped in some sort of animal hide. Are there symbols that have been worked into the blade? It's hard to tell.
* Feeling: Kate (Tomi) finds her mind repeatedly flashing back to the knives in the drawer, almost as if it's being drawn back over and over again.
* Feeling: Thandie is becoming increasingly more angry when dealing with Tomi. Instead of snapping at her, she feels letting Cain handle her is a better idea, creating a bigger rift between the two.
* Discovery: Tomi finds an old drawing in her closet, it is in rough crayon, of two adults and a child in front of this house, the adults are scribbled over in red crayon. A window has been scribbled over in black. At the bottom, a name crudely written, Cain.
* Discovery: Grace finds a doll, its clothes singed, but the plastic is unharmed. One of its eyes is missing and its body is covered in brown streaks. Its head is facing towards its back.

### Chapter 2

The family is asleep, all on the same
mattress in the master bedroom. Grace wakes up and looks out the
window to see Mallory drinking coffee outside. The rest wake up,
Thandie has a massive headache, Cain goes to start breakfast. Briar
is in the kitchen getting pots and pans ready to cook breakfast. Cain
asks Briar about Mallory and Gemma, but all he knows is that Mallory
showed up five years ago, the boss built him a guest house, and he
helps him fix the laundry room window.

 Cains asks about his father, Wallace.
Briar jokes that he was into human sacrifice, then says he just came
up to the house and seemed to sit around waiting for something. “Do
you think, whatever he was looking for, he found it? And that's why
he killed himself?” Briar posits.

 Cain calls for the girls to come to
breakfast and Briar tells him to tell Grace to put down her doll
before she comes down. Cain's never seen her with a doll. Briar
blocks the stairway at the bottom and tells Grace to put down the
doll. She notices she is holding a doll for the first time, she's
never seen it before. They assume it is Gemma's.

 Grace stubbornly holds on to the doll
despite Briar's insistence. She looks down to see its head is on
backwards. As she reaches to turn the head around the doll curses at
her in a high pitched voice and bites her hand, its head rolls off
and down the hall. Tomi grabs the body and throws it down the hall.
Briar runs out of the house and the body of the doll gets up and runs
at Grace. As Tomi goes over to stomp the doll, the head tells them
that Grace is the reason the daddy blew his brains out and starts
laughing. Tomi boots the head out of the window and they can hear it
laugh as it flies out.

 Another bit of hope is lost with it.

#### Truths

* Discovery: Insider her safe, Thandie finds, underneath all the papers for the house and the lawyer paperwork, there is a mask. Its black and gold paint chipped, with only one eye hole. Had this always been in her possession? Who's is it?
* Discovery: Thandie finds a small file (also in the safe) while organizing her new study. What sticks out is a sonogram image from a few months before Cain is born. Two baby boys are circled in red pen.
* Discovery: Grace finds the box that the air filters came in. On the side is a block of fine print listing all the things they can NOT filter out. Basically it is a dust filter, not suitable for airborne toxins.
* Briar wears sunglasses, after the Ronnies witness him observing all the events that unfold in front of them, they suspect he is not really blind. However, the only way they can find out is by removing them.

### Chapter 3

Hearing screams and breaking glass,
Mallory comes running in. Thandie relays her dealings with the stuck
door, somewhat trying to rationalize the events. Gemma accuses Grace,
“You pushed your mama!” They deny her and then move on to talking
about the doll and fixing Grace's bite. Cain doesn't think it's an
animatronic doll and he asks Mallory. Mallory says there might be a
reason Wallace kept this place from them.

 Mallory walks to a spot on the wall
near the stairway and punches through the drywall. Tomi helps him rip
the drywall away from a hidden cellar door. It has been painted over
and a thin black line rings the opening, almost like a mold has tried
to work its way out. The drywall seems to have kept it contained.

 “I think it's best if you all went
down there,” Mallory tells them, “but I can't go with you.” He
had hoped that these things might not start happening to them like
they did to their father. He tells them he physically can't go down
there and that he also won't. Cain goes to the kitchen for a knife
before they descend. Tomi grabs their dust masks and they put them
on. Cain cuts away at the seal of paint and black stuff around the
cellar door, the doors bulge with the air pressure and an awful smell
drifts out.

 Mallory puts a chillingly cold hand on
Grace's shoulder and tells her the sooner she accepts the fact that
she bit Gemma, the better. He then goes out to check on the girl.

 Thandie levers the cellar door open to
a puff of black dust that coats the family. A stairwell descends
sharply into a darkness that is not penetrated by the light from
outside. Cain takes out his phone and, as Thandie goes to the laundry
room for actual flashlights, Cain and the girls notice an eerie
silence has descended, the rain has stopped, there is no sound from
outside. Only Thandie's steps and the sibling's breaths can be heard.
The darkness seems to muffle sound as well, there are no echoes
sounding from within.

 Thandie finds some industrial strength
Ikea/Tesla flashlights and returns with them. Cain descends the
stairs first. Shining his light around reveals solid concrete walls
and two or three inches of green/brown standing water on the ground.
Towards the back of the basement is a stack of chairs that goes all
the way to the ceiling, which is also concrete. There are at least
thirty wooden chairs, some of them look fairly old.

 Cain and Thandie descend into the
water and head over to the chairs, the girls stay on the stairway.
The cellar door above them swings shut. Cain comes over to try and
open it but it will not budge. Thandie hears an almost rythmic
creaking/tapping from the chairs and she shines her light over on
them. Seeing a reflection that's almost like a cat's eye from the
back wall, she moves slowly to investigate.

 Thandie peers through the chairs to
see another spherical object embedded in the wall, as she shifts
around some chairs, she sees the shape blink. She starts moving some
of the chairs to reveal more of these objects that then blink in
tandem. Moving more chairs reveals another orb, this one tracks her
movements.

 The kids turn around to see that their
mother has vanished. They call out to her but they can't see or hear
her despite her being able to see and hear them. As Cain moves over
into the chairs he starts to see her, and he notices a membrane that
he passes through, and the girls lose sight of him. Standing in front
of the chairs, the girls cannot see them, Cain reaches through the
membrane and pulls them to him.

 They hear a grinding, like the sound
of a large granite ball shifting, the spherical objects shift to face
them, their deep, black facets staring into them. Tomi reaches out to
touch one, placing her palm on the black, marble like substance, it
blinks and she feels a cold, rubber like substance envelop her hand.
She vanishes from sight along with the spheres.

 Tomi is in an all white space, there's
nothing but a pure white expanse. A deep voice speaks to her, asking
about her bloodline. It knows her, knows her father. It tells her it
needs her to bring them, her bloodline. She refuses to put her family
in harms way. “You will,” the voice tells her.

 The white room disappears and Tomi is
standing at the top of the stairs, outside the cellar doors. Thandie
runs up the stairs and the others notice more spheres, now a total of
six, blink and track her movements. Tomi opens the cellar doors and
Thandie notices that the walls of the house are now decorated with
their posters and things. The house is furnished, pictures are on the
mantel, the entire house is put together as Thandie would have done.

#### Truths

* Discovery: Grace's bite from the doll throbs and keeps getting bigger. It looks less like the bite of a doll, and more like the bite from a small child.

### Chapter 4

The Ronnie family huddles together in a
group hug once they leave the cellar door. Tomi tells them what the
voice said to her. They wonder how the furniture got laid out, Tomi
suspects time travel. Thandie insists on rational explanations for
everything, their phones indicate that only twenty minutes have
passed. Tomi wants to stay in a hotel.

 Thandie goes out to the driveway to
check on the Prius and the three siblings head upstairs, the rooms
upstairs have also been arranged in a way that they would have done
themselves. Outside, Thandie peers into a deep fog with visibility of
maybe fifty feet, there is no sign of the car. She comes upon a
murder of crows in the fog and turns back to go to the house. In the
thick fog she finds herself at the edge of the pond, something moves
within the dark waters. She turns again and crunches across the
blackened grass back to the house, she hears a swirling motion in the
pond but ignores it and continues walking.

 Cain is in his room packing and
looking at the photos on the wall. He notices a drawing of two
parents marked out in red and a small boy, signed *Cain* at
the bottom. He inspects it closer, then turns into the room where his
dead mother sits upon the bed, wearing one of her old dresses. As
Cain approaches her he feels a warmth coming off her body, compelling
him forward, his mother beckons him to put his head on her shoulder.
He does.

“I
forgive you,” she says, “for killing me, and your brother.” He
was named Cain because he ate his brother inside the womb, then
clawed apart her insides. She tells him his father thought bringing
him here, the Great One might cure him of his curse, but Cain just
brought it back with him, and now everyone else close to him will
die. He says he won't let it happen, but she tells him it already
did.

Tomi
is filling her backpack with items that remind her of her father. She
hasn't been dealing with the pain of her loss, focusing on helping
her sister instead. Looking over at her bed, she notices a note
inside an envelope that has appeared there. It appears to be a note
from her father to Thandie:

*Thandie,*

 *I am so sorry I could not be*
helped, I have nothing left. I can no longer live with my sins. Curse
me for being born in that godforsaken town. The Heart ended Ashley.
The Eyes ended Alyssa. I fear I will end you and the children. It
takes. It will call you. I'm so sorry. It will call the kids. Stay
away from Kolob, Milton, Priceplace, the Base, Mount Nebo, Salt Lake,
any place the Devil calls home. I tried to stop it, but too late.
Mallory knows. Or knew. I still see him. Could be those goddamn -----
I hope, pray, this works. It could be for nothing.

Thandie
comes in from the backyard and Tomi shows her the note. She accuses
Tomi of writing it, then calls out to Cain (who doesn't hear) to
handle Tomi and shuts herself into the master bedroom.

Grace
checks her closet, all her clothes are arranged just the way her
mother would arrange them when she was little. A mirror her birth
mother gave her sits on her nightstand, her name scribbled in marker
on the base. Looking at herself in it, she is unable to move,
paralyzed. The Grace in the mirror seems to become detached from her,
almost a foreign object. In the bottom corner of her vision, she sees
a black line move up her face in the mirror, then another on the
other side of her face. A deep, black body follows to two legs out of
her mouth, one of the legs closing her left eye.

She
lets out a scream and drops the mirror, there is nothing on her face.
On the edge of her bed sits a doll, wearing an off white, stained
dress with a jewel in the center of the neckline. She approaches the
doll slowly and picks it up. She removes the jewel, the doll starts
to convulse and the gem changes color. The doll vibrates over to the
closet and bumps against the door. Grace opens it and a smell
assaults her nose, a deep rumble comes from the opening at the back
of the closet. She hears the voice that spoke to Tomi. When she asks
what it wants, it tells her it wants her, it wants out. Grace runs
for the door, it won't open. Grace hears the long scratching of claws
coming from the opening behind her closet.

Thandie
holds the crumpled note in her hand and lies weeping in the fetal
position, questioning why Wallace would do this. She removes the
bone-handled dagger from under her pillow, it's caked in dried blood.
A muffled rumble comes from the bathroom, the sound of something
dragging against a membrane. Something is tied over the claw-foot tub
in the darkened bathroom, red strings tie it across the opening of
the tub. Thandie turns the light on, revealing that the covering is
flesh, with a face pressing itself into the underside, then a hand.
She draws the blade across the flesh covering the tub, a whoosh of
red dust pillars from the tub into Thandie's face and crashes into
the ceiling.

Sitting
in the tub, the flesh covering gone, is a body gripping a shotgun and
wearing a lab coat, she recognizes the brain-blown body of her
husband, his eye, dangling from its socket, turns toward her. The
body lifts itself from the tub and Thandie scuttles back from it. The
body of Wallace raises the gun toward her, she pushes the barrel up
and away from her as a shot rings out through the house. The siblings
run to the master bedroom and find the bathroom door locked.

Cain
kicks the door open to see Thandie lurch toward the tub and the gun
goes off again, the bullets hitting the wall. The children only see
Thandie grappling with a gun. Tomi snatches the gun from her and
Thandie, weeping, tells them what she saw and that the car is gone.
Looking out the window, Tomi sees only the fog. The siblings try to
comfort Thandie as she cries about not being enough for Wallace.

Grace
is wearing a necklace none of them have seen before, the jewel from
the doll is on the end of it. When she tries to remove it, it burns
her hands. Tomi hands off the gun to Cain, and Thandie takes it from
Cain as he steps in to remove the necklace. It will not come off. The
siblings turn to see that Thandie and the gun are gone.

On
the floor are large, bloody footprints leading them out of the
bedroom and to the stairwell, a musty stench rises to meet them as
darkness closes in.

#### Truths

* Feeling: Tomi feels lost. Logically, she knows where she is, but it doesn't seem real. Did something get through her mask? A pure white room can't be real. But is *this* real? Maybe she just needs to wake up, maybe she's dreaming, or hallucinating.
* Discovery: IN the unpacked house, Tomi finds a staple of tom-boys everywhere, her trusty slingshot and 3 steel ball-bearings.
* Discovery: Grace finds something she hasn't seen since she was four, sitting on her bed is her stuffed rabbit she has named Rabbity. This toy gives her a nostalgic feeling of peace and happiness. (Zac adds that it is in her back pocket right now and that she talks to it.)
* Tomi keeps feeling like someone, or something, is watching her every move.
* Feeling: As Cain reflects on the idea of killing his brother in the womb, he starts to wonder if he is a monster. What other horrible things has he done that he does not know about.

### Chapter 5

Thandie stands in an all white space,
shotgun in hand. She is looking for someone, her husband perhaps. The
voice tells her Wally isn't here, hasn't been for a long time, the
voice has missed their visits. Does she miss Wally? The voice could
bring him back. She asks the voice to bring him back. “Were you not
happy with seeing him upstairs? Is that not how you left him?” She
wants the real Wally back. “The Wally you know was a pussy that
couldn't deal with the fact that he had a job to do.” Thandie won't
have any of that. The voice compliments her strength, where Wally was
weak. She refuses to do anything for the voice and it forces her to
put the shotgun to her chin.

 The siblings go down the stairs to
find the cellar door open. Bloody footprints are on the stairs
leading down here as well. Cain grabs a knife from the kitchen. They
hear something in the water down there, the water has now filled up
to halfway up the stairs. Cain goes down the steps alone, he hears a
splash of something moving itself into the water.

 The girls hear a knock at the front
door, they see Jerry, the mover, through the peephole. Tomi opens the
door and asks him for help. His eyes shift to the red orb around
Grace's neck, as they question him, he grabs Grace by the throat and
lifts her up. Tomi breaks Grace free, but Jerry knocks her aside,
fixated on the orb, and strides forward after Grace.

 Cain ducks as an eel-like creature flies at him, four jaws unhinged and splashes back into the water
ahead of him. Cain darts forward through the membrane and puts a hand
on one of the Eyes. He is transported to the white place, where
Thandie still has the gun to her head. Cain knocks it aside and the
voice addresses him, calling itself his real father. His brother and
mother sacrificed their lives for Cain, as was the voice's wish, so
that Cain might be here today. The voice needs to feed or it will not
be strong enough to leave the wall, it asks Cain to lend it his eyes,
he'll be fine without them, just ask Briar.

 Thandie pulls Cain away, and they try
to leave, but wherever they go, they are in the white space. Thandie
gets an idea, putting the shotgun against her foot, she pulls the
trigger.

 Grace turns to run out the back door,
Briar is standing in the kitchen, he tells her to get behind him.
Briar hits the mover with a rock, knocking him out in a pool of
spreading blood. The girls tell Briar that Thandie and Cain are
trapped in the basement. He tells them there's nothing he can do for
them now, they're all doomed, just like him.

 He removes his glasses to reveal two
gleaming, red orbs in his sockets. He too has had visions, he
couldn't stand them and he gouged out his own eyes with a spoon in
this very kitchen. 'He' sees through them now, not Briar. Their
father found him on the floor, weeping and bleeding, but also
smiling. He tells them he can make the visions stop for them too.
Tomi smashes a kitchen chair over his head, knocking him out.

 Running toward the basement, the girls
hear a shotgun blast from the living room. Thandie is there, leaning
on Cain, the stump of her foot bleeding profusely. They go for the
moving truck outside and Mallory is standing in the door holding
Gemma. Mallory tells them he can't let them leave, Gemma won't
survive without their help. Thandie tells him to move or she'll end
him. “I can't, and you won't,” he replies. He puts Gemma down and
tells her to clean up the kitchen. Tomi points the shotgun at him but
Mallory still refuses to move, he tells them he'll make sure Thandie
doesn't die, but they cannot leave.

 They take Thandie to the couch and
Grace goes for the first aid kit in the laundry room. Mallory tells
her that she can't leave because 'it' wants them here and will not
let them leave. “It is as it has to be, and it's already as it will
be,” Mallory cryptically tells them. Tomi gives them a shell from
the shotgun for gunpowder to use to burn the wound shut. Mallory
calls to Gemma, she shouts back that she's still cleaning the
kitchen.

 Mallory tells them that their father
started something and now it is in them. They have to get Gemma out
of here, but he doesn't want her to hear because she'll be very upset
that he's not taking care of her anymore. He finishes by telling them
that for Gemma to leave, they all must die. He's not sure what 'it'
is, but it's a 'god' to some. It has already begun to claim the land
around this place, like he has seen it do before, but something is
wrong, different this time. If they try to run, they will end up like
their father, or, they can try to help Gemma, and die knowing they
helped a little girl.

 Tomi shoots Mallory in the face, his
body starts to fall, then stops and begins to rise again. Half of his
face is gone, he can't talk, so he gestures for a piece of paper. He
begins writing while his dark, purple/blue blood drips to the floor,
he writes that he was 'hoping Gemma wouldn't see him like this.' The
Ronnie's run out to the moving truck, there is a new treeline growing
across the road out, it is natural but it is also like an infection,
like when a fungus takes over an insect, to make it into a tower to
spread its spores. A gray, whispy substance is weighing the trees
down, sapping the life from them, and strange towers grow from them,
creating a circle of towers surrounding the house.

 The blackness from the grass in the
back of the house is creeping across the ground towards them, ebbing
out and drawing back as it inches out. Cain drives along the
treeline, desperately searching for an opening, they see the fungus
like material growing from the ground and sucking the life from the
trees as a new spire grows up to the sky. Cain drives back to the
house, Mallory stands in the doorway, tying his jaw back onto his
skull.

 He leans onto the window of the moving
truck, telling them again it won't let them leave. Asking them again
to help him get Gemma away from there. Their deaths have to happen,
will happen. The Ronnies want to fight back, burn down the house.
They are not the first to want to fight back, Mallory says. Grace
figures out that the black soot they found in the house was from a
fire. Mallory confirms that it just rebuilt the house.

 Mallory tells them some theories that
he has heard, some of them from long ago, theories that if the voice
gets what it wants, it might put itself back together and go back to
its home. Their father didn't start all this but he was involved in
it. He thinks that if they close the loop, repair it, it will leave.
He reveals that when he was young they used to worship this thing
like it was a god, a lot of what he used to believe is wrong though.
He no longer believes it is the god its worshipers were looking for,
it is the devil. It's hungry and it wants to feed.

 They hear a honking from the garage,
the Tesla bursts through the garage door with Briar behind the wheel.
He smashes into one of the towers, flames burst from the impact and
immolate the tower, spreading to several nearby trees, a deep growl
of pain rumbles from inside the house.

 The stress and madness of it all get
to Grace, and she loses all hope. The voice tells her that it needs
her to do something for it. As she speaks to the voice in her head,
her body gets out of the truck, grabbing the shotgun from Tomi. Grace
moves to the front of the truck, her family sees the red orb flashing
at the end of the necklace, Grace raises the gun and firing into the
engine of the truck. Tomi goes to try and remove the necklace, she
sees red creeping around the edges of her sister's eyes, the necklace
will not move but Tomi will not let go. Tomi feels the necklace bite
into her palms as it comes free from her sister's neck, and her
sister comes free from its influence. Tomi's hands are cut through
the tendons and into the bone.

### Chapter 6

Mallory has gone back inside to grab
Gemma, Tomi can no longer use her hands, Thandie can no longer use
her left foot. They go inside to find that the house is unfurnished
now, empty of everything but the bloody footprints leading to the
cellar. Grace applies some band-aids she had in her pockets to her
sister's hands. They find Gemma, she tells them she's ok, she's seen
worse things than what was in the kitchen. Cain and Thandie make
their way upstairs, only one picture remains on the wall, Thandie and
Wallace's wedding photo, their faces scratched out. There is nothing
left in the upstairs rooms either, the bloody footprints start from
the master bedroom.

 Thandie sits down on the bottom step
and they ask Mallory what happens next. If they choose to continue
fighting the god-like entity, they may win, maybe. If they get away,
however, he will hunt them down to get Gemma back from the entity. He
asks why Thandie brought them here, it was a bad idea and she knows
it, she didn't check on the house, whether it was on the grid. She
came because it called for her. It makes sense that it would call the
children, Wallace's bloodline, to it, but why would Thandie come?
She's pregnant, he accuses. The last time Wallace was out here, his
walls weren't strong enough and the entity got to him. Put it in his
mind to spread his seed, the entity likes to have a back up plan. He
tells them that Wallace intended to bring them all here eventually.
Thandie tells them (Mallory and Gemma) to get out of their house, and
they leave.

 Cain goes to the laundry to get a
towel for Thandie's wound, he finds the towels all covered in blood
from Gemma's clean up of the mess in the kitchen. Thandie counts the
shells for the shotgun, four remain. They decide to look for another
way to escape, whether it is a car that Mallory might have, or some
kind of supplies at Briar's tent. As they move to leave, the house
lets out a loud creak and seems to tense itself. The front door slams
shut, the locks latch themselves in the locked position. Grace runs
for the back door, as she moves through the house the windows all
slam shut.

 Grace pulls up short as she sees her
father standing in the shadows of a corner. He steps out and she sees
the back of his head is missing, he mutters her name but disappears
as she reaches for him. Grace goes back to the others. They start to
hear the rattle of wood, the cellar door is shaking and light streams
from within. Something appears to be trying to break through the
cellar doors, boards creak and break with each massive hit.

 The Ronnies retreat to the attic and,
as Tomi opens the door, a large black bag falls towards her. As it
lands, knocking her from the ladder, Tomi feels her knee dislocate.
She feels the outline of a body within the bag and they pull it from
atop her. The body within starts to convulse, two hands rip an
opening in the bag and Wallace Ronnie tears himself free.

### Chapter 7

Wallace seems intent on Tomi laying on
the ground, he tells her she failed Grace, he left her in charge. He
continues to slowly crawl from the bag and Thandie tries to reason
with the specter of her dead husband, calling upon him to be the man
she loves. He puts a hand under her chin and she leans into. “You
could've stopped all of this,” he tells her, “if you weren't so
damn stubborn maybe I would've been able to talk to you about this.
Instead I blew a hole in my head.” Thandie brings up the butt of
the shotgun and knocks the specter into dust, which begins to swirl
around her and then flings itself toward Grace.

 It enters Graces body through the
mouth, and her eyes turn red and churn like the sea. Grace finds
herself outside of her body, in a dark, dark place. The voice tells
her it is in control now, tells her to watch as it has some fun. “Get
angry, get scared, do anything Grace. It doesn't matter!” Graces
eyes open again and she assures her family she is fine.

### Chapter 8

Things have seemingly calmed down,
though the doors have not opened, the banging from the basement has
stopped. The family hears no other sound than their own breathing.
Grace moves back into the corner to give the others room to set
Tomi's knee. Grace sees her body pull the slingshot and fire a steel
ball into her sister's temple, killing her. She watches another ball
hit her brother in the eye, she watches her mother beg and plead
until Grace pushes her down the stairs and stomps on her head
repeatedly. The voice tells her to bring them to her or it will do it
itself, it returns her vision to the real world.

 Cain goes up into the attic looking
for the knives they had found earlier, the light will not turn on and
his phone battery has died. In the darkness, Cain puts a hand into
something wet and thick. It moves its way up his arm and he feels
himself stuck to the attic floor. Grace goes up into the attic, in
the darkness she can see everything, in a tint of red she sees her
brother struggling against nothing. She takes his hand and sees the
knives in the drawer.

 Grace pulls her brother to him and
hears a squishing sound, her other hand is holding a knife and has
driven it into her brother's neck. The entity laughs, telling her she
was never in control, it uses her body to throw her brother down
through the attic opening. Grace looks down from above on her family,
her eyes roiling red. Outside her body, Grace tries to apologize to
her family. Tomi pushes the ladder back up, trying to keep them apart
from Grace.

 Tomi and Thandie drag Cain into the
master bedroom, pushing open the door, they see the all white room.
They close the door and turn to the bathroom door, behind every door
is the white void. The ghost of Wallace Ronnie is mounting the
stairs, telling them to give Cain to him. Thandie fires the shotgun
into the shuttered window, blasting a hole through. The window looks
as though it had been boarded up on the outside. Tomi goes over to
the window and tries to push the rest of the boards off. Grace walks
down the hallway with a knife, “Join me,” she says in a deep
voice, “Join me and I will let you live here for eternity with
me.”

 Mallory runs upstairs, putting himself
between the entity inside Grace and the Ronnies. Mallory tells the
entity he has a deal, calling Gemma upstairs. The entity brings Grace
forth to speak and he tells her that she can survive this if she lets
there be a sacrifice, Cain. Mallory tells them that they have no idea
what he has sacrificed to be here, what Wallace has sacrificed.

 Mallory is already dead, he tells
Gemma to cover her ears as he continues. “Six years ago, I died.
Something wasn't done with me yet and I had to protect Gemma. I
didn't understand at the time but I do now. I'm stuck here until what
needs to happen, happens. Like I said, I wasn't letting you leave and
he won't either. Some of you can get out of here alive if someone is
willing to do what needs to be done. Your father could have stopped
this, he knew what he was supposed to do. He put you in this position
by not following through.” Cain gurgles through the blood that he
wants to do it, to be the sacrifice.

 “We have a deal.” the entity says
through Grace. “Bring me the boy, and I'll let this one go.”
Grace feels control of her body return and Thandie and Tomi help Cain
down the stairs. Mallory and Gemma watch this all happen, Grace takes
Cain from them and helps him into the cellar. Tomi follows after them
and Thandie orders Mallory down ahead of her, Gemma climbs into
Thandie's arms and Mallory closes the cellar doors behind them.

 A purple light is emitting from the
other side of the cellar. The eyes light up, shifting between purple
red, the whirl in place and start blinking in a pattern, some form of
communication that none of them understand. Cain reaches out to touch
one of the eyes and finds himself standing in the white space with
his father.

 Wallace apologizes to his son for
everything and tries to explain to him what is happening. Wallace
tells them that Mallory is their only hope, whatever is behind this
is beyond them. He tells Cain that he is braver than Wallace ever
was. Years ago in Kolob, Wallace could have left, but didn't. “When
the Gate fell, you were conceived, and your brother. It all has
something to do with this. It followed us into our lives. I just
wanted out, I couldn't take it. I didn't know what to do. I made a
lot of wrong decisions. Mallory offered me a way out, I thought it
would save you all, but when it came down to it I was a coward. And
now you're here.”

 Cain is forgiving of his father,
telling him of how much he appreciates what life he had. Wallace
tells him that it isn't really him talking to Cain, it's just the
creature telling him what he wants to hear, that Cain is dead. Cain
asks if he could be like Mallory and his father gestures around them
at the white room as it begins to flake away and disintegrate,
revealing a blackness behind it as the light dims to darkness.

 “We made a deal,” the entities
deep voice booms. “I need your body, as your soul leaves it, I will
take it.” Cain asks about becoming dead like Mallory, the entity
seems to become angry, red light swirls into the blackness.

 In the real world, Cain is gone and
the eyes swirl to focus on Mallory, who reveals he has been lying to
them. He holds up his hands to them and the entity. “He plans to
have this thing inhabit Cain and use him to walk the Earth as a
temporary solution.” He addresses the entity now, “I have a
better offer, if Gemma doesn't go home, you will continue to plague
this earth in pieces and you will crumble. And the world will die
with it. I offer you Cain and Tomi, you can use their energy, and I
know you can do it, to take Gemma back. I know that you are connected
to the Ronnies, their bloodline. If you use that, take Gemma back,
you have a chance at being whole again.”

 Reacting in anger, Tomi grabs Gemma
from Thandie and shoves her head under the water. Mallory's form
shifts into a ghostly visage as he moves to save Gemma, Grace steps
in front of Mallory and tires to drag Tomi and Gemma up the stairs to
escape. The stairs in front of them begin to disappear and the water
under the chairs begins to churn, the stacks dropping into the water
one by one, something is in there with them.

 Thandie grabs Gemma back and points
the gun at Mallory, “It's time for a new deal. My family and Gemma,
are getting out of here. Right now!” Mallory returns to corporeal
form and asks how this is going to happen. This is bigger than just
Gemma, the world hangs in the balance. He needs to return Gemma to
1972. He wants to use the power of the entity to do this. The
fractured pieces of this creature are driving the world mad.
Mallory's idea represents a chance to make the creature whole, and
*maybe* get it to leave. If they close the loop, let the
creature heal, *maybe* it will
leave. The pieces of the creature are getting stronger on their own
and they need to get it off the planet.

The
loop had been fractured ever since Mallory walked out of 2017, he
walked out of there but he doesn't know how. It's connected to the
Ronnies, feeds on them, their blood gives the entity power. Wallace
and Mallory planned to do something two months ago, but Wallace left.
The entity needs one more Ronnie in order to be strong enough for
Mallory's plan to work.

Grace
says it should be her, she no longer trusts herself to be in control
of her body after all of this, and as she speaks, her hand is drawing
a knife towards her own throat. Tomi rushes toward her and grabs for
the knife. Grace holds her back with one hand and the other shoves
the knife into Tomi's gut, the whole time Grace whispers she is
sorry.

Cain
walks out of the darkness, fully healed and no longer himself. He
picks up Tomi and brings her toward the spheres as a light goes out
and the world gets darker.

### Chapter 9

Standing in front of the Eyes, Tomi
starts to feel a coldness enter her body as her brother tells her
everything will be alright. She draws her pocketknife from the back
of her jeans and drives it into one of the eyes. The knife shatters
on the solid surface of the orb. Cain grabs her hand and puts it onto
one of the eyes, taking them both to the white room. Tomi's wound
starts to close as the pain leaves her body, she yells to be let out.

 “The dead one, the one I cannot
touch, he made me a new offer,” the entity tells them. “I'm
thinking about accepting the terms.”

 They ask what the terms are.

 “I will use you. I will devour your
souls and I will close the loop. Or maybe, I just take the rest of
your family as well.”

 Cain and Tomi will do anything to
protect what remains of their family.

 Grace and Thandie are left in the
cellar, Grace drops the knife she was holding. A blue light begins to
pulse along the wall and a high pitched squeal sounds. Mallory stands
at the edge of the Gate. “You've accepted the terms of the deal.
Thank you.” Mallory says as he begins to dissolve. Gemma shouts for
him and he turns to her, saying “Bye baby,” before he dissolves
completely.

 Thandie tells Grace that the entity
has taken Cain and Tomi and that Gemma has to go. Thandie will take
her through the Gate and Grace must stay here. She is a doctor, she
has the best chance to help Gemma if anything goes wrong. She wants
Grace to stay here, to get out of the house and find help in case
Cain and Tomi somehow come back.

 Thandie, as she is on the threshold of
the portal, hears knocking from upstairs, in the main house. On the
other side of the portal Thandie sees this same house, freshly built.
She walks through and Grace sees them make it safely to the other
side as she is trying to push the cellar doors open. The portal shuts
and disappears behind them, Grace hears a gasp from the kitchen.
Grace exits the cellar to see a police officer staring down at the
body of Jerry, the mover.

 He tells her to drop the knife and get
down on her knees. She does and he handcuffs her, she tells him to
check the basement for the rest of her family, they need help.

 In 1972, Thandie hears people talking
upstairs in the house she has stepped into. She looks behind her and
sees no eyes on the wall, the basement is clean and new. She walks up
the stairs and opens the doors on two men, staring at her in shock.

 “What are you doing in my basement?”
Dr. Wallace Ronnie Sr. asks. “Do you know my son?”

 “I do...I will know him.” She
tells Wallace Sr. that Gemma is a very special girl and that it is
important that she be here for what he is about to do. The other
man's eyes go wide and he pushes Wallace aside, “It's true, it's
all true. I'm Shiloh Anah, nice to meet you. This is all real, it's
all true, the prophecies are true. We must get you out of here. You
were brought to us, we will protect you. It is the way it was meant
to be. For It demands it.”

 “And what It wants must happen, lest
all be rent asunder,” Thandie responds.

 “Can you tell us more about our
divine God?” Shiloh asks. Thandie laughs at his use of the word.
“Was it not his power that brought you here?”

 “A deal was struck.” she responds,
“so yes, in a way, your 'god' had a hand in us, the three of us,
being here now.”

 Shiloh tells Wallace to attend to
them, he has much to do. Shiloh gets into his car and drives away.

 “Dad! Who's here?” A young boy,
Wallace Ronnie Jr., comes downstairs. Thandie introduces herself and
Gemma.

 Wallace Jr. wants to go play by the
pond and Wallace Sr. speaks to Thandie inside. She tells Wallace Sr.
that she just wants to do what is right, to close the loop, but she
doesn't know how. Wallace Sr. puts his arm around her shoulders and
moves her into the kitchen. Something in this house doesn't feel
right and Thandie wants to get out. She moves toward the front door
and he pulls out his wallet and gives her all the money inside it,
telling her to take it and his car, to seek medical attention and to
go. Thandie lists for Wallace Sr. the places that her husband warned
her to stay away from in his suicide letter, the places that the
Devil calls home.

 “The Devil...and these places? Stay
away?” he asks.

 “The Devil takes, and he keeps
taking, stay away,” she says.

 “When you say, my son..” he says.

 “Your son, my future husband.”
Thandie says, taking Gemma's hand and turning to leave.

 “When you say he left me a note, you
a note? What is this note?”

 “Your son left me a note, that my
step-child, his daughter, gave to me in a haunted house of horrors
that is *this* house. And
honestly, I'm about to get *real* froggy
on you so you just need to let me go.” Thandie tells him.

Thandie
sees multiple gas cans, filled, sitting next to an old lawn mower in
the garage. She tells Wallace Sr. to burn it all down, it may buy
them some time, buy Wally Jr. time. “Burn it and don't look back,
'cuz the Devil takes. And this is one of the places it takes from.”
As Thandie and Gemma drive off she sees Wallace Sr. call for Wally
and start to douse their house in gasoline.

Thandie
tells Gemma they are heading south to seek the Bains homestead. As
she drives, Thandie feels a kick from the life inside her.

Back
in the future, Grace hears the police officer coughing and loudly
cursing in the basement. She hears sirens outside as more police cars
drive up and another officer comes into the house, gun drawn and held
on Grace. The original officer comes upstairs saying that the blind guy was right, they're gonna
need backup, “No weak stomachs downstairs.”

When
Grace asks what he found he rounds on her and sticks a finger in her
face, “You're fuckin' sick, what's wrong with you?”

She
asks after her brother and sister and, as madness settles into her
mind, the officer hits her with the butt of his gun, sending her to
the floor. The other officer tosses him off of her and to the side as
a light goes out.

#### Truths

* (Zac changes this truth and incorporates it in the next chapter.) Thandie finds some gasoline cans in the garage next to an old lawn mower.

### Chapter 10

The
officer leans down, she sees the name Abel on his nametag, he needs
her to tell him what happened. She tells him the house isn't a normal
house.

“How
many people did you kill, Grace?”

“I
don't k-know, I don't remember... I didn't kill anyone,” she
stammers.

“Bring
him in,” Officer Abel says, gesturing to the door.

Another
officer brings in Briar. “I can smell her, she's in here. Don't let
her get close to me.” he says. “Get that crazy bitch away from
me! You tried to kill me! I ran through the woods, got as far away
from you as I could. You crazy.”

Grace
protests, “That's not true, you took the car and drove into the
trees...”

The
officer interrupts, He's blind, he didn't drive anywhere.”

“Take
off his glasses and see what's under there.” she tells him.

The
officer removes Briar's glasses, revealing two scarred, cloudy eyes.

“That
can't be,” Grace says, “This house takes eyes!”

“This
man said that you tried to kill him,” the officer says.

“That's
not true...” Grace starts to protest, but the officer continues.

“Says
that you kept calling him Gemma, and coming after him. Said that you
had family here that you had tied up in the basement.”

“That's
not true!” she protest, “It's this house! It tried to kill all of
us. And it took them! It took my brother, and my sister, and my mom.”

Another
officer whispers something to Abel. “Where's your mother's body?”

“Body?
My mom walked into the portal, she's gone. It's complicated, I told
you this house isn't a normal house.” Grace tells him.

“You
brother and sister are cut to pieces in the basement and your
mother's DNA is all over the living room. I need to know where your
mother's body is.”

She
goes on about the house taking everyone, maybe it took her too.

“Gong
the insanity route I see,” the officer says, he goes to talk to
some officer outside, scanning the area with drones.

Grace
feels in her back pocket and finds some razors and a hairpin, she
grabs the pin and tries to pick the cuffs. She frees herself and runs
out the back door to go to Mallory's house, there is no guest house
there. The police charge through the house after her, Grace runs
around the side of the house, looking for a vehicle to take. An
officer is standing there with Briar, who sniffs the air and looks
directly at her with his dead eyes.

She
runs over to the police cars, but they all require thumb scans to
open, she darts toward the garage as one of the officers opens fire
on her, missing and hitting the side of the house. Grace manages to
get to the Tesla and crash through the garage door, she sees the
opening in the trees as a police cruiser slams into the side of the
Tesla, it crashes to a stop and Grace fingers the razor blades in her
pocket.

#### Notes

* Per Zac: These were the Eyes, they could inflict nothing upon them. It was all mind games, nothing they saw in the world was real, except the portal that Thandie and Gemma traveled through.
* Gemma is Jan's mother from volume one.
* Had Thandie not won the dice rolls in the past, Grace's future would've burned due to all the information Thandie gave Wallace Sr.