** THE LAKE HOUSE LIES** part 2(Final part )
** THE LAKE HOUSE LIES**
By "Sarthak Rawat
PROLOGUE
.The room was quiet, too quiet for comfort. A kind of stillness that settled like dust in old places—too long undisturbed, too heavy with memory.
Dr. Vale sat hunched on the edge of his leather armchair, elbows braced on his knees, the corners of his notebook frayed and curling like dry leaves. He wasn’t looking at the pages anymore. His eyes had shifted to the woman across from him—the one who sat curled up like a child on the cracked sofa, her gaze far away, as if staring through the beige walls of his office into a world only she could see.
"Ellie," he said at last, his voice soft, almost apologetic. “You’ve been on medication, in and out of therapy, tried grounding exercises, EMDR, hypnotherapy… Six years of fighting. And yet…”
His sentence trailed off like fog dispersing in cold air. He didn’t need to finish it.
Ellie Mercer knew the end of that thought. She lived it every day.
Panic attacks that gripped her lungs like iron vices. Nightmares so vivid she could still feel the cold lake water on her skin when she woke. And the flashes—disjointed pieces of memories that played like broken film reels in her mind. Caroline’s laugh. A scream. The sound of water closing over a head.
Ellie hadn’t slept through the night in years.
“I think,” Dr. Vale said carefully, “there’s only one place left to go. One door you haven’t opened yet.”
Her breath caught.
“The lake house.”
The words hung between them like a sentence.
She looked at him then, really looked, and for the first time in their long history, she didn’t feel like a patient. She felt like someone standing at the edge of something much darker than trauma. A cliff. A door. A mirror.
And she knew—he was right. The only way forward was back.
She left his office with the numb resolve of someone going to war. The sun was already sinking behind the buildings as she drove home, the sky bleeding shades of bruised pink and gold. She didn’t hesitate. She packed quickly. Essentials only. A few clothes. The old flashlight. Caroline’s photo, tucked inside a book she never finished.
Then she loaded everything into the backseat, hands trembling just enough to betray the calm she was trying to fake.
As the engine turned over, the lake house called to her like a pulse. Steady. Insistent. And beneath it, something deeper. A whisper:
“Come back.”
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CHAPTER ONE – RETURN
Ellie stepped out of the car, gravel crunching beneath her boots, and stared up at the home where her sister Caroline had vanished. Standing at the front door of the house , her body reluctant to go in , but she knew it was inevitable she would have to be here sooner or later .She opened the door. The lake house hadn’t changed. Not in the way Eleanor Mercer had hoped it would. The shutters still hung crooked over dark windows, and the porch still groaned with every shift of the wind.
She entered the living room.
Suddenly,she saw the journal of Caroline. She tried to grab it but it triggered a series of flashbacks. She collapsed on the ground .
CHAPTER TWO – SHADOWS IN THE WALLS
She finally woke up at night,she started hearing weird sounds, she knew the sounds returned—soft scratching from behind the walls, like fingernails on old wood. Ellie tried to rationalize them. Mice. The house settling.But she knew those weren't the actual causes of the noises
Suddenly, she started feeling nauseous so she ran straight to the washroom.
But then she found the message.
Etched faintly into the fogged bathroom mirror: "YOU LET HER DIE .”
She hadn’t written it. A chill went down her spine unable to process it. The trauma, panic attacks everything came as a package
She heard a alarming high pitched sound,but to her relief it was just her phone ringing. It was Dr Vales .Calling to see if everything was alright.
She told him everything was fine.
She lied to him . Everything wasn't alright.
She didn’t tell anyone what she witnessed that night.
She felt helpless ,miserable ,but she reminded herself she was here for answers not for fear.
So,she started exploring the house in search of any clues she could find.
She found a teacup ,placed on the kitchen counter.
The teacup left on the counter was still warm. Someone had been in the house.
She took a picture of the teacup. Also capturing the fingerprints placed on the teacup.
CHAPTER THREE – CAROLINE’S ROOM
She kept looking. She then saw her sisters room. Unsure whether to go in or not.She unlocked the door.
It was pristine. Unnaturally so. Like someone had cleaned it recently.
On the desk, a journal lay open. Ellie read the last entry: “Sadie is getting worse. Ellie doesn’t know. She can’t.”
Sadie. The name stung like ice. A name she hadn’t heard since—
No. That wasn’t possible. Sadie had died. Or had she?
CHAPTER FOUR – THE TRUTH
She remembered now.
Sadie was her best friend . The two of them used to play by the lake, share secrets in the attic, and dare each other to play the Mirror Game.
Then Sadie disappeared. Drowned, they said. An accident.
But that wasn’t true.
Ellie had pushed her.
She didn’t mean to. She was angry. Sadie had done something horrible. Something Caroline had discovered too late. And Ellie had been protecting her sister. Or punishing her. The memory blurred.
CHAPTER FIVE – THE BASEMENT
The door had always been locked.
Until tonight.
Inside, the padded walls were torn. The restraints were snapped.
On the wall, scrawled in something dark: “REMEMBER.”
A photo lay on the floor. A Polaroid. Two girls, smiling.
One of them had no face.
CHAPTER SIX – SADIE
Sadie wasn’t gone. She had never left.
She lived in Ellie. In Caroline. In the shadows of the house.
Or maybe Sadie was Ellie all along.
Dissociative Identity Disorder. That’s what Dr. Vale had said. Ellie, Caroline, and Sadie—three faces of one fractured girl.
The Mirror Game had worked.
One had wanted to forget.
One had wanted to protect.
And one had wanted revenge.
CHAPTER SEVEN – THE MIRROR GAME
"The Mirror Game
Say the name. Trade the face.
Hope you remember what it felt like… to be you.
At midnight, sit alone before the mirror. No lights. No sound. Just your breath.
Whisper the name of the one you long to become. Whisper it three times.
Don’t blink.
Don’t smile.
And if your voice answers back from the glass—do not speak.
The mirror watches.
The mirror remembers.
The mirror doesn’t forgive.
And whatever you do…
Never play twice.
It only lets you leave once.
She had played. So had Caroline. And Sadie… Sadie had never stopped.
CHAPTER EIGHT – THE FIRE
Ellie stood in front of the fireplace. The house groaned behind her.
She dropped the photo into the flames. The last link to who she had been.
She wasn’t Ellie anymore. Not Caroline. Not even Sadie.
She was all of them. And none.
She was what the mirror had made.
CHAPTER NINE – THE FINAL RETURN
Dr. Vale closed the file. The case was marked "closed."
But he knew better.
He knew what would happen if he sent ellie there, but truth was also that Ellie never belonged here not since she--.
He looked at the final note left on the burned photo:
“It was never Ellie.”
He shuddered.
CHAPTER TEN – THE DOOR WAS NEVER LOCKED
The basement door creaks open.
No wind.
No one there.
Just silence.
And then a whisper, soft and smiling:
“Welcome back.”
FINAL CHAPTER – THE MIRROR GAME
The house is quiet now.
No more whispers. No more shifting shadows. Just silence.
Ellie—or the girl who thought she was Ellie—sits by the lake, barefoot, her toes curled into the cold mud. The sun is rising, casting a pale light over the glassy water. Her reflection stares back, steady, no longer flickering with someone else’s face.
For the first time in weeks, she feels still.
She remembers everything now.
Sadie was never just a memory. Sadie was her. A version of her. The one who had survived what the others couldn’t. A girl fractured in three: Ellie, the innocent. Caroline, the protector. And Sadie, the truth.
The Mirror Game had been real. As children, they played it as a dare. But it wasn’t just a game. It was a ritual—a way of hiding from pain, of trading identities like masks. Ellie wanted to forget. Caroline wanted to forgive. But Sadie… Sadie wanted revenge.
And when the switch happened, Sadie became the only one left.
She walks back into the lake house one last time. The walls are bare. The basement is silent. The mirror that once shimmered with a mind of its own is shattered now, jagged glass spread across the floor.
In the center lies the photo. The Polaroid.
Three girls—one torn from the image. But it doesn’t matter anymore. She remembers who she was. Who she is.
Sadie Mercer.
She places the photo in the fireplace and lights a match. The flame catches quickly. The house smells like ash and old pine as the last remnant of her broken mind burns away.
She walks outside. The morning is bright. The lake reflects the sky like a silver mirror.
And for the first time in a long, long time—
She’s free.
EPILOGUE
Dr. Vale files the last of the papers. The case is closed.
Ellie Mercer is officially declared deceased, her identity folded into psychological folklore. Caroline remains a name with no records. And Sadie… Sadie vanished from the system completely.
No one knows what happened at the lake house.
But if you stand at the edge of the water, just before sunrise, some say you’ll see her—barefoot, smiling, whole.
And if you look too long…
You might forget who you are.
But that’s another story.
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BONUS PART
(Caroline's body was never found the investigation never took place. )
THE END.
Hope you liked the ending
Signing out-
Sarthak Rawat
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