Marcus: "Sarah! Get Lily out of the house right now!"
Sarah: "I'm not leaving you here! Marcus, please, step away from the door!"
Lily: "Daddy, I'm scared!"
Marcus grabbed his heavy flash lantern from the side table and clicked it on, casting a harsh beam of light through the narrow gap in the steel door. The air rushing out of the hidden room smelled faintly of old paper, cold stone, and damp soil.
Marcus: "Who is in there?! Show yourself!"
A low, hoarse voice rasped from the darkness inside the wall, coughing softly into the shadows.
Voice: "Marcus... is that... is that you?"
Marcus froze instantly. The voice sounded old, frail, and hauntingly familiar, though he couldn't immediately place where he had heard it before.
Marcus: "Who are you? How do you know my name?!"
Sarah: "Don't answer him, Marcus! Lock the room! Push the armoire back!"
Marcus: "Sarah, shut up for a second! Who is in our house?!"
The door swung open another inch, revealing an elderly man leaning heavily against a steel frame. He wore tattered gray clothes, his eyes hollow and squinting against the bright daylight of the Dallas living room.
Elderly Man: "Sarah promised me... she promised I'd be safe here until the trial was over..."
Marcus felt the blood drain completely from his face. He looked from the weak old man in the wall back to his wife, whose head was bowed in shame and panic.
Marcus: "Trial? What trial? Sarah, who is this man?!"
Sarah: "He's... Marcus, he's my father."
Marcus: "Your father died eight years ago in a car crash! I went to his funeral!"
Sarah: "That wasn't him in the casket, Marcus. That was a lie."
Marcus stepped backward, his mind reeling as the web of secrets in his home began to unravel before his eyes.
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