Genoa City is about to be plunged into a new depth of psychological terror, as one of its most beloved residents, Mariah Copeland (Camryn Grimes), finds her carefully reconstructed life torn apart by a ghost from her past. What began as a buried memory, a silent trauma, is now manifesting as a terrifying, tangible threat – an unseen enemy who not only holds the key to Mariah’s deepest fears but is now poised to inflict unspeakable harm upon her most cherished loved ones, specifically, the love of her life, Tessa Porter (Cait Fairbanks). The stakes have never been higher for Mariah, as she is pushed to the precipice of madness, facing an ultimatum that could cost her everything.

For months, Mariah has existed in a self-imposed purgatory, a shadow of the vibrant, quick-witted woman Genoa City had grown to adore. Her wit had dulled, her laughter had faded, and the spark in her eyes, once mirroring Tessa’s fierce love, had been replaced by a haunted, distant gaze. The catalyst for this profound shift was a business trip meant to be routine, uneventful, a brief escape from the pressures of her complex family life. Instead, it became the crucible of her darkest nightmare.

Mariah returned not with corporate triumphs, but with an impenetrable silence, a suffocating weight that pushed away even the most loving attempts at comfort from her mother, Sharon Rosales (Sharon Case), her sister, Faith Newman (Reylynn Caster), and especially, her soulmate, Tessa. She wouldn’t explain the tremors in her hands, the shadows beneath her eyes, or the profound emotional retreat that left her feeling like fragments of a person.

The truth, as Mariah desperately believed, was that she had killed a man. A stranger. A name she couldn’t recall, a face that flickered in her mind like a broken reel of black-and-white film. She remembered the confrontation in a distant hotel room, the shouting, his hand reaching out, and then her own hand finding a pillow. The weight. The pressure. Rage, or was it fear? In the moment, it felt like primal instinct, a fight for survival. But the aftermath was a horrifying void: no clear memory of what followed, no calls to the authorities, no hiding of a body. Just an escape back to Genoa City, a flight from a scene that remained blurred and corrupted in her mind, leaving her with an indelible stain of guilt.

This guilt began to poison her existence, making her feel unworthy of Tessa’s unwavering love, incapable of confiding in Sharon, and disconnected from the very world she had fought so hard to belong to. The trauma, however, refused to stay buried. Nightmares bled into waking life. She’d catch glimpses of her hands, not as they were, but as they had been – clenched, forceful, monstrous. She heard voices, her own fragmented screams, gasps, desperate pleas of “No!” The memory rewrote itself nightly, a horrific, ever-changing script, eroding her trust in her own sanity.

Sharon, ever the compassionate mother, sensed her daughter’s torment and tried to gently intervene. But Mariah, paralyzed by the fear of arrest or, worse, ultimate rejection, resisted. Her spiral deepened until a shocking confession from Sharon herself—claiming she had killed Heather Stevens—sent shockwaves through Mariah’s fragile psyche. Sharon’s wild, passionate admission, though later retracted as a “dream” or “test,” planted a seed of doubt: what if Mariah’s own “murder” wasn’t real? What if her mind, desperate to make sense of inexplicable fear, had fabricated a scenario, a moment of perceived power in a terrifying powerlessness? What if the stranger hadn’t died, or worse, never existed at all?

Driven by a desperate need for clarity, Mariah began her own quiet investigation. Hotel records, security footage, missing persons reports – all came up empty. No struggle, no body, no police calls. It was as if nothing had happened. And yet, Mariah remembered. Tessa, ever the anchor, urged therapy, suggesting Mariah’s memories might have fractured under extreme stress. Mariah reluctantly agreed, and sessions revealed buried rage from her past in a cult, but failed to explain the physical evidence: fresh bruises on her wrists, a new scar near her shoulder. These were tangible proof that something traumatic had occurred.

Then, the first anonymous note arrived, cold and damning: “You think it’s over? But I’m still here.”

This wasn’t a hallucination. This wasn’t a product of trauma. This was real. If the stranger was dead, who sent the note? If he was alive, had he been playing a sinister game all along? Had Mariah, in her terror, fled a crime scene believing herself the monster, when in reality, she was the victim?

The mystery deepened with surveillance footage showing a tall, unidentifiable male figure following Mariah from the hotel restaurant. Staff remembered a man near her door. But still, no concrete answers, only escalating questions, deepening shadows, and the chilling realization that the truth might be far more insidious than she could ever imagine. Mariah found herself walking a razor-thin line between sanity and obsession, yearning for innocence, terrified of what the truth might unveil.

As Mariah pursued a new lead—a bartender from that fateful night—Genoa City’s most intriguing new player, Cain Ashby (Mark Grossman), began to lurk in the margins. Cain, a master of shadows and secrets, had picked up whispers of Mariah’s “business trip gone wrong.” His interest, initially fueled by his own legal woes and a need for distraction, sharpened when a photograph from France mysteriously matched one taken in the States. He recognized the tell-tale signs of someone hiding a monumental secret. Cain, leveraging his unsettling charm, approached Mariah at Crimson Lights, subtly probing about her trip, noting her pallor. Mariah’s quick laughter and nervous excuses only confirmed Cain’s suspicions. He didn’t need a confession; he just needed to keep her on edge, waiting for her to break.

Mariah, meanwhile, returned to the hotel under a different name. The receptionist remembered her. The bartender remembered her. But still, no one remembered the man. No check-ins, no name, no security footage. It was as if he were a figment of her imagination, despite the physical scars.

Then, a second letter arrived. This time, it contained a video clip. Blurry, shot on a camera phone, it showed a hotel hallway – her hallway. Her room. The door opening. A man entering. Mariah following him. The door closing. No sound. No timestamp. Just enough to confirm the nightmare was terrifyingly real. Mariah stared at the screen, her breath ragged. He was real. It happened. But still, there was no violence depicted, no struggle, no resolution. Just the setup. And that was the most terrifying part. He hadn’t sent the video to threaten her physically. He had sent it to gaslight her, to make her question herself again, to remind her that she didn’t know how it ended, but he did. Mariah desperately tried to destroy the evidence, but the psychological damage was done. She was no longer just haunted by what might have happened; she was hunted by someone who knew exactly what had.

Mariah shut out Tessa, Sharon, and Faith, believing that isolating herself was the only way to protect them from the escalating threat. But even isolation couldn’t save her. One night, she opened her closet to find a single, unfamiliar hotel pillow resting on the top shelf, pinned with a chilling message: “Sleep well, killer.”

This was the moment her fear ignited into a cold, determined fury. Mariah was no longer just a victim. She would not run. She would not wonder. She would find him, confront him, and end this nightmare.

But before she could act, Cain Ashby called again, this time not to provoke, but to warn. “He’s been in Genoa City,” Cain stated, his voice unusually grim. “I don’t know how long, but I think he’s watching more than just you.” The line went dead.

Mariah’s blood ran cold. The truth slammed into her with brutal force. This wasn’t just about her guilt anymore. This was about survival. The chilling revelation that her tormentor was now in Genoa City, and watching Tessa, transformed the psychological horror into a terrifying, immediate physical threat. The “killer instinct” she thought she’d buried might be the only thing left to save her, and more importantly, to save Tessa.

The stage is set for a high-stakes confrontation. Mariah’s enemy, now revealed to be omnipresent and deeply twisted, is clearly preparing to deliver a horrifying ultimatum, threatening to kidnap Tessa and force Mariah to confront the full, brutal truth of that fateful night. As Mariah descends into a desperate, solo mission to unmask her tormentor and protect Tessa, Genoa City will hold its breath. Will Mariah finally reclaim her sanity and her life, or will this chilling game of cat-and-mouse claim its ultimate victim? Tune in to The Young and the Restless on CBS to witness the dramatic unraveling of Mariah’s nightmare and the fight for Tessa’s life.