Lily had mentioned a “buyer.” They had talked about the neighbor at 42. And now this.
I had to go to the police. It was the logical, sensible thing to do. But a voice in my head stopped me. Lily had said that the neighbor at 42 had photos of them. That he knew. And if I went to the police… what if the police were involved? Or worse, what if by reporting them I lost my daughter forever, locked up in a juvenile detention center or taken away by whoever was behind this “Chrysalis Project”?
No. I had to find out what this was before I acted.
I remembered what they had said. *The house at 42. The bored accountant.*
I stood up. My legs were no longer trembling. Fear had been replaced by a cold determination, a maternal fury I didn’t know I possessed. No one was going to turn my daughter into a monster. And if she already was, I was going to find out who had done it.
I looked at the clock. It was 10:15 am. Lily had said they would meet with the Buyer in an hour. That gave me time.
I went to my room, took an old toolbox out of the closet, and grabbed a screwdriver and a flashlight. Then I went downstairs, making sure to lock everything.
I stepped outside. The sun was shining, the birds were singing. The suburb seemed as idyllic as ever. Mrs. Greene was on her porch watering the petunias. She saw me come out and waved, but this time I noticed the worry in her eyes. She knew something. Maybe not everything, but she knew something dark was lurking on our street. I nodded slightly to her, a silent promise that I would look into it, and turned left.
Towards house number 42.
The house was identical to mine in structure, but the blinds were down and the lawn a little more neglected. There was no car in the driveway. If Lily was right and the man lived alone, he was probably at work. Or watching other children.
I walked to the front door, rang the doorbell, and waited. Nothing. I rang again. Silence.
I looked around to make sure no one was watching, jumped over the small side fence, and went to the back. A kitchen window was ajar. “We go in when they’re not here, we leave without a trace,” Lily had said. The irony of almost breaking in to save my daughter from becoming a thief didn’t escape me.
I forced the screen open with the screwdriver and pushed the window upwards. It was stiff, but it gave way. I pulled myself up with difficulty and landed awkwardly on the sink in the other person’s kitchen.
The house smelled musty, like stale coffee and chemicals, like those used to develop photos.
I walked down the hallway. The living room was spartan. Basic furniture, no decoration, no family photos. Everything functional. As if whoever lived here was ready to leave at any moment.
I looked for a room that could serve as an office. I found it at the end of the hall. The door was locked, but it was a cheap interior lock. A hard kick near the doorknob—something I’d seen in movies and never thought would work—made the mechanism pop with a crack of splintering wood.
Between.
The walls were covered.
There wasn’t a single centimeter of paint visible. Everything was covered with photographs. Hundreds of them.
I approached, feeling my stomach churn.
They were photos of children. All teenagers from the neighborhood. I saw the boy in the boots, Leo. The girl, Sarah. And many others I recognized by sight, school friends, neighbors’ children.
And in the center, occupying the place of honor, the largest wall was entirely dedicated to Lily.
Lily in the park. Lily sleeping (taken through
Lily in the park. Lily sleeping (taken through her bedroom window). Lily at school. And then, a series of more disturbing photos: Lily receiving money from a man in a black car. Lily delivering a package. Lily… shooting at a shooting range in the middle of the woods.
But what terrified me most wasn’t the photos. It was the map on the desk.
It was a detailed map of the city. There were red lines connecting different houses. Ours was marked with a bright red circle. And next to the circle, a handwritten note:
*PHASE 1 COMPLETED. THE SUBJECT HAS ELIMINATED EMPATHY. PREPARE FOR PHASE 2: ELIMINATION OF THE MATERNAL BOND.*
I felt the ground disappear beneath my feet.
“Elimination of the maternal bond.”
That’s what I meant.
Lily wasn’t just stealing. She was being trained, conditioned. And the next test, the next step in this macabre “Project Chrysalis,” was to get rid of me.
Suddenly, I heard the unmistakable sound of the front door opening.
I froze in the middle of the room, surrounded by the thousands of faces of my daughter watching me from the walls.
“Hello?” a male voice called. Deep. Calm.
The neighbor from number 42 had returned.
I looked around for a hiding place, but this room had no bed, no wardrobe. Just the desk and the accusing walls.
The footsteps were approaching down the hall. Slow. Methodical. He knew someone had broken in. He’d seen the window, or the forced door to the office.
There was no way out.
I gripped the screwdriver so tightly my knuckles turned white. If this man wanted to eliminate me, I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
The figure appeared in the doorway. It was a man in his fifties, with metal-framed glasses and an unassuming appearance. The kind of man you’d forget five seconds after seeing him. But his eyes… his eyes were two black wells, devoid of any human emotion.
He looked at me. He looked at the screwdriver in my hand. And then he smiled, a sad, tired smile.
“Mrs. Carter,” she said gently, “you’re earlier than expected. I was hoping Lily would handle this before you had to see… the background.”
“What have you done to my daughter?” I growled, raising the screwdriver like a dagger.
He sighed and adjusted his glasses.
—I haven’t done anything to him, Olivia. I’m just documenting the process. I’m not the creator. I’m the observer.
—Observer of what? Get away!
The man took a step inside, partially closing the door behind him.
—From evolution. Your daughter is special. Very special. She has an innate capacity for moral dissociation that we haven’t seen in decades. She’s perfect for the show.
“It’s a girl!” I shouted.
“She was a child,” he corrected. “Now she’s an asset. And I’m afraid you’ve become a liability.”
He put his hand in his jacket pocket.
I didn’t wait to see what he’d pull out. I lunged at him with a scream of pure desperation, driving the screwdriver into his shoulder.
The man moved with unnatural speed, dodging the blow and grabbing my wrist with steely strength. He twisted my arm, and the screwdriver fell to the floor. He shoved me against the desk, making me crash into the map and the notes about my own death.
“I don’t want to hurt her, Olivia,” he said, immobilizing me. “I really don’t. Lily’s supposed to do it. It’s part of her graduation. If I do it, it’ll invalidate the data.”
“He’s crazy!” I gasped, struggling uselessly against his grip.
—Perhaps. But look at the photos. Look at your daughter. Do you see fear in her eyes? Do you see remorse? No. She enjoys the power. We just gave her a channel to express it.
Suddenly, a loud crash of breaking glass came from the front of the house.
The man tensed, turning his head toward the hallway. His grip loosened for a split second.
“Police!” shouted a voice not far away, but it didn’t sound like the police. It sounded young. Forced.
The man from number 42 frowned. “What…?”
I took advantage of his confusion. I kneed him in the groin with all my might. He groaned and doubled over. I broke free, grabbed a heavy metal stapler from the desk, and smashed it against his temple.
He fell to the ground, stunned, bleeding.
I didn’t stay to check if she was unconscious. I ran out of the room and into the hallway.
There, in the living room, standing on the remains of the front window that she had just broken with a brick, was Lily.
But she wasn’t alone. Behind her were Leo, Sarah, and two other boys I didn’t know. They were all wearing ski goggles, but I recognized their clothes. And they were all carrying baseball bats, iron bars… and Lily, in the middle, was holding the gun I’d seen in the photo.
I stopped dead in my tracks at the end of the corridor.
Lily saw me. Her eyes widened behind the mask, which had been pulled up to her forehead. The gun was pointing vaguely at the ground, but her finger was close to the trigger.
“Mom?” she said. Her voice was that of a child again, full of confusion and real panic. “What are you doing here?”
Behind me, I heard the man from number 42 groan and try to get up.
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