I don’t know how I found the strength to walk to the patio.

I don’t know where I found the strength to walk out to the backyard.

Maybe it was out of pure fear.

Or maybe it was the way Alma said it. She didn’t sound like someone remembering a crazy childhood story. She sounded like someone who had been running for seven years straight just to get back in the nick of time. My mom’s face was completely pale, and her lips were trembling. The little boy was still clutching his backpack, staring down at the floor. It felt like the whole house was shrinking, as if the walls themselves were leaning in to listen.

I opened the back door.

The damp, cold night air hit us immediately. The yard was pitch black except for the yellow light shining through the kitchen window. There stood the concrete circle, cracked after so many years, with old flower pots sitting on top and a broken chair leaning against the wall. No one had touched it since my dad sealed it up. We never even went near it when we swept the yard.

Alma was the first one to walk up to it.

She knelt down by the edge and placed her palm on the concrete as if she were touching a grave.

“It’s still beating,” she whispered.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Alma turned to look at me. Her eyes were full of a deep desperation I had never seen before.

“It means it’s still open at the bottom. My dad only covered the top part. He didn’t actually close it. He couldn’t.”

My mom let out a soft groan.

“Don’t start with that again, sweetheart…”

“I’m not crazy, Mom. I never was.”

The boy barely lifted his head. In the kitchen light, he looked even more like my dad: the forehead, the shape of his eyelashes, and the way he wrinkled his nose right before talking.

“You heard it,” he said very quietly. “You know we’re back.”

I felt a sudden knot tighten inside my stomach.

“Who?” I asked.

Alma quickly jumped to her feet.

“I’ll explain later. Help me break this open.”

I went inside to grab a shovel and a crowbar that we kept in the storage room. My mom started praying again, whispering so softly it looked like she was chewing on the words. I wanted answers. I wanted to understand where this child came from, where Alma had been, and what kind of nightmare would make her come back just to dig up a well. But the way she kept looking at the street, the shadows, and the sky told me one thing: if we waited too long, something would catch up to us.

I hit the concrete first.

The loud, dull thud echoed across the yard.

Then another.

And another.

Alma helped me. Her hands were already cut up and bleeding, but she kept striking the surface as if she couldn’t feel any pain. My mom wept as she pushed the old flower pots out of the way. The boy didn’t move at all. He just stared at the concrete circle with an eerie intensity, like he could hear something moving on the other side.

It took us nearly forty minutes to make a deep crack. The concrete broke into jagged chunks. Underneath, we saw the old iron lid of the well. It was covered in rust, still holding the padlock my father had put there years ago. But the padlock was broken open.

“I didn’t break it,” my mom said right away, sounding defensive as if we were blaming her.

Alma closed her eyes for a moment.

“It has already come out once.”

A heavy, sickening silence fell over us.

“What got out?” I asked, starting to panic and get angry. “Stop talking in riddles, Alma!”

She looked straight at me. And finally, she explained.

“The night I disappeared, I didn’t run away with anyone. I didn’t leave on purpose. I heard someone crying out here in the yard. I came outside alone because I thought it was you.”

Goosebumps covered my entire body.

“I was asleep that night.”

“I know that now. But back then, I could have sworn it was your voice calling me from the yard. When I looked down into the well, I heard my name coming from the bottom. It wasn’t a scary voice. It sounded… it sounded like someone from our family talking to me with love. Like Dad. Like Grandma. Like all of them mixed together. And when I leaned closer… it pulled me in.”

My mom covered her mouth in shock.

I felt sick to my stomach.

“I didn’t fall,” she continued. “I was taken down. I don’t know how to explain it. Inside, it wasn’t just a regular well. It was something entirely different. A massive cavern with damp dirt, long tunnels, and rooms dug into the earth. And there were people down there. People who weren’t whole anymore. People who could still hear the voices of their families, their kids, their dead relatives. I tried to escape so many times, but I always ended up back in the exact same spot.”

“No,” I whispered, my voice sounding weak.

“That’s where I had him,” she said, looking at the little boy. “No one hurt me. No human, at least. They just… passed by. It felt like that place wanted to plant roots inside me. Like it needed blood from our family.”

My mom gasped out loud.

Hearing this, the boy squeezed his backpack even tighter, but he didn’t cry.

“Why did you wait until now to come back?” I asked.

Alma swallowed hard.

“Because he found the way out. And because the other one woke up down below.”

I didn’t want to ask, but I had to know.

“The other what?”

The boy looked straight into my eyes. He had a serious expression that looked far too old for his little face.

“My other mom,” he repeated. “The one who lives down there with Alma’s face.”

A wave of intense dizziness hit me. Alma looked away, full of shame and absolute terror.

“When I gave birth to him,” she said, “something else wanted to claim him too. It started copying me. First my voice, then my face, and then everything else. I saw her standing at the end of the tunnels, holding him, singing to him, and brushing her hair exactly like I do. Every time I tried to run away with him, she would show up first at the next exit, waiting for us. It was like the well was practicing with me until it completely learned how to be me.”

An icy blast of air swept across the yard.

It wasn’t the wind.

I knew it wasn’t the wind because the tree in the corner didn’t stir at all, but the kitchen light bulb flickered inside.

The boy took a step backward.

“She’s already come up,” he whispered.

Right then, a sound came from beneath the iron lid.

Three knocks.

Slow.

Hollow.

The exact same knocks we heard at the front door.

My mom dropped her rosary and backed up against the wall.

I raised the crowbar, acting purely on instinct.

A voice drifted up from the dark hole.

It was Alma’s voice.

“Mom… open up.”

A wave of pure terror made my arms feel numb and burning.

My sister froze. The last bit of color drained from her face.

“Don’t listen to her,” she said in a tiny whisper. “No matter what she says, do not listen to her.”

The voice spoke again.

It was perfect.

Exactly the same.

“Mommy… it’s me… I’m cold… open the door for me.”

My mom covered her ears and started praying louder. The boy closed his eyes tightly. Then, the heavy iron lid shook violently, as if something down there had slammed against it with both hands.

Alma grabbed my arm.

“The backpack,” she told the boy. “Give it to me right now.”

He obeyed without a second thought.

Alma unzipped it and pulled out a few items wrapped in an old blanket: a rusty knife, a stack of wet photographs, a braid of hair tied with a red ribbon, and a small bag filled with dark dirt mixed with something white that I didn’t even want to guess at.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s what it stole from us to copy us,” she replied. “Hair. Pictures. Memories. Objects it touched. If we throw them back down into the well and seal it with blood from this house, it won’t be able to climb back out.”

Something slammed against the lid again.

This time, it was followed by the horrible sound of fingernails scratching against the metal.

My mom stopped praying and just sobbed in terror.

“Your father knew something,” she said through her tears. “The night before he sealed it up, he told me that if you ever came back… I shouldn’t hug you until I heard you recite the entire Lord’s Prayer.”

Alma froze completely.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me that?” she asked in a weak, cracking voice.

“Because he was looking for you out in the world. He always believed you had run away with someone. By the time he started to realize the truth… it was already too late. Then he got sick. Before he passed away, he made me promise that if you ever truly returned, there would be a mark on your back. A bite.”

Alma looked at me.

Without saying a word, she pulled up the back of her shirt.

There it was.

Right between her shoulder blade and her spine.

A faded, curved scar, shaped exactly like human teeth—but far too large to be normal.

The voice down in the dark began to laugh.

It sounded exactly like Alma’s laugh, but it was hollow and distorted by the heavy echo.

“Don’t believe them… I’m the real one… she’s the one who escaped first…”

The iron lid shifted open a few inches.

A hand pushed through the narrow crack.

It didn’t look dead. It was a pale, slimy hand with dirt caked under the black fingernails… and it was wearing the exact same silver ring Alma had on the day she vanished.

My mom shrieked so loudly it pierced right through my skull.

Without hesitation, Alma sliced her own palm with the knife. Dark blood poured out between her fingers.

“Help me,” she said.

I didn’t even think. I jammed the crowbar under the lid and pried it open just enough for Alma to toss the braid, the photos, and the dirt inside. The little boy stepped forward, and with a brave face I will never forget, he also cut his hand with the knife and let three drops of blood fall through the crack.

The laughter from the bottom of the well turned into a horrible shriek.

The hand thrashed around wildly, trying desperately to push further out. I could see the wrist and the cracked skin, and underneath the flesh, something dark was twisting around like wet tree roots.

Alma slammed her bleeding palm flat onto the iron lid.

“You are not my voice. You are not my home. You are not my son.”

The boy did the exact same thing.

“You are not my mom.”

I put both hands on the lid and pressed down with all my might. My mother, still weeping, threw her weight onto it too. Together, the four of us forced it shut just as something slammed against the bottom with enough force to shake the entire yard.

Then it truly began.

I don’t know if it was a small earthquake or if the entire house was breathing. The broken concrete around the well groaned. A foul, ancient smell poured from the crack, like stagnant water full of dead animals. Then, the voice from below completely changed. It wasn’t Alma anymore. It wasn’t anyone I recognized. It was a chorus of many voices twisted together—men, women, and children—all begging to come inside, asking to be let go, crying out that they were hungry, or screaming out names.

Alma screamed at me to go get the bag of lime from the storage room.

I ran as fast as I could.

By the time I got back, she was already mixing the white powder with dirt and blood using her bare hands. We sealed the edges as best we could, smearing the thick gray paste all around the lid. The pounding inside the well continued, but it grew weaker and weaker, sounding further and further away. Until, suddenly, everything went dead silent.

Just like that.

From one second to the next.

Not a single scratch.

Not a single whimper.

Nothing.

Only the sound of the ceiling fan inside the house, clicking along like usual. The dripping kitchen sink. A dog barking far away. Normal night sounds returned, settling over a horror that should have stayed buried forever.

We stood there, frozen, for a very long time.

Eventually, the little boy sat down on the ground and fell fast asleep right there, resting his head against Alma’s leg. My mom knelt down beside them and finally wrapped her arms around her daughter, holding her tight as if she was terrified Alma might crumble to pieces.

I looked at the freshly sealed well, our bloody hands, the discarded shovel, and the messy yard.

And I finally understood two things.

First: Alma had truly come back.

Second: she hadn’t returned alone.

Because when I helped lift the sleeping child to carry him inside the house, his black backpack unzipped just a tiny bit.

Inside, nestled among dirty clothes and an empty plastic bottle, I caught sight of a damp photograph.

It was an old family photo of us, taken in this exact same backyard when I was ten years old.

Except someone had violently scratched at my face until it was completely erased.

And on the back, written clearly in Alma’s handwriting, was a single sentence:

There is still one left to go.