Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hello, amazing readers!

A quick Warning before we begin:

This is my very first Fanfiction, so please bear with me as I learn! I'm writing this as a hobby, not professionally, which means updates may take time.

Thank you for your patience.

CONTENT WARNINGS:

Horror and Psychological horror elements

Mild gore and violence

Future Chapters may contain Smut (I'll warn you at the beginning of those Chapters if you prefer to skip)

If any of this content makes you uncomfortable, please find something else to read that better suits your preferences.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Remember not to trust anyone too quickly in this story.

Most of these characters are Serial Killers, after all, so guard your heart carefully.

Reader Tips:

If you're using Google Chrome, I highly recommend the "POV: Y/N Replacer" extension for Wattpad and AO3.

It let's you replace Y/N and similar placeholders with your actual name for better immersion!

I've chosen to stick with Y/N rather than using a random girl's name because I personally find that more annoying,

it makes the story feel like it's about an OC rather than truly being Reader-Insert.

Don't worry, I won't describe Y/N's physical appearance beyond occasional height comparisons (for example, Laughing Jack will obviously be much taller than Y/N, while Ben might be portrayed as slightly shorter).

If you're using the Extension, you'll only need to change two things:

Y/N = Your first name

L/N = Your last name

Enjoy!

Chapter Text

The sky clung to the early hours like a dirty bandage, heavy and reluctant in a dull shade of ashen blue that made everything look sickly.

Y/N had always hated mornings like this, the kind where the world felt pressed down by invisible weight, where even the birds seemed too tired to sing properly. A bitter wind whispered through the trees lining Elm Street, their bare branches reaching toward the gray sky. The wind carried with it the stale breath of winter not quite here, not quite gone, that liminal space between seasons that always made her feel unsettled, like something was waiting just around the corner, watching.

Y/N adjusted the straps of her backpack with a soft click of the zipper, tugging it higher on her shoulder making the keychain jostle behind. The weight of her textbooks felt heavier today, though she couldn’t explain why. She pulled her sleeves down over her hands, tucking her fingers inside the fabric. The cold air needled its way into her lungs with every breath, sharp and clean but somehow wrong. She stood still for a moment on the cracked sidewalk, scanning the quiet street with its rows of identical houses, their windows dark and empty-looking. Most of the neighborhood was still asleep, curtains drawn tight. Her heart gave a sharp, expectant thud as she spotted movement in the distance. Two figures emerged from the morning mist. The first was Liu, tall for fifteen, shoulders back, his walk slow and measured. He caught sight of her and raised a hand in greeting, offering that easy, lopsided smile he always wore, the one that made people feel safe without even trying.

Behind him was Jeff, who moved differently than his brother, hunched inward like he was trying to disappear into himself, his black hoodie pulled low over his face. Strands of messy brown hair stuck out from the edges, unwashed and tangled. He kept his gaze glued to the pavement, studying the cracks in the concrete. There was a tension in his shoulders that Y/N had noticed getting worse over the past few weeks.

“Morning.” Y/N called softly, her voice creating small clouds in the cold air. She waved, trying to inject some warmth into the gray morning.

Jeff’s response was barely audible, more of a grunt than actual words. “You’re early.”

“You know I live right there,” she said, pointing to the small two-story house behind them with its peeling blue paint and crooked mailbox. A faint grin tugged at her lips as she added, “Besides, early bird gets the worm, right?”

Jeff risked a sideways glance at her, and she caught the flush that crept up his neck, not from the cold this time. That familiar shade of embarrassment, or maybe something else, something deeper that he’d never put words to. His blue eyes met hers for just a moment before he looked away, his jaw tightening.

Liu snorted and gave his brother a light nudge with his elbow. “You show up outside her house almost every day, Jeff. Don’t act surprised when she beats you to the street.”

“Shut up, Liu.” Jeff muttered, his voice muffled by his hoodie, but Y/N caught the way his ears reddened despite the cold air.

“I’m just saying,” Liu continued, clearly enjoying his brother’s discomfort, “for someone who claims he doesn’t care about being on time, you sure do manage to be here every morning at exactly seven-fifteen.”

“I said shut up.” Jeff’s voice carried an edge now, sharper than it needed to be for simple teasing. There was something brittle in his tone.

They stood together in the soft. The hush was broken only by distant birdsong and the occasional bark of a dog echoing down the block, muffled by the fog that still clung to the ground.

Y/N’s eyes drifted toward Jeff again, studying the way he held himself, shoulders taut, hands buried deep in his pockets, that brittle quality about him like he was stitched together too tightly and might come apart at any moment.

There was something different about him lately, something that made the air around him feel electric and dangerous.

The wind caught his sleeve, tugging it up just enough for her to see a flash of purple-yellow against pale skin.

Her stomach dropped like a stone.

“Jeff?” Her voice was gentle, barely more than a breath.

“Are you… okay?”

He flinched at the word like it was a physical blow, like ‘okay’ was a foreign concept that didn’t apply to him anymore. “Yeah.” The lie came too quick, too practiced, with the hollow ring of something rehearsed.

“You sure?” She took a half-step closer, close enough to see the dark circles under his eyes, the way his jaw clenched and unclenched.

His jaw ticked, a muscle jumping under skin that looked too pale, too thin. The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken things that hung in the air like smoke.

Liu glanced between them, raising a brow but saying nothing. He’d gotten good at reading the undercurrents between his brother and Y/N, knew when to stay quiet and when to step in.

“Those bruises,” Y/N said quietly, her voice barely carrying over the wind. “They’re new, aren’t they?”

Jeff’s whole body went rigid, every muscle locking into place. “Drop it.”

“Jeff—”

“I said drop it!” The words came out harsh, violent, and immediately his expression crumbled into something that looked like regret mixed with panic. He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it even more disheveled. “Just… leave it alone, okay? Please.”

Y/N wanted to push, wanted to grab him by the shoulders and demand answers, but something in his eyes stopped her. There was fear there, real, visceral fear and underneath it something that looked almost like shame.

They didn’t speak again for several minutes, the three of them just standing there in the growing light, each lost in their own thoughts. The morning felt different now, charged with an energy that made Y/N’s skin crawl. It wasn’t until the rhythm of heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed from behind them that the spell broke.

Randy.

The name sent a chill down Y/N’s spine that had nothing to do with the weather. She could feel him before she turned around, that particular brand of malicious energy that some people carried like a disease. He was swaggering down the street like he owned the cracked pavement beneath him, chewing his gum with exaggerated pops. Troy and Keith followed, their eyes sharp with the kind of amusement that came from anticipating someone else’s pain.

Their posture screamed practiced cruelty, the kind of casual violence that came from years of being bigger, meaner, and having nothing to lose. This wasn’t a random morning encounter, this was planned, calculated, inevitable.

“Well, well,” Randy said, his voice carrying that particular tone of false friendliness that made Y/N’s skin crawl. He held out his arms like he was greeting old friends at a reunion. “If it isn’t the emo brothers and their little groupie.”

Jeff went rigid beside her, every muscle in his body coiling like a spring under pressure. Y/N could practically feel the heat radiating off him, could sense the way his breathing changed.

Y/N instinctively took half a step back, her shoulder brushing against Liu’s arm. “We’re not looking for trouble.” she said, trying to keep her voice steady even though her heart was hammering against her ribs.

Randy tilted his head, that predatory smile never wavering. “That’s funny. ’Cause you just found it.”

Keith flexed his hands, cracking his knuckles with deliberate slowness. “Right here,” he echoed, his voice low and ugly, the kind that enjoyed the taste of fear.

“What do you want?” Liu asked, stepping slightly forward, his hands raised in a gesture that was part surrender, part preparation.

“Wallets,” Randy snapped, the friendly facade dropping immediately. “Empty your pockets. Now. And maybe nobody gets hurt today.”

Jeff didn’t move, but Y/N could see his hands shaking where they were clenched at his sides. Not from fear, from rage. From something building inside him like pressure in a boiler.

“Come on, man,” Liu said, his voice reasonable, trying to de-escalate. “Is this really how you want to start your morning? There’s got to be better ways to spend your time.”

Randy’s grin flattened into something uglier. “Don’t tell me how to spend my time, freak. Wallets. Now.”

Y/N’s breath caught as Jeff’s hoodie shifted again in the wind, and this time she saw more, a constellation of bruises across his collarbone, fingerprint-shaped marks on his wrist that looked fresh, angry. Her pulse roared in her ears as pieces clicked together in her mind, painting a picture she didn’t want to see but couldn’t unsee.

Randy stepped closer, close enough that she could smell the stale cigarette smoke on his clothes, see the cruel intelligence in his eyes. “What’s wrong, Woods?” Randy’s voice dropped to a whisper, intimate and vicious. “Cat got your tongue? Or are you just too stupid to understand simple instructions?”

Jeff’s fist connected with Randy’s face with a loud sound, bone against bone echoing sharp through the morning air.

Randy staggered back, stunned, blood streaming from his nose as chaos erupted around them.

Troy lunged at Y/N with a snarl, but Liu intercepted him, catching him by the collar and using his momentum to send him sprawling toward the pavement with a wet thud.

Keith tried to get to Jeff, but Jeff was beyond reason now, his fists moved fast, each punch carrying months of suppressed rage and pain that had nowhere else to go.

It was over in less than thirty seconds.

The three bullies lay in a crumpled, groaning heap on the cold concrete, Randy clutching his broken nose while blood seeped between his fingers and dripped onto the pavement.

Then, from somewhere in the distance, the low rumble of an engine. The school bus was rounding the corner, its yellow bulk emerging from the morning mist.

Jeff stood over the fallen boys, his whole body trembling with adrenaline and something darker. His breath came in short, sharp gasps, and his bloody hands shook.

“C’mon,” Liu said quietly, his voice cutting through the fog. He grabbed Jeff’s elbow, firm but gentle, guiding them toward the approaching bus. “Let’s go. Now.”

They climbed aboard in silence, Y/N’s legs shaking as she gripped the handrail. The bus driver, an older man with kind eyes and weathered hands, glanced at them with concern but didn’t ask questions. Maybe he’d learned not to. Maybe he’d seen too much over the years to be surprised by anything anymore.

Conversations throughout the bus stuttered into whispers as the other kids stared, eyes wide with a mixture of fear and fascination. Y/N could feel their gazes.

“Did you see what he did to Randy’s face?”

“Jesus, there was so much blood…”

“I heard he’s been arrested before…”

“My mom says his family is fucked up…”

She sat between Jeff and Liu, creating a barrier between Jeff and the rest of the world. Her hand brushed Jeff’s arm accidentally, and she felt how cold his skin was, how the trembling hadn’t stopped. There was something different about him now, something that hadn’t been there before the fight.

“Jeff…” she began, then stopped, not sure what to say. What did you say to someone who’d just discovered they were capable of that kind of brutality?

His voice was quiet when he finally spoke, his gaze locked on the scuffed floor of the bus. “They came at me first.”

“I know,” she said, and meant it. She’d seen Randy’s expression, the way he’d moved like a predator circling wounded prey. “I saw. You were just defending yourself.”

“Defending us.” Liu corrected quietly, but there was worry in his voice, the kind that came from knowing your brother better than anyone else in the world. The kind that came from recognizing something new and terrible in someone you loved.

Jeff was silent for a moment, staring out the window at the passing houses. When he spoke again, his voice was barely audible over the rumble of the engine. “It felt good.”

The words sent ice through Y/N’s veins. Not because they were violent, because they were honest. Because she could hear the surprise in his voice, the terrible discovery of something he hadn’t known about himself.

Then his thumb brushed against Y/N’s hand, so briefly she almost thought she’d imagined it. The touch was gentle, almost reverent, completely at odds with what she’d just witnessed.

“Thanks.” he said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him.

But she did, and something in his voice made her chest tight with emotion she couldn’t name. It sounded like goodbye.

The halls of Lincoln Middle School were electric with tension, the walls practically buzzing with rumors that grew more elaborate with each telling. Y/N felt a dozen pairs of eyes follow her as she made her way to her locker.

“Did you see what Jeffrey Woods did to Randy Miller?”

“I heard he broke his nose in three places and his jaw…”

“My cousin said there was blood everywhere, like a horror movie…”

“Those Woods boys are psycho, I’m telling you. It runs in the family…”

“I heard their dad beats them. That’s why Jeff snapped…”

She avoided most of the stares, but couldn’t dodge the questions when Sarah Chen cornered her at her locker, eyes bright with morbid curiosity and the kind of excitement that came from being close to drama without being in danger.

“Is it true?” Sarah asked, leaning in close like she was sharing state secrets. “Did Jeff really attack three guys at once?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Y/N said, spinning her combination lock with more force than necessary. The metal clicked with each turn. “They started it. Jeff was just—”

“Just what? Just being a violent freak?” Sarah’s voice carried that particular tone of false concern that made Y/N want to slam her locker door. “Y/N, you need to be careful around those boys. Everyone knows their family is messed up. My mom heard from Mrs. Peterson that CPS has been to their house twice this year.”

“You don’t know anything about their family,” Y/N snapped, louder than she’d intended. Several heads turned in their direction, feeding on the drama like vultures. She lowered her voice but kept the steel in it. “Just… mind your own business, okay?”

Sarah held up her hands in mock surrender, but her eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Fine, fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when you end up on the evening news.”

The words followed Y/N down the hallway.

When Y/N reached their usual spot between classes, she caught sight of Jeff in her peripheral vision, head down, shoulders hunched like he was trying to become invisible. But there was something different about the way he moved now.

She hesitated, then approached him carefully. “Lunch today?” she asked, keeping her tone light. “Maybe we could sit outside, get away from all the staring?”

He looked up at her with his blue eyes. For a moment, she thought he might say no, might push her away like he’d been doing more and more lately. But then he nodded, just slightly.

“Yeah,” he said. “That… that sounds good.”

It felt like progress, small but significant. Like maybe whatever had changed in him hadn’t destroyed everything good.

In English class, Y/N watched Jeff struggle to take notes. His pencil hovered over the paper. His eyes kept darting to the door, to the teacher’s face, to the windows like he expected something to crack at any moment, like the world was made of glass and he could see all the fault lines spreading.

Mrs. Henderson was droning on about symbolism in Lord of the Flies, something about the beast being inside all of them, but Y/N couldn’t focus on her words. All she could think about was the way Jeff’s hand shook when he tried to write, the way he flinched every time someone laughed too loudly or moved too quickly. Why was he acting so strange?

When the bell rang, he was the first one out the door, like he was running from something only he could see.

Lunchtime felt like stepping into a bubble of normalcy, even though it was anything but normal. They sat at their usual table in the far corner of the cafeteria, Liu and Y/N flanking Jeff like bodyguards. A few of their usual friends had joined them, Marcus, who was obsessed with comic books and spoke in rapid-fire bursts about whatever was on his mind, and Emma, who could talk about soccer statistics until your ears bled but somehow made it interesting.

The conversation jumped between topics with the manic energy of teenagers trying too hard to be normal: the latest issue of X-Men, the upcoming soccer playoffs, the new English assignment that nobody understood.

“So Wolverine’s healing factor,” Marcus said, gesturing wildly with his sandwich, “it’s not just physical, right? Like, it heals psychological trauma too? That’s why he can remember all that Weapon X stuff without going completely insane.”

“That’s not how trauma works,” Emma said, rolling her eyes. “You can’t just heal your way out of PTSD.”

“But what if you could?” Marcus pressed. “What if you could just… reset? Start over with a clean slate?”

Jeff’s responses were clipped, but he was trying. Y/N could see the effort it took, the way he forced himself to engage even when everything in his body language screamed that he wanted to run.

When Marcus started going on about how violence in comics was just fantasy, just escapism, Jeff’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth.

“What if it’s not?” Jeff said quietly.

The table went silent.

“What do you mean?” Emma asked.

Jeff looked up, and Y/N saw something in his eyes that made her stomach clench. “What if the violence is the only real part? What if everything else is just… pretending?”

“Jeff.” Liu said carefully, like he was talking someone down from a ledge.

But Jeff was already retreating, looking down at his untouched food. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

Y/N tapped Jeff’s knee with her own under the table, trying to pull him back from whatever dark place his mind had wandered to. His head jerked up, eyes flicking to hers with something that looked almost like gratitude mixed with fear.

“You still with us?” she whispered, leaning in close enough to smell the faint scent of his shampoo.

“Yeah,” he said, but his voice was distant. “Just… thinking.”

“About what?”

He was quiet for so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he whispered. “About what happens next.”

The words sent a chill down her spine, though she couldn’t say why. There was something prophetic about them, something that felt like a warning or maybe a promise.

“Hey,” she said, her voice soft but firm. “You’re not alone in this, okay? Whatever happens, you don’t have to face it by yourself.”

For a moment, something vulnerable flickered across his features. But then the mask slipped back into place, and he looked away.

“You don’t know what you’re saying.” he hissed, and there was something in his voice that sounded almost like pity. Like he felt sorry for her for caring about him.

But she did know. She knew that whatever was happening to Jeff, whatever was eating at him from the inside like acid, she wasn’t going to let him face it alone. Even if it scared her. Even if she didn’t understand it. Even if caring about him was the most dangerous thing she’d ever done.

After lunch, they returned to homeroom where Mrs. Patterson announced a pop quiz on American history. Y/N watched the color drain from Jeff’s face as she passed out the papers.

Jeff stared at the quiz like it was written in a foreign language, his pencil motionless in his hand. The questions might as well have been asking about quantum physics for all the comprehension she saw in his eyes. Y/N wanted to help, wanted to whisper answers or slip him a note, but she couldn’t risk getting them both in trouble.

She finished her own quiz in ten minutes, then spent the rest of the time watching Jeff. He sat perfectly still, his breathing shallow and controlled, like he was trying to disappear. Every few seconds, his eyes would dart around the room, to the door, to the windows, to the other students like he was seeing something that she couldn’t.

When the bell rang, Jeff was the last to leave, still staring at his blank paper like it held the answers to questions he didn’t know how to ask. Mrs. Patterson approached him with concern creasing her forehead.

“Jeff? Are you feeling alright? You didn’t answer any of the questions.”

He looked up at her with those hollow eyes. “Sorry. I couldn’t… I couldn’t focus.”

“Would you like to retake it tomorrow? I could arrange for you to take it in the counselor’s office.”

Something flickered across Jeff’s face, panic, maybe, or desperation. “No. No counselors. I’m fine. Just… tired.”

Mrs. Patterson looked like she wanted to say more, but Jeff was already gathering his things, already moving toward the door.

Y/N caught up with him in the hallway. “Jeff, wait—”

“I can’t do this,” he said without stopping. “I can’t sit in rooms and pretend everything’s normal when it’s not. When I’m not.”

“You don’t have to pretend with me.”

He stopped then, turned to look at her with an expression that was equal parts longing and terror. “Yes, I do. Because if I don’t pretend, if I let you see what I really am now, you’ll run. And I can’t… I can’t watch you run from me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You will,” he said with terrible certainty. “They always do.”

The ride home was quieter than usual, the bus filled with the kind of tense silence that followed drama. Kids stared openly now, no longer bothering to whisper. Y/N could feel their eyes like pinpricks, could sense the way they leaned away from the Woods brothers like whatever they had might be contagious.

When the bus pulled up to Y/N’s stop, she gathered her courage and turned to Jeff.

“Text me when you get home,” she said, loud enough for him to hear over the engine noise. “I want to know you’re okay.”

He looked at her with those blue eyes that seemed to see too much, seemed to strip away pretense and look directly into her soul. “Why do you care so much?”

The question caught her off guard with its naked vulnerability. “Because you’re my friend,” she said simply. “Because you matter to me.”

Something flickered across his face, surprise and disbelief. Like the idea that he mattered to someone was foreign to him, like care was a language he’d forgotten how to speak.

He didn’t reply, just watched as she climbed down the steps and walked toward her house. But when she turned back to wave, he was still watching her through the window, and for just a moment, his expression was unguarded. More human than the past few months.

That evening, Y/N sat at her kitchen table, supposedly doing homework but really just doodling circles on her notebook paper. She kept glancing at her phone, waiting for the text that never came.

No new messages.

Nothing from Jeff.

The silence felt ominous, heavy with implications she didn’t want to consider. Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the windows and making the old house creak in ways that sounded almost like footsteps.

Her mother was humming in the kitchen, making dinner, the kind of normal domestic sounds that should have been comforting. But Y/N couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. That somewhere across town, in a house that looked just like hers, something terrible was building like pressure in a boiler.

The weekend stretched ahead of them, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to change. Something big. Something that would alter the trajectory of all their lives.

She just didn’t know what.

At eleven o’clock, she finally gave up waiting and sent a simple text.

“Hope you’re doing okay. See you Monday.”

The message showed as delivered but never read.

Y/N stared at her phone for another hour before finally turning off the light, but sleep was a long time coming.

The weekend came and went like a ghost, leaving barely a trace of its presence. Y/N had tried texting Jeff multiple times, simple things, nothing pushy.

“You okay?”

“Want to hang out?”

“There’s a good movie on tonight if you’re interested.”

“Just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

But the responses, when they came at all, were distant.

Fine.

Busy.

Maybe later.

Everything’s peachy.

It was like someone else was responding, someone who didn’t know Jeff well enough to mimic his voice properly.

Which was strange, because Jeff had never been one to ignore her completely. He could be sarcastic, moody, stubborn to his core, but when it came to Y/N, he showed up. He had a way of making his presence known without saying much, and even when they weren’t talking, she could feel the weight of his attention.

Now it felt like he was evaporating, becoming less real with each passing hour. Like whatever had happened during the fight had started a process she didn’t understand.

Liu wasn’t answering his phone either, which was even more unusual. Liu was the responsible one, the brother who remembered to call back, who checked in, who made sure everyone was okay. His silence felt ominous in a way that made Y/N’s stomach churn with anxiety.

By Monday morning, she hadn’t seen or heard from either of them since Friday’s bus ride. She stood at her usual spot on the street corner, backpack heavy on her shoulders, watching the mist swirl around the empty pavement where they should have been standing.

Seven-fifteen came and went. Then seven-twenty. Seven-twenty-five.

The bus rumbled around the corner without them.

At school, their absence was like a void that everyone seemed to feel but no one mentioned. Teachers didn’t call their names during attendance, and no one asked questions. It was like the silence around the Woods family had become a rule.

Y/N found herself staring at Jeff’s empty desk in English class, at the spot where he usually sat in the cafeteria, at the window of the bus where his face should have been.

The normalcy of school felt wrong without him there to make it feel dangerous and real.

By Tuesday, the whispers started again.

“Did you hear about the Woods boys?”

“My mom said there were police at their house…”

“I heard Jeff got arrested again…”

“Someone said they saw an ambulance…”

But the whispers were just speculation, empty air given weight by fear and curiosity. No one knew anything for certain, and that made it worse. The unknown possibilities festered in the corners of conversation like infections.

Tuesday morning found Y/N eating breakfast in a haze of half-sleep, mechanically spooning cereal into her mouth while the TV droned softly in the background. Her mother was bustling around the kitchen, muttering about being late for work, while her father sat behind his newspaper.

The local news was running its usual parade of mundane stories, a city council meeting about parking meters, a charity drive for the animal shelter, an elderly woman who’d won the lottery and planned to buy her cat a diamond collar.

That’s when the knock came, three sharp raps on the front door, official and final.

Y/N’s spoon paused halfway to her mouth.

Her mother answered, and Y/N stayed where she was, chewing mechanically until she heard the words drift in from the entryway.

“…Jeffrey Alan Woods…under investigation…need to ask some questions…”

The spoon fell from her hand, clattering against the bowl with a sound like breaking bones.

By the time she crept around the corner to peek, she could see two police officers standing in their small foyer.

One was tall and thin with kind eyes and gray hair, the other shorter and broader with the kind of mustache that belonged in a different decade. They both had notebooks out, pens poised like weapons.

Y/N’s heart dropped like a stone into dark water.

Behind the officers, she could see part of the street, and there—

Jeff stood next to a police cruiser, hands cuffed behind his back.

But it wasn’t the Jeff she’d known. This boy looked smaller, somehow, like he’d collapsed in on himself. His hoodie hung off his frame like he’d shrunk inside it, and there were dark circles under his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights and waking nightmares. His hair was greasy, unwashed, and he stared at nothing with the blank expression of someone who’d stopped caring what happened to them.

But it was his stillness that terrified her most. The complete absence of the nervous energy that had always defined him. Like whatever had been sparking inside him had finally burned out.

Margaret Woods stood behind him, her face red and swollen from crying, her hands reaching toward her son but not quite touching. Peter Woods was trying to speak to one of the officers, but his words came out all wrong, sharp and panicked and desperate.

“What’s going on?” Y/N asked, stepping into the foyer on legs that felt like water.

The taller officer turned to look at her with practiced sympathy. “Are you Y/N? We understand you were friends with Jeffrey.”

Friends. Past tense. Like Jeff was already gone.

“Yes, I am. What’s he done?”

Jeff’s head turned at the sound of her voice, and for just a moment, their eyes met through the open door.

“There was an incident,” the shorter officer said carefully.

“Three boys were hospitalized Friday morning. Jeffrey has been charged with assault and battery.”

“But they attacked us first!” Y/N said, her voice cracking.

“Randy Miller pulled a knife! Jeff was defending himself!”

The officers exchanged a look. “We’ll need to speak with you about what you saw,” the tall one said gently. “But not here, not now.”

Her mother placed a protective hand on Y/N’s shoulder. “Go back to the kitchen, honey.”

“But—”

“Now.” Her mother’s voice had that quality that meant arguing was pointless.

Y/N retreated, but she positioned herself where she could still see through the window. She watched as they guided Jeff into the back of the cruiser, watched Margaret reach for him one last time before the door closed. Watched Peter stand there with his jaw clenched.

Just before the door shut, Jeff looked up at the window where Y/N stood. For a heartbeat, their eyes met again, and she saw something there that made her chest tight with emotion she couldn’t name.

It looked like an apology.

The cruiser pulled away, taking Jeff with it, and Y/N stood there watching until the red taillights disappeared around the corner. Even then, she stayed at the window, waiting for them to come back, waiting for someone to tell her this was all a mistake.

But the street stayed empty.

The news broke that evening like a dam bursting, flooding every channel with the same terrible story.

“MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENT ARRESTED IN ASSAULT CASE”

The words scrolled across the bottom of the screen in stark white letters while a reporter stood in front of Lincoln Middle School, her voice grave and professional.

“Thirteen-year-old Jeffrey Alan Woods was arrested this morning in connection with what police are calling an unprovoked attack on three fellow students. The incident, which occurred Friday morning, left one victim with a broken nose and multiple contusions…”

Y/N stared at the screen, her world tilting sideways.

Unprovoked?

“Sources close to the investigation say the attack was premeditated and vicious, with no apparent motive. The defendant’s older brother, Liu Woods, was also taken into custody as an accessory…”

The remote slipped from Y/N’s nerveless fingers.

“Were they even there?” she whispered to the empty room.

She’d seen it happen. She’d watched Randy corner them, demand their wallets, move in like a predator. She’d seen the knife flash in the morning light, seen the way Troy and Keith had positioned themselves to cut off escape routes.

But the world didn’t care about the truth. It cared about the story, and the story was easier to swallow if the Woods boys were just violent thugs instead of kids who’d been pushed too far.

Her parents found her there an hour later, still staring at the blank screen.

“Y/N?” her mother said gently. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”

She wasn’t okay, nothing was okay. Her friend was in jail for defending himself, and everyone was acting like he was some kind of monster.

“They started it,” she said, her voice small and fierce. “Randy started it. He had a knife.”

Her father sat down beside her, his expression troubled. “Sometimes things aren’t as simple as they seem, honey. Sometimes good kids make bad choices.”

“It wasn’t a bad choice!” The words exploded out of her. “They were going to hurt us! Jeff was protecting us!”

But even as she said it, she could see the doubt in her parents’ eyes. The same doubt that was spreading through the school, through the neighborhood, through the whole town like poison.

The Woods boys were trouble. Everyone knew it. This was just proof.

On Wednesday, another news bulletin shattered what was left of Y/N’s world.

Liu had confessed.

The fifteen-year-old had claiming he was the one who’d attacked the three boys not Jeff, insisting that his younger brother was innocent.

By evening, Liu was gone, shipped off to a juvenile detention facility two hours away. No contact allowed, pending further investigation.

And Jeff?

Jeff came home.

But he didn’t feel free. Not really. Y/N could see it in the way he moved when she glimpsed him through his bedroom window, like he was carrying invisible chains.

The Woods house felt like a mausoleum.

Y/N had only been inside once since Jeff’s release, when Margaret had called her mother and practically begged for Y/N to visit. “He needs to see a friendly face,” she’d said, her voice thick with desperation. “He won’t talk to us. Won’t eat. He just sits there like he’s waiting for something terrible to happen.”

When Y/N stepped through the front door that Friday afternoon, the change was immediate and unsettling. The air felt stale, recycled, like no one had opened a window in days. The lights were too dim, casting long shadows that seemed to move when she wasn’t looking directly at them. Even the normal sounds of a house, the hum of appliances, the creak of settling wood, seemed muffled, as if the building itself was holding its breath.

Jeff sat on the couch in the living room, staring at the television but not watching it. The screen flickered with some mindless sitcom, canned laughter echoing through the room like a mockery. Liu’s spot beside him was empty, the cushion still bearing the impression of his body like a ghost.

“Hey,” Y/N said softly, settling onto the coffee table so she could face him.

He didn’t look at her immediately, just continued staring at the screen like it held the answers to questions he was afraid to ask.

“Jeff…”

He blinked slowly, then turned his head toward her with the mechanical movement of someone operating on autopilot. His face was paler than usual, the bruise on his cheek faded to a sickly yellow-green. But it was his eyes that made her stomach clench. They looked hollow.

“Why are you here?” he asked, his voice flat and emotionless.

“Because I want to be,” she said, trying to inject warmth into her voice. “Because you’re my friend.”

“You shouldn’t be.” He turned back to the TV. “Your parents know you’re here?”

“They drove me over.”

“They won’t for much longer.” His laugh was bitter, empty. “Nobody wants their kid around the psycho.”

“You’re not a psycho.”

“Tell that to the news.” He gestured vaguely at the television. “Tell that to everyone at school. Tell that to the cops who spent three hours asking me about my ‘violent tendencies’ and ‘concerning behavior patterns.’”

Y/N felt her chest tighten. “What did you tell them?”

“The truth.” He shrugged, the movement sharp and angry. “That I snapped. That I lost control. That I wanted to hurt them.”

“Jeff—”

“Liu’s in juvie because of me.” The words came out like broken glass, sharp and jagged. “My brother is locked up in a cage because I couldn’t keep my fists to myself.”

“Liu made his own choice.”

“Liu tried to save me!” Jeff’s voice cracked, and for a moment, the hollow mask slipped, revealing the raw pain underneath. “He walked into that station with a knife and lied through his teeth because he thought it would help me. And now he’s gone, and I’m here, and everyone knows what I really am.”

“What are you?” Y/N asked quietly.

Jeff looked at her then, really looked, and what she saw in his eyes made her want to cry. “Broken,” he whispered. “I’m broken, and I break everything I touch.

“You haven’t broken me.”

“Give it time.”

They sat in silence after that, the laugh track from the TV filling the space between them like static. Y/N wanted to say something profound, something that would fix the cracks in her friend’s soul, but words felt inadequate. Instead, she reached out and took his hand.

His fingers were cold, trembling slightly, but he didn’t pull away.

“You’re not alone,” she whispered, the same words she’d said before, but they felt heavier now, weighted with the knowledge of how much he was carrying.

For the first time since she’d arrived, something flickered in Jeff’s eyes. Not hope, exactly, but something almost like it. “Don’t say that,” he said, his voice rough. “I don’t want you to mean it.”

“I do mean it.”

He stared at her for a long moment, like he was trying to memorize her face. Then he looked away, and neither of them spoke again until Margaret called Y/N’s mother to come pick her up.

As Y/N was leaving, Jeff caught her arm gently. “Y/N,” he said, and his voice was different now, softer but somehow more urgent. “If something happens… if things get bad… I want you to know that knowing you made everything better. For a while.”

The words sent a chill down her spine. “What do you mean, if something happens?”

But he was already pulling away, retreating back to his room.

Saturday arrived with one of those strange, unseasonably warm days that felt like summer’s ghost haunting the tail end of autumn. The air was thick and still, heavy with the promise of rain that wouldn’t come. It was the kind of weather that made people restless, made them feel like something was building just beyond the horizon.

Jeff hadn’t wanted to go to the party.

The Harleys were neighbors, the kind of people who organized block parties and knew everyone’s business and thought that forced social interaction could solve any problem. When Margaret practically shoved the birthday invitation into Jeff’s hand and told him to go, to get out of the house, to stop marinating in his own misery, he’d wanted to tear it up and lock himself in his room.

But then Y/N had shown up at his door with that crooked smile and determination in her eyes.

“C’mon,” she’d said, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the door. “I’m not letting you turn into a hermit. Besides, there’s supposed to be cake.”

And despite everything, the arrest, the shame, the way people looked at him now like he was a bomb waiting to explode, Jeff found himself following her.

The Harleys’ backyard was transformed into a carnival of childhood chaos. Balloons in primary colors bobbed from every available surface, streamers fluttered in the breeze, and a banner reading “HAPPY 8TH BIRTHDAY TOMMY!” stretched between two oak trees. The air was filled with the sound of children’s laughter, the smell of grilling hot dogs, and the constant chatter of parents trying to maintain order while clutching red plastic cups.

To Jeff, it looked like everything he’d never had, normal, safe, innocent. The kind of childhood that existed in movies and other people’s photo albums.

But for the first time in weeks, something inside him began to loosen.

It wasn’t the decorations or the smell of burnt hot dogs or the chaos of children running around with foam swords and water guns. It was Y/N. The way she moved through the crowd like she belonged anywhere she wanted to be.

The way she didn’t seem to care about the whispers that followed them, the way some of the other parents looked at Jeff like he was a dangerous animal that had wandered into their safe space.

She stayed close to him, not in a possessive way, but like a shield. Like she was saying to the world: This is my friend, and if you have a problem with him, you have a problem with me.

At one point, they found themselves sitting on the back porch steps, away from the worst of the noise. The laughter of children echoed around them, but it felt distant, muffled, like they were in their own bubble of quiet.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” Jeff asked, bumping her shoulder with his. “Or are you just here for the cake?”

Y/N snorted, a sound that made something warm unfurl in his chest. “Is that a trick question? Because I’m definitely here for the cake.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, small, tentative, but real. It was the first genuine smile she’d seen from him in weeks. “Figures.”

“Hey, I’m also here for the company,” she added, and the way she said it made his cheeks flush a rosy color.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She turned to look at him fully, and there was something in her expression that made his heart start beating faster. “You look less like you want to punch the world today.”

He rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling. “Fresh air and sugar. Does wonders for the soul.”

“That, and you’re not and you’re not stuck in that house,” she said softly. “I was worried about you.”

Jeff looked at her then, really looked, and for the first time in weeks, he didn’t feel like he was drowning. There was something in her eyes, concern, yes, but also something warmer. Something that made his chest tight in a way that had nothing to do with anxiety.

“You worry too muc.” he said, but his voice was gentle.

“Someone has to. You’re certainly not going to do it.”

He laughed, a sound that surprised them both. When was the last time he’d laughed? Really laughed, not the bitter, empty sounds he’d been making lately, but something genuine and light?

“There it is,” Y/N said, grinning. “I was starting to think I’d imagined that sound.”

“What sound?”

“You being happy.”

The words hit him like a physical blow, not painful but overwhelming. When had happiness become so foreign to him that hearing it was a surprise? When had he stopped believing he deserved it?He found himself leaning closer to her, drawn by something he couldn’t name. The afternoon sun caught the highlights in her hair, his eyes kept flicking down to her lips. She was looking at him with those warm eyes, and for a moment, the world felt like it made sense again.

“Y/N,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah?”

He leaned forward, slowly, cautiously. His heart was hammering against his ribs, but not with fear this time. With something else. Something that felt like hope.

Y/N’s eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t pull away. If anything, she leaned closer, her breath warm against his cheek.

Jeff closed his eyes, gathering courage he didn’t know he had. This was it. This was the moment he’d been thinking about for months, dreaming about, too scared to even acknowledge himself.

Their lips were almost touching when—

“WELL, WELL, WELL.”

The voice crashed over them like ice water, shattering the moment into a thousand pieces.

Randy.

Jeff’s eyes snapped open, his whole body going rigid. He turned his head slowly, dread pooling in his stomach like acid. There they were, standing at the edge of the backyard. Randy, Troy, and Keith, all dressed in black, all wearing expressions that promised violence. Randy’s nose was still swollen from their last encounter, purple bruises spreading under both eyes.

The sounds of the party began to fade as people noticed the newcomers. Conversations died mid-sentence.

Parents instinctively moved closer to their children.

“Didn’t think we’d find you here,” Randy said, his voice carrying that same false friendliness that made Y/N’s skin crawl. But there was something different about him now, something harder. More dangerous.

Jeff stood up slowly, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Not here,” he said, his voice low and tight. “There are little kids here.”

“Oh, you care about that now?” Randy’s eyes glittered with malicious amusement. “Should’ve thought about that before you broke my nose, freak.”

“You pulled a knife on us,” Y/N said, standing beside Jeff. Her voice was steady, but Jeff could see the fear in her eyes.

Randy’s attention shifted to her, and his smile widened. “And you’re the little girlfriend who thinks she can protect him. How sweet.”

“Leave her out of this,” Jeff said, stepping partially in front of Y/N.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Randy gestured to his friends, and they began to spread out, forming a loose circle. “See, I’ve been thinking about our last conversation. And I realized I was being too nice. Too… civilized.”

From somewhere in the crowd, a parent called out: “Hey! You kids need to leave!”

Randy turned toward the voice, his expression shifting into something cold and ugly. “Or what? You’ll call the cops? Good luck with that.”

That’s when Keith pulled something from under his jacket.

The gun looked too big in his hands, like a toy that had grown beyond its intended purpose. But the way the adults in the crowd screamed and began backing away made it clear this was no toy.

“Nobody move!” Keith shouted, his voice cracking with adolescent rage. “Nobody calls anyone!”

Parents grabbed their children, some running for the house, others freezing in place like deer in headlights.

The birthday boy, little Tommy Harley, started crying, high, piercing wails that cut through the chaos.

Troy produced his own weapon, smaller but no less deadly. “Everyone stay calm,” he said, but his grin suggested he hoped they wouldn’t.

Y/N felt Jeff’s hand find hers, his fingers intertwining with hers in a grip that was almost painful. His palm was slick with sweat, and she could feel the tremor running through him, not fear for himself, but terror at the thought of her getting hurt because of him.

“This is between us,” Jeff said, his voice steady despite the chaos around them. “Let everyone else go.”

Randy tilted his head, considering. “You know what? You’re right. This is between us.” He gestured to his friends. “But they’re part of us now. They’ve seen what happens when someone crosses Randy Miller.”

“Please,” Y/N said, hating how her voice shook. “Just… just let the kids go. Please.”

“The kids?” Randy laughed, a sound devoid of humor. “Honey, we are kids. And kids do stupid things. Dangerous things.”

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a bottle, glass, brown, smelling strongly of gasoline and something else, something chemical that made Y/N’s eyes water.

“You want to know what’s funny?” Randy continued, his voice conversational, almost friendly. “I was just going to beat the shit out of you. Maybe break a few bones. But then I got to thinking about your brother, locked up in juvie. About how he tried to take the fall for you.”

Jeff’s face went white. “Liu has nothing to do with this.”

“Oh, but he does.” Randy’s grin widened. “See, I’ve got cousins in that facility. And they’re not very friendly to cop killers.”

“Liu never killed anyone!”

“Doesn’t matter. Word gets around. And in a place like that, reputation is everything.” Randy leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “So I started thinking: what’s the worst thing I could do to you? And then it hit me. I could make you just like him. A killer.”

The bottle flew through the air, glass shattering against Jeff’s head. The smell of gasoline exploded around them, sharp and acrid and wrong. Jeff stumbled backward, soaked, the liquid burning his eyes and throat.

“No!” Y/N screamed, lunging toward him.

Keith caught her arm, his grip painful, dragging her back.

“Stay put!”

Randy pulled out a lighter, his thumb hovering over the striker. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Woods. You’re going to burn. And everyone here is going to watch. And when the cops come, when they ask what happened, they’re going to say you attacked us. That you were a dangerous psycho who finally snapped.”

“They’ll never believe that,” Y/N said, but even as the words left her mouth, she knew they weren’t true. People would believe it. They wanted to believe it. It would be easier than admitting they’d failed to protect their children from monsters wearing familiar faces.

“Won’t they?” Randy’s thumb moved toward the striker.

“After everything that’s happened? After the arrest, the violence, the way he looks at people like he wants to hurt them? They’ll believe it because it makes sense. Because it fits the story they’ve already decided to tell.”

Jeff closed his eyes, his whole body shaking. He could smell the gasoline, could feel it soaking through his clothes, burning his skin. In his mind, he could see Liu’s face, could hear his brother’s voice: You don’t have to be what they say you are.

But maybe he did. Maybe this was always how it was going to end.

“Do it.” he said quietly.

“Jeff, no!” Y/N struggled against Keith’s grip, tears streaming down her face.

“I said do it!” Jeff’s voice cracked like a whip. “You want to see a monster? You want to see what I really am? Light the fucking match!”

Randy’s smile faltered for just a moment. He’d expected begging, pleading, maybe an attempt to fight back. He hadn’t expected this, this surrender, this acceptance.

“You’re crazy,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction.

“Yeah,” Jeff said, opening his eyes. “I am.”

The lighter clicked.

The flame caught.

Jeff screamed.

But it wasn’t the scream of a victim. It was something else, something primal and terrible and utterly inhuman.

The sound of something breaking apart and reforming into something new.

Something worse.

Y/N’s scream joined his, high and desperate and full of anguish. She fought against Keith’s grip with a strength born of desperation, but he held her fast, his eyes wide with shock at what they’d done. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, thick and nauseating. Parents covered their children’s eyes, but they couldn’t look away themselves, couldn’t escape the horrible fascination of watching someone’s humanity burn away. Through the flames and smoke, Jeff’s laughter began to rise. Not the bitter, empty sound from before, but something new. Something that made everyone who heard it take a step back, made their skin crawl with primitive fear.

By the time the fire department arrived, by the time they put out the flames, by the time the ambulances screamed up the street with their lights flashing, it was too late.

The Jeff who had sat on the porch steps that afternoon, who had almost kissed Y/N in the golden sunlight, who had laughed at her jokes and held her hand, that Jeff was gone.

What remained was something else entirely.

The hospital smelled like disinfectant and despair. Y/N sat in the waiting room for hours, her clothes still reeking of smoke, her hands shaking every time she tried to take a sip of the water her mother had brought her. The burns on her arms where Keith had grabbed her were minor, barely worth mentioning, but they throbbed with each heartbeat. She couldn’t stop replaying the moment in her mind. The sound of Jeff’s scream. The way his laughter had echoed through the chaos. The smell of—

“Y/N?”

She looked up to see Dr. Martinez, the same doctor who’d treated Jeff after the fight with Randy. His face was grave, lined with exhaustion. “How is he?” she asked, though part of her was afraid to know.

Dr. Martinez sat down beside her, his movements careful and deliberate. “He’s alive,” he said simply. “The burns are severe, but not life-threatening. He’ll need extensive plastic surgery, skin grafts, and months of recovery.”

“Can I see him?”

“I’m afraid not. He’s sedated, and… there are complications.”

“What kind of complications?”

Dr. Martinez was quiet for a long moment. “Y/N, I need you to understand something. Physical trauma can affect the mind in ways we don’t always expect. Sometimes, when someone goes through something like this, they… change.”

“Change how?”

“He’s been laughing,” Dr. Martinez said quietly. “For hours. Even through the sedation. The nurses are… concerned.”

Y/N felt ice form in her stomach. “What does that mean?”

“We don’t know yet. But I think… I think it might be best if you stayed away for a while. Let him heal. Let us figure out what we’re dealing with.”

Three weeks later, Jeff was released.

And Y/N never saw him again.

Not the Jeff she’d known, anyway.

Y/N didn’t know what made her glance at the TV just then. Maybe it was the static shift. Maybe the way the rain thudded harder against the glass.

She looked.

A breaking news banner slid across the bottom of the screen in red.

“TRIPLE MURDER IN RESIDENTIAL HOME – SUSPECT MISSING”

Y/N sat up straight, the breath caught in her chest.

The screen changed.

There it was.

The Woods’ home. Swarmed by red and blue flashing lights. Crime scene tape. A news anchor standing in front, her voice grim:

“Just hours ago, police discovered the bodies of Peter and Margaret Woods, along with their teenage son Liu Woods, presumed dead. Officials say a fire had been set inside the home to cover the scene. But the fire failed to destroy the evidence…”

Y/N’s eyes widened.

“…Authorities are currently searching for 13-year-old Jeffrey Alan Woods, the only missing member of the household. He is considered extremely dangerous. Witnesses say his behavior at the hospital in the weeks before the murders was erratic and disturbing…”

The screen showed an old photo. Jeff before. Smiling faintly. His brown hair messy. A normal kid.

Y/N shook her head, whispered, “No, no…”

“If you see this boy, do not approach. Call 9-1-1 immediately.”

She dropped the remote.

Thunder cracked outside.

Her parents rushed into the room.

Her mother gasped when she saw the screen. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

The image on the TV blurred through tears.

“The suspect is still at large…”

Y/N stared at the screen long after it ended. Into the static. Into the black mirror.

The house on Elm Street stood empty for exactly forty-seven days.

Y/N knew because she counted. Every morning, she looked out her bedroom window at the dark windows of the Woods house, waiting for some sign of life, some indication that the family she’d cared about was trying to rebuild. But the windows stayed dark. The grass grew long. The newspapers piled up on the front steps until the delivery boy stopped coming altogether.

Then, one morning in early November, the moving truck arrived.

Y/N watched from her window as strangers carried furniture and boxes into the house. A middle-aged couple with a toddler, normal people with normal lives who had no idea what had happened in the rooms they were now claiming as their own. The Woods family was gone. Vanished. Like they’d never existed at all.

It was that night that Y/N realized she’d been holding her breath for over a month, waiting for something that was never going to come. She tried to go back to normal. She went to school, did her homework, and hung out with other friends. But there was always a part of her that was listening, waiting, watching the shadows for familiar faces that never appeared.

Winter came early that year, settling over the neighborhood like a gray blanket. The days grew shorter, the nights longer, and Y/N found herself staying awake until the early hours of morning, staring out at the darkness and wondering where Jeff was, what he was becoming in the silence between their old life and whatever came next.

She didn’t know that three states away, in a facility for severely disturbed youth, a boy with white skin and a carved smile was telling the other patients bedtime stories that made them wake up screaming.

She didn’t know that the doctors had stopped trying to treat him, that they’d given up on therapy and medication and hope.

She didn’t know that late at night, when the facility was quiet, Jeff would stare at the ceiling and whisper her name.

All she knew was that the boy she’d cared about was gone, and in his place was something else. Something that the world had created through neglect and cruelty and the kind of systemic failure that turned children into monsters.

The call came on a Tuesday night in February, nearly four months after the fire.

Y/N was in her room, pretending to study for a history test while actually reading the same paragraph about the Industrial Revolution over and over again. The words kept blurring together, meaningless black marks on white paper. She’d been having trouble concentrating lately, ever since the news reports stopped mentioning Jeff’s name. It was like the world had collectively decided to forget he’d ever existed, but Y/N couldn’t shake the feeling that forgetting him was dangerous. Like ignoring a gas leak or a live wire.

The house was quiet except for the distant hum of the heater and her father’s muffled voice from downstairs, probably on a work call. Her mother was in the kitchen, making her nightly cup of chamomile tea before bed. The routine sounds of home, normal and comforting.

That’s when the phone rang.

Not her cell phone, the landline in the kitchen, the one that only rang for telemarketers and emergencies. Y/N heard her mother answer on the second ring, her voice bright and unsuspecting.

“Hello, L/N residence.”

A pause. Then her mother’s voice changed, became smaller, more careful. “Yes, this is she. Who is this?”

Another pause, longer this time. Y/N found herself holding her breath without knowing why.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that? There was a what?”

The textbook slipped from Y/N’s fingers, hitting the floor with a soft thud. Something cold was crawling up her spine, an instinctual fear that made her stand up from her desk before her conscious mind had even processed why.

“When?” Her mother’s voice was barely above a whisper now. “How many?”

Y/N crept to her bedroom door, pressing her ear against the wood. Her father’s voice had stopped. The house felt suddenly fragile, like it was made of glass and one wrong sound would shatter everything.

“All of them?” Her mother’s voice cracked. “Dear God… all of them?”

Y/N opened her door and padded barefoot down the hallway, her heart hammering against her ribs. The kitchen light spilled into the darkened living room in a yellow rectangle, and she could see her mother’s silhouette, hunched over the phone like she was trying to curl into herself.

“And the boy? Jeffrey?” A long pause. “Missing? What do you mean missing? The whole building was—oh. Oh no.”

That’s when her mother screamed.

Not a loud scream, not the kind you’d hear in a horror movie. A quiet, broken sound that somehow managed to fill the entire house with dread. Y/N ran the rest of the way to the kitchen, her bare feet slapping against the cold hardwood.

Her mother was standing by the sink, the phone clutched in her white-knuckled grip, her face drained of all color. She looked like she’d aged ten years in the span of a phone call.

“Mom? What’s wrong?”

Her mother looked at her with wide eyes. “Jeff,” she whispered. “He… there was a fire.”

Y/N felt the world tilt sideways. “A fire where?”

“The facility. The Millbrook Youth Treatment Center. Where they were keeping him.” Her mother’s voice was hollow, mechanical. “It burned down tonight. All the staff… all the other patients… they’re all dead.”

“All of them?” Y/N’s voice came out as a squeak.

“Yes, all of them.” The phone was shaking in her mother’s hand. “So many people burned alive, and Jeff…” She swallowed hard. “Jeff is gone.”

“Gone how? You mean he’s—”

“Missing.” Her mother finally hung up the phone, setting it on the counter with exaggerated care. “They found everyone else. All the bodies. But not Jeff. He’s just… gone.”

Y/N’s father appeared in the doorway, his face creased with concern. “Honey, what’s going on? I heard you scream.”

Her mother turned to him, and Y/N saw something break in her expression. “The facility where Jeff Woods was staying. It burned down tonight. Everyone’s dead except…”

“Except Jeff,” Y/N finished quietly.

Her father went very still. He’d been following the news reports, had seen the photos of the damage from Jeff’s original “incident.” He knew what Jeff had become in the aftermath of Randy’s attack. They all did.

“How?” he asked.

“They don’t know.” Her mother sank into one of the kitchen chairs, suddenly looking exhausted. “The investigator said the fire started in multiple locations simultaneously. Like someone had doused the building in accelerant. The exits were all blocked from the inside. No one could get out.”

“Except Jeff.” Y/N repeated, the words tasting like ash in her mouth.

“The investigator asked if we’d had any contact with him. If we thought he might come here.” Her mother looked up at Y/N with frightened eyes. “I told them no, but… you were friends. If he was looking for familiar faces…”

“That’s not Jeff anymore,” her father said firmly. “Whatever that boy has become, it’s not the child you used to know.”

But Y/N wasn’t sure about that. Because standing there in the kitchen, listening to the details of mass murder and arson, all she could think about was the afternoon at the Harley’s birthday party. The way Jeff had looked at her just before Randy showed up. The gentleness in his voice when he’d said her name. Was that person really gone? Or was he still in there somewhere, trapped behind whatever mask of madness the world had forced him to wear?

“We need to call the police,” her father was saying. “Let them know we’ve been contacted. Make sure they patrol the neighborhood.”

“I already asked,” her mother replied. “They’re sending extra units. But the investigator said… he said Jeff’s not like other missing persons. He said the boy they’re looking for isn’t interested in being found. He’s interested in finding others.”

A chill ran down Y/N’s spine. “What does that mean?”

Her parents exchanged a look, one of those wordless conversations that adults had when they were trying to decide how much truth a child could handle.

“It means,” her father said carefully, “that the other patients at the facility… before they died… some of them had been telling stories. About Jeff. About things he would whisper to them at night.”

“What kind of stories?”

Another look between her parents.

“He would tell them about people he remembered,” her mother said softly. “About a life he used to have. About a girl who used to sit with him and hold his hand and make him feel normal.” She paused. “They think he might be looking for that life. Looking for those people.”

Y/N’s blood turned to ice water. “He’s looking for me.”

“We don’t know that,” her father said quickly. “It’s just speculation. The boy is traumatized, burned, probably not thinking clearly. He could go anywhere, do anything.”

But even as he said it, Y/N could see in his eyes that he didn’t believe it. None of them did.

Somewhere out there, in the darkness between their safe suburban life and the nightmares that lurked at the edges of civilization, Jeff was free. And whether he was coming to save what was left of his humanity or to destroy the last witness to his former self, no one could say. That night, Y/N lay awake listening to the sounds of her house settling around her. Every creak of wood, every whisper of wind, every distant car engine made her heart race. Her parents had checked all the locks twice, had set the security system, had even moved a kitchen chair in front of her bedroom door “just as a precaution.” But Y/N knew that locks and alarms and chairs wouldn’t stop what was coming.

The quiet suburban street where Y/N had grown up, where she’d learned to ride a bike and made snow angels and shared her first almost-kiss, was about to become a hunting ground.

Around three in the morning, as Y/N finally started to drift off to sleep, she could have sworn she heard something that resembled laughter, it made her blood freeze. The same laugh she’d heard echoing through the chaos at the Harley’s birthday party. The laugh of someone who had looked into the abyss and decided to dive in headfirst. She sat up in bed, listening, but the sound was gone. Maybe it had been the wind. Maybe it had been her imagination.

Maybe.

But in the morning, when she looked out her bedroom window, there were footprints in the fresh snow leading up to her house and stopping directly beneath her window. And carved into the frost on her window, in letters that seemed to glow in the early morning light, was a single message.

Soon.

Chapter Text

Nine years had passed since the fire, and Y/N had learned to live with ghosts.

Not the literal kind, though sometimes, in the space between sleep and waking, she could swear she heard familiar laughter echoing through her dreams. Or worse, she could hear screaming, smell smoke, and see a child’s eyes reflecting flames that had long since been extinguished.

At twenty-two, Y/N had built herself a life that looked normal from the outside.

She had a cozy one-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a converted Victorian house, with windows that caught the morning light and a fire escape that served as an impromptu balcony where she could sit with her coffee and read a book. She was in her final year of psychology at the local university, maintaining a GPA that would make her professors proud and her younger self amazed.

She had friends, good friends who invited her to parties and study groups and late-night diners where they solved the world’s problems over greasy french fries and too much coffee. She’d had boyfriends, a few serious relationships that had lasted months before fizzling out for reasons she could never quite articulate. It wasn’t that she was afraid of commitment or intimacy; it was something deeper, more fundamental. Like part of her was always listening for something else, waiting for a voice that would never call her name again.

The trauma counselor she’d seen throughout high school had called it survivor’s guilt mixed with unresolved grief.

“You witnessed something horrific.” Dr. Peterson had said, her voice gentle but clinical. “And then you lost someone important to you without any closure. It’s natural that you’d struggle to form deep emotional connections when your foundational experience of caring for someone ended in such violence.”

Y/N had nodded and taken the prescribed medication and done the breathing exercises, and slowly, gradually, she’d learned to function. The nightmares came less frequently. The panic attacks became manageable. She’d even stopped checking the news compulsively for any mention of Jeff or fires or missing children.

She’d gotten better. Or so she’d thought.

The first sign that something was wrong came on a Tuesday morning in October, exactly nine years and three weeks after the fire that had changed everything.

Y/N was getting ready for her shift at the campus coffee shop, a part-time job that helped pay the bills and gave her something to do with her hands while her mind wrestled with developmental psychology textbooks and research papers on childhood trauma. While she was changing, there was a strange sensation of being watched. She’d been pulling on her work uniform, a simple black polo shirt with the shop’s logo embroidered on the chest, when she heard it.

A snicker. Soft, electronic, like it was coming from inside her laptop speakers.

She froze, one arm halfway through her sleeve, and turned toward the desk where her laptop sat open, the screen displaying her half-finished essay on cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. The document cursor blinked steadily, innocent and normal, but for just a moment…

Red eyes staring at her from the screen. Not reflected in the glass, not a trick of the light. Actually in the screen, like something was looking out at her from inside the digital world.

Y/N blinked, her heart skipping a beat, and the eyes were gone. Just her essay, black text on white background, cursor blinking patiently. “What the fuck?” she whispered, approaching the laptop cautiously. She clicked through her open programs. Word, Chrome with three tabs open, Spotify playing her study playlist on low volume. Everything normal. Everything exactly as it should be.

But as she finished getting dressed and grabbed her keys, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been watching her. Something that found her vulnerability amusing.

The coffee shop was called Grounded, a deliberately punny name that made Y/N wince every time she had to answer the phone, but it was a good job. The manager, Sarah, was fair and flexible with scheduling around classes. The customers were mostly students and professors, people who understood the sacred ritual of caffeine consumption and didn’t get upset when the espresso machine was temperamental.

Y/N had been working there for almost two years, long enough that she could make a perfect latte with her eyes closed, long enough that the regular customers knew her name and asked about her classes.

Which was why she noticed immediately when he walked in.

He didn’t look particularly threatening at first glance, mid-twenties, average height, brown hair that looked like he’d been running his hands through it. His clothes were worn but clean: faded jeans, scuffed boots, a red and black flannel shirt under a brown leather jacket that had seen better days. He could have been any college student, any young professional grabbing coffee before work.

But something about him set off every alarm bell Y/N had developed over the years.

Maybe it was the way he moved, too careful, too controlled, like every step was calculated. Maybe it was how his eyes swept the room like he was cataloging exits and potential threats, lingering on dark corners and blind spots. Maybe it was the careful blankness of his expression, the kind of practiced neutrality that came from years of hiding what you were really thinking.

Or maybe it was the way he looked at her when those dark eyes finally settled on her face.

“What can I get you?” Y/N asked when he reached the counter, forcing her voice to stay pleasant and professional.

His eyes met hers, and she felt a chill run down her spine. They were dark, almost black in the coffee shop’s warm lighting, and there was something behind them that made her think of empty rooms and long silences. Something that reminded her of hospital corridors and the smell of antiseptic.

“Coffee,” he said. His voice was rough, gravelly, like he didn’t use it often. Or like he’d damaged it somehow. “Black.”

“What size?”

“Large.” He paused, tilting his head slightly as he studied her face. “You work here often?”

The question was innocent enough, but something in his tone made her skin crawl. “Most days,” she said carefully. “Are you new in town?”

A smile ghosted across his lips, not reaching his eyes, holding no warmth. “You could say that. I’m here on… business.”

Y/N turned to fill the order, hyperaware of his presence behind her. She could feel him watching, studying the way she moved, the way she held herself. The espresso machine hissed and gurgled, but underneath the familiar sounds, she could swear she heard something else. A low humming, almost below the threshold of hearing, like the building itself was vibrating.

When she turned back with his coffee, he was closer to the counter than before. Not inappropriately close, nothing that would seem odd to a casual observer, but close enough that she could smell his cologne, something woody and dark that didn’t quite mask an underlying metallic scent.

“Thanks.” he said, and when their fingers brushed as she handed him the cup, his skin was cold. Not just cool, cold like he’d been standing outside in winter air. The contact sent an involuntary shiver through her.

“No problem.” Y/N managed, stepping back instinctively.

He paid in exact change, coins that he counted out slowly, deliberately. “I’m Tim, by the way,” he said, not looking up from the money. “Tim Wright.”

She wasn’t sure why he was introducing himself, but politeness demanded a response. “Y/N.”

“Y/N.” he repeated, and her name sounded different in his voice. Heavier somehow. Like he was tasting it. “Pretty name. Suits you.”

He pocketed his change and found a table in the corner, the kind of spot that offered a clear view of the entire shop while keeping his back to the wall. And he stayed.

For the next three hours, through Y/N’s entire shift, Tim sat in that corner booth with his black coffee and a paperback book that he never seemed to actually read. The book she caught glimpses of it when he occasionally turned a page looked old, the cover worn and faded. But his eyes never stayed on the pages long. Instead, they kept drifting to her, tracking her movements.

During her break, Y/N retreated to the back room and pulled out her phone, typing his name into the search bar. The results were frustratingly generic, dozens of Tim Wrights in various states, social media profiles for men who looked nothing like her customer, a few news articles about completely unrelated people.

“Everything okay back there?” Sarah called through the door.

“Fine!” Y/N called back, deleting her search history. “Just checking my schedule.”

But when she returned to the front, Tim was gone. His table had been cleared, his coffee cup removed, like he’d never been there at all. The only evidence of his presence was the faint metallic smell that lingered near his corner booth, and the way her hands still trembled slightly as she wiped down tables.

“Did you see where that guy in the brown jacket went?” she asked Marcus, the evening shift supervisor who was taking over.

Marcus looked confused. “What guy?”

“The one who was sitting in the corner all afternoon. Tim?”

“Y/N, that table’s been empty since I got here twenty minutes ago. Are you feeling okay? You look pale.”

She stared at the corner booth, at the clean table that showed no sign of recent occupation. Had she imagined the whole thing? The conversation, the introduction, the hours of uncomfortable observation?

But she could still smell that metallic scent, still feel the cold touch of his fingers against hers.

The walk back to her apartment took fifteen minutes on a good day, twenty when she stopped to grab groceries or got caught behind slow-moving pedestrians. Tonight, it took forty-five minutes, because Y/N kept doubling back, taking side streets, stopping to window-shop at stores she had no interest in.

She was being followed.

She could feel it, that prickle between her shoulder blades that meant unfriendly eyes were tracking her movement. But every time she turned around, the sidewalk behind her was empty. Just other students walking home from late classes, couples holding hands, the normal foot traffic of a college town on a weeknight.

But at one point, when she ducked into a bookstore and pretended to browse the bestseller display, she saw him. Tim was standing across the street under a broken streetlight, his brown jacket dark against the shadows. He wasn’t trying to hide, if anything, he seemed to want her to see him. When their eyes met through the store window, he raised one hand in a slow, deliberate wave.

Y/N’s heart hammered against her ribs. She blinked, and he was gone, leaving only the pool of stuttering light where he’d been standing.

By the time she reached her building, Y/N had almost convinced herself she was being paranoid. The stress of school, the weird hallucination that morning, the unsettling customer at work it was all combining to make her jumpy, suspicious of shadows and coincidences.

She climbed the three flights of stairs to her apartment, keys already in hand, and unlocked her door.

Her apartment welcomed her with familiar comfort: the couch she’d found at a thrift store and reupholstered herself, the bookshelves that lined every available wall, the small kitchen where she’d learned to cook simple meals that didn’t require much skill or many dishes. It was tiny but it was hers, the first space she’d ever had that felt truly safe.

Y/N dropped her bag by the door, kicked off her shoes, and headed straight for the kitchen to make tea. Chamomile, something to calm her nerves and help her sleep. She had an early class tomorrow, a paper due Friday, a normal life that required her to be functional and present.

The kettle was just starting to whistle when she heard it.

Static.

Not from her radio or television, both were off. Not from a neighbor’s apartment, the sound was too close, too immediate. It was inside her head, a low, persistent buzz that made her teeth ache and her vision blur at the edges.

Y/N turned off the burner and pressed her palms against her ears, but the sound didn’t diminish. If anything, it grew louder, more insistent, like tuning into a radio station that was almost but not quite in range.

And underneath the static, something else. A whisper, too soft to make out the words but unmistakably there. Like someone was trying to speak to her from very far away.

“Can you hear me?” The voice was clearer now, cutting through the interference. “I know you can hear me.”

The voice was wrong somehow, not quite human, like it was being filtered through layers of distance and distortion. But there was something familiar about it, something that made her think of hospital rooms and the beeping of machines.

“You’ve been running for so long.” the voice continued. “But you can’t run forever. I've been waiting. I've been patient. But patience has limits.”

“Who are you?” Y/N whispered, not sure if she was speaking aloud or just thinking the words.

The static intensified, and for a moment she thought she could see something in the interference patterns behind her closed eyelids. A tall figure, impossibly thin, standing in a forest of dead trees. No face, just smooth emptiness where features should be. And reaching toward her with arms that were too long, fingers that ended in sharp points.

“You know who I am.” the voice said, and now she was certain it was familiar. “You’ve always known. Ever since that night. Ever since the fire.”

The sound lasted for maybe thirty seconds, though it felt like hours. Then it cut out abruptly, leaving Y/N gasping on her kitchen floor, her ears ringing with the sudden silence.

She stayed there for several minutes, waiting for her heartbeat to return to normal, trying to convince herself that what she’d experienced was some kind of hallucination brought on by stress and fear. But the metallic taste in her mouth, the way her hands shook as she pushed herself upright, suggested otherwise.

Something had been trying to communicate with her. Something that knew about the fire, about her past, about the night that had changed everything.

She made her tea with hands that shook only slightly, told herself it was tinnitus or stress or the weird acoustics of old buildings. But as she sat on her couch with the steaming mug, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been trying to tell her that her time was running out.

The next few days passed in a haze of forced normalcy. Y/N threw herself into her studies with an intensity that surprised even her, staying late in the library, joining study groups she’d normally avoid, anything to keep herself surrounded by other people and bright lights and the comforting hum of academic activity.

But the feelings didn’t go away.

The sense of being watched followed her everywhere, walking across campus, sitting in lecture halls, even in the safety of her own apartment. She’d catch glimpses of movement in her peripheral vision, turn her head to find nothing there. Sometimes it was just shadows playing tricks. Other times, she’d swear she saw Tim in the crowd, always at a distance, always watching.

She’d hear footsteps that matched her pace exactly, stop suddenly to listen, only to be met with silence. The static came randomly, usually when she was alone. Sometimes just a brief burst, like interference on a radio. Sometimes longer episodes that left her dizzy and disoriented, pressing her palms against her ears while the world seemed to tilt sideways.

And always, underneath it all, the whispers. Never clear enough to understand completely, but growing more insistent, more urgent, like someone was trying very hard to get her attention.

During her Abnormal Psychology class, Professor Chen was discussing paranoid delusions when Y/N felt her phone buzz.

A text from an unknown number:

You left your window open last night. Third floor, fire escape side. Someone could climb right in.

Her blood turned to ice. She looked around the lecture hall, scanning the faces of her classmates, but no one was paying attention to her. Everyone was focused on the professor’s discussion of persecution complexes and auditory hallucinations.

The irony wasn’t lost on her.

Y/N raised her hand, her voice surprisingly steady. “Professor Chen? What’s the difference between paranoid delusions and actual stalking?”

Professor Chen paused, considering the question. “Well, paranoid delusions typically involve beliefs that aren’t based in reality, the person believes they’re being followed or watched, but there’s no actual evidence. Real stalking involves documented behavior: following, surveillance, unwanted contact, threats. The key is evidence.”

“But what if someone is being stalked, but the evidence is… unconventional?”

“What do you mean by unconventional?”

Y/N hesitated, aware that the class was now paying attention to her. “Like, what if the stalker has access to technology or methods that make traditional evidence collection difficult?”

“That’s an interesting question. I suppose in that case, the victim would need to be creative about documentation. Keep detailed records, use multiple sources of evidence, involve law enforcement when possible.” Professor Chen’s expression grew concerned. “Y/N, is everything alright?”

“Just curious about a case study I was reading,” Y/N lied smoothly. “Thanks.”

But as the class continued, she found herself thinking about Professor Chen’s words. Evidence. Documentation. She pulled out her notebook and started writing down everything she could remember: Tim Wright’s appearance, the exact words of the static voices, the timeline of events, the feeling of being watched.

When she looked up, Tim was sitting three rows behind her.

He hadn’t been there when class started, Y/N was sure of it. But now he sat in the back row, that same paperback book open in his lap, dark eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made her stomach churn.

She blinked, and he was gone. The seat was empty, like it had been all along.

Y/N’s pen slipped, leaving an ink blot across her notes.

It was during one of these determinedly normal activities, coffee with her friend Emma after their shared sociology class that Y/N first heard someone else mention the things that had been happening to her.

“I swear to God, I think someone’s been watching my apartment.” Emma said, stirring sugar into her latte with the kind of aggressive motion that suggested she’d been thinking about this for a while. “I know how that sounds, but I keep seeing this guy hanging around the building. Never the same guy, but always someone who doesn’t belong, you know?”

Y/N’s spoon froze halfway to her mouth. “What do you mean, doesn’t belong?”

“Like, too old to be a student, too well-dressed to be homeless, too interested in the building to just be passing by. And they all have this look…” Emma shivered, despite the warmth of the coffee shop. “Like they’re evaluating something. Like they’re taking inventory.”

“Have you called the police?”

“And say what? That I’ve seen people on a public sidewalk? That they gave me weird vibes?” Emma shook her head. “Besides, I looked it up online. Apparently this kind of thing has been happening all over town. Students reporting feeling watched, seeing strange people in their neighborhoods, hearing weird sounds.”

Y/N’s blood ran cold. “Weird sounds?”

“Yeah, like electronic interference or something. Static. Some people say they hear voices.” Emma leaned forward, lowering her voice. “There’s this whole forum thread about it. People sharing stories, trying to figure out if it’s some kind of stalker network or what.”

“Network?”

“Like, organized. Multiple people working together. Some of the posts mention seeing the same individuals in different locations, like they’re coordinating surveillance.” Emma pulled out her phone, scrolling through a bookmarked page. “Look at this—‘Tall man in black jacket seen outside apartment complex on Tuesday, same man photographed near campus library on Thursday.’ And then someone else posted about seeing him at the grocery store.”

Y/N’s hands started shaking.

“Emma, can you forward me that forum link?”

“Sure, but Y/N… you look really pale. Has something happened to you?”

Y/N considered lying, considered keeping her experiences to herself like she had for days. But Emma was her friend, and she was clearly going through something similar.

“I think I’m being followed too,” she admitted quietly. “There’s this guy, Tim. He’s been showing up places, watching me. And I’ve been hearing things. Static, voices.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “Oh my god. Y/N, we need to stick together. Safety in numbers, right? You could stay at my place, or I could stay at yours.”

Before Y/N could respond, her phone buzzed with another text from the unknown number:

Your friend Emma lives at 47 Maple Street, apartment 2B. She leaves her bedroom curtains open. We can see everything.

Y/N’s face must have gone white, because Emma grabbed her arm. “What is it?”

“They know where you live,” Y/N whispered, showing Emma the text. “They’re watching you too.”

Emma read the message, her face draining of color. “How… how do they have your number? How do they know my address?”

“I don’t know.” Y/N looked around the coffee shop, suddenly aware of how exposed they were. Large windows, multiple entrances, too many people to keep track of. “Emma, I think we need to get out of here.”

They gathered their things quickly, Emma’s hands shaking as she packed her laptop. As they stood to leave, Y/N caught a glimpse of movement outside the front window. Tim, standing across the street, that same paperback book in his hands. But this time he wasn’t alone.

Y/N could swear she saw something impossibly tall, standing perfectly still, watching.

“Emma,” Y/N said quietly, “don’t turn around. Don’t look outside. Just walk with me to the back exit.”

They slipped out through the rear of the coffee shop, into an alley that smelled of garbage and stale rain. Y/N’s phone buzzed again.

You can run, but you can’t hide. We know where you go. We know what you do. We know who you care about.

And then, a few seconds later:

Ask Y/N about the fire. Ask her about Jeff. Ask her about what she saw in her bedroom window the night he disappeared.

Emma read the messages over Y/N’s shoulder, her breath catching. “Y/N, what is this about a fire? Who’s Jeff?”

Y/N felt the world tilting around her, memories she’d buried clawing their way to the surface. “I… I can’t… not here.”

“Y/N, talk to me. What happened?”

“When I was thirteen,” Y/N said, her voice barely audible, “there was a fire. A boy I knew… Jeff… he was hurt, badly burned. And then he disappeared from the hospital, and people started dying, and…” She took a shuddering breath. “And after the police left, I saw something written on my bedroom window. From the outside, like someone had pressed their finger against the glass.”

“What did it say?”

Y/N’s voice was barely a whisper. “SOON.”

That night, Y/N didn’t sleep. She sat in her living room with all the lights on, her laptop open to the forums Emma had mentioned, trying to find some piece of information that would tell her how to fight back. The stories were remarkably consistent, which somehow made them more terrifying rather than less. If it was mass hysteria or some kind of urban legend, she would have expected more variation, more obvious embellishment. But these accounts read like police reports: factual, detailed, frightened.

And running through many of them was a common thread that made Y/N’s skin crawl.

People were disappearing.

Not all at once, not in any way that would attract media attention or police investigation. Just… gone. Students who stopped showing up to class, young adults who missed work shifts, people who seemed to vanish from their normal routines without explanation.

The forum moderators kept deleting posts that tried to connect the disappearances, claiming they were “spreading unsubstantiated rumors” and “causing unnecessary panic.” But Y/N could read between the lines, could see the pattern that others were trying to document.

Around three AM, the static returned.

This time, Y/N was ready for it. She grabbed a notebook and pen, determined to document everything she experienced, to record any details that might help her understand what was happening.

The sound started as a whisper, just a hint of interference at the edge of her consciousness. Then it grew louder, more insistent, until it filled her head with white noise that made it difficult to think.

“You cannot hide forever.” the voice said, clearer than ever before.

Y/N wrote frantically, trying to capture every word even as the sound made her handwriting shake and blur.

“What do you want from me?” she whispered.

“You know what you are.” the voice replied. “You have always known. The capacity to see, to understand, to serve.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.” There was something that might have been amusement in the voice, if something inhuman could experience amusement. “The choice will be made for you, as it was made for the boy.”

Y/N’s blood froze. “What boy?”

“Jeffrey Alan Woods. He saw us too, heard my voice. He resisted at first, like you. But in the end, he understood his purpose.”

“Jeff is dead.” Y/N said, but even as the words left her mouth, she wasn’t sure she believed them.

“Death is a human concept. Jeffrey serves now, as you will serve. The man you call Tim is preparing the way. Soon, very soon, you will join your friend.”

“Tim works for you?”

“He serves my purposes.”

The static was fading now, but the voice remained clear. “Look to your past, Y/N. Look to the night Jeffrey disappeared. Look to what you saw but convinced yourself was imagination. The truth has been waiting for you.”

And then, just before the sound cut out completely. “We are coming. And when we arrive, you will understand everything.”

Y/N sat alone in her brightly lit apartment, staring at her notebook filled with the impossible conversation she’d just transcribed. The words seemed to pulse on the page, each letter a small violation of reality.

Jeff was alive. Or something that had been Jeff was alive.

Tim Wright was being controlled, or partially controlled, by whatever was hunting her.

And something, someone, was coming for her, something that had been planning this for years.

She stared at her notebook, at the words she’d managed to capture, and felt pieces of a horrible puzzle clicking into place. The timing wasn’t random. Her selection as a target wasn’t arbitrary. Something had been watching her since she was thirteen years old, waiting for the right moment, the right circumstances.

And it had taken Jeff first.

All these years, she’d assumed Jeff was dead, or in prison, or had simply vanished into the chaos of a broken system that failed damaged children. She’d never considered that his disappearance might be connected to something larger, something that had plans for the people it collected.

But if the voice was telling the truth, if Jeff was somehow involved in whatever was hunting her, then everything she thought she knew about the past nine years was wrong.

Y/N closed her laptop and sat in the artificial daylight of her living room, trying to process the magnitude of what she was facing. She wasn’t just being stalked by some ordinary predator. She was being hunted by something that had been watching her since she was thirteen years old, something that had already taken someone she cared about and was now coming for her.

The question was: what was she going to do about it?

Running seemed pointless, if this thing had been tracking her for years, it would find her wherever she went. Hiding was obviously impossible; it knew where she lived, where she worked, where she went to school. Contacting the authorities would be useless; how do you report a supernatural stalker that communicates through electronic interference?

But there was one option she hadn’t considered, one possibility that terrified her almost as much as the thing that was hunting her.

She could try to find Jeff.

Her phone rang, jolting her from her thoughts. Emma’s name flashed on the screen.

“Hey just checking in, are you okay?”

“I’m okay… just being careful. I have a bad feeling.” Y/N sighed.

“Oh God, really? Have you seen anyone suspicious again?”

“Yeah, and…Emma, I think it’s more serious than we thought.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, long enough that Y/N wondered if the call had dropped.

“Emma?”

“I’m here. I just… Y/N, I need to tell you something. My friend Lisa. She didn’t show up for work on Monday. Her roommate says she never came home.”

Y/N’s blood turned cold. “Did she call the police?”

“Yeah, but they won’t do anything for forty-eight hours. And when they finally did take a report, they basically said college students go missing all the time. They probably think she ran off with some guy or had a breakdown or something.”

“But you don’t think that.”

“No. Lisa was scared, Y/N. Really scared. She kept saying something was following her, that she could hear voices. She wouldn’t have just disappeared voluntarily.”

They were quiet for a moment, both processing the implications of what Emma had shared.

“What do we do?” Y/N asked finally.

“I don’t know. But maybe… we can do that thing I told you before, we could stay at my place, or I could stay at yours.”

The offer was tempting, but Y/N found herself hesitating. Whatever was happening to her, whatever was hunting in their town, she had a feeling that being around other people wouldn’t necessarily keep her safe. If anything, it might put Emma in danger too.

“Let me think about it,” she said. “But Emma? Be careful, okay? Don’t go anywhere alone, don’t stay out late, and if you hear static or voices or anything weird, get somewhere public immediately.”

“Okay. And Y/N? You be careful too. I’ve got a bad feeling about all this.”

After they hung up, Y/N sat in her apartment and tried to figure out what to do next. The rational part of her mind insisted that she should contact the police, regardless of how crazy her story sounded.

She froze when she heard a quiet sound by the front door, she remained still when the footsteps grew silent then she chose to stand up and check.

Tucked under her door was a single sheet of paper, folded neatly in half. With shaking hands, Y/N picked it up and unfolded it.

It was a photograph. Black and white, slightly grainy, taken from a distance with a telephoto lens.

It showed her sitting on her couch, visible through her apartment window, reading a book and drinking tea.

The photo had been taken the other night, after her shift at the coffee shop. After she’d thought she was safe in her own home.

On the back, written in neat block letters, was a single word:

SOON.

Y/N stared at the photograph for a long time, her hands trembling. Someone had been watching her apartment. Someone had been close enough to take pictures through her windows.

And they wanted her to know that they knew.

The familiar space felt different now, violated, like someone had been inside touching her things. Though nothing looked disturbed, she could feel the lingering presence of unfriendly eyes.

Y/N moved through the apartment systematically, checking locks, closing curtains, making sure every possible entry point was secured. Then she sat on her couch, the same couch from the photograph and tried to think rationally about what was happening to her.

Someone was stalking her. Someone organized, patient, and skilled enough to follow her without being detected, to take photographs without being seen. Tim was part of it, but probably not working alone. The forum posts suggested this was happening to multiple people, which meant…

What? Some kind of organized group? A cult? A human trafficking ring?

She wasn’t just being stalked by some ordinary predator. She was being hunted by something that had been watching her since she was thirteen years old, something that had already taken someone she cared about and was now coming for her.

Chapter Text

The coffee shop felt like a refuge from the growing paranoia that had consumed Y/N’s life, but even surrounded by the familiar sounds of the espresso machine and quiet conversations, she couldn’t shake the feeling that unseen eyes were tracking her every movement. Emma sat across from her, stirring her latte with nervous energy, her own anxiety evident in the way she kept glancing toward the windows.

“I still think you should just come stay with me tonight,” Emma said, her voice pitched low so the other customers wouldn’t overhear. “Whatever’s happening, whatever these people want, you don’t have to face it alone.”

Y/N wrapped her hands around her coffee cup, seeking warmth that seemed to elude her lately. The photograph tucked in her backpack was a constant reminder that her sanctuary had been violated, that nowhere was truly safe. But running to Emma’s place felt like admitting defeat, and Y/N had never been good at backing down from a fight.

“I appreciate it, I really do,” she said, meeting Emma’s concerned gaze with determination. “But I need tonight to get my shit together, figure out what I’m going to do long-term. Besides, if these assholes really are as dangerous as I think they are, I don’t want to put you at risk by showing up at your door in the middle of a crisis.”

Emma leaned forward, her expression serious. “Y/N, listen to me. Lisa is still missing. Three other students from the forum haven’t posted in over a week, and when people tried to contact them, nobody could reach them. This isn’t just paranoia anymore. People are disappearing, and whatever’s happening, it’s escalating fast.”

The words sent a chill down Y/N’s spine, but they also strengthened her resolve. She had survived one nightmare as a child; she could survive this one too. But first, she needed to understand what she was truly dealing with.

“One night,” Y/N said firmly, her jaw set in a way that brooked no argument. “I’ll pack my essentials, do some more research, try to figure out what these bastards want from me. Then tomorrow morning, I’ll come to your place and we can decide what to do next.”

Emma looked like she wanted to argue, but something in Y/N’s expression must have convinced her that further protest would be useless. “Fine. But you keep your phone on, and if anything happens, anything at all, you call me immediately. I don’t care if it’s three in the fucking morning.”

“Deal.” Y/N said, managing a small smile despite the circumstances.

They spent another hour talking, mostly Emma sharing what she’d learned from other forum users and Y/N carefully editing her own experiences to leave out the more supernatural elements. The static, the impossible voices, the sense that something inhuman was orchestrating her stalking, all of that remained her secret. How do you tell your friend that you think you’re being hunted by something that shouldn’t exist?

When they finally parted ways outside the coffee shop, Emma hugged her tightly. “Be careful,” she whispered. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about tonight.”

Y/N hugged her back, trying to memorize the warmth and safety of human contact. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

But as she walked home through the darkening streets, Y/N couldn’t shake the feeling that she was lying to both of them.

The apartment building looked the same as always, Y/N climbed the familiar stairs, her keys already in hand, hyperaware of every shadow and sound. The hallway was empty, just the usual collection of apartment doors and the soft sounds of people living their normal lives behind them.

Her door was still locked, just as she’d left it. No signs of tampering, no indication that anyone had tried to gain entry while she was gone. Y/N let herself in and immediately turned on every light, the same ritual she’d been performing for days now.

Everything looked normal.

Her books were still stacked on the coffee table, her laptop closed but exactly where she’d left it, her tea mug from this morning still sitting in the sink. But something felt wrong, fundamentally wrong, like the air itself had been disturbed.

Y/N dropped her bag by the door and moved through the apartment, checking the windows, the closets, the space under her bed. She felt foolish doing it, but she also felt safer having confirmed that she was alone.

Her backpack was already mostly packed with essentials, clothes for a few days, her tablet, important documents, the small amount of cash she kept for emergencies. She’d been preparing to run even before she’d consciously admitted to herself that running might become necessary.

Now she added a few more items: the photograph that had been left under her door, her notebook filled with research about disappearances and stalking, a kitchen knife that made her feel marginally safer even though she had no idea how to use it as a weapon.

The sun had set while she was packing, and the apartment felt different in the darkness. Y/N closed all the curtains and settled on her couch with her laptop, determined to spend the remaining hours of the evening doing more research.

But concentration was impossible. Every small sound made her freeze, listening intently for signs that she wasn’t alone. The building was old and full of normal settling noises, but tonight every creak seemed ominous, every footstep in the hallway made her pulse spike.

Around eleven PM, exhaustion finally began to overtake anxiety. Y/N’s eyes were burning from staring at the laptop screen, and her body ached from hours of tension. She needed sleep, even if rest seemed impossible.

She changed into comfortable clothes, checked the locks one more time, and settled into bed with her phone on the nightstand and the kitchen knife tucked discretely under her pillow. The logical part of her mind knew she was probably overreacting, but the part that had learned to trust her instincts insisted that preparation was better than regret.

Sleep came in fits and starts, her mind too active to fully relax. Y/N drifted in and out of consciousness, dreams mixing with reality until she wasn’t sure which was which. In one dream, she was thirteen again, watching Jeff’s body burning at the kids’ party. In another, she was running through empty streets while static filled her ears and voices whispered her name.

She was somewhere between sleep and waking when she heard it.

A sound so soft she almost missed it, just a whisper of noise that seemed to come from inside the walls themselves. Y/N’s eyes snapped open, and she lay perfectly still, straining to hear over the sound of her own heartbeat.

There it was again. Muffled voices, too quiet to make out individual words but definitely human, definitely real. For a moment, Y/N allowed herself to hope that the sounds were coming from one of the neighboring apartments, late-night conversations that were carrying through the old building’s thin walls.

But as she listened more carefully, the voices seemed to be coming from inside her own apartment.

“—can’t fucking b-believe we’re stuck in this shithole assignment when s-she gets to live in a p—place like this,” a young male voice was saying, the words broken by an odd stuttering pattern that made them difficult to follow. “Look at this c-couch, man, it’s probably worth more than our entire goddamn c-cabin.”

There was a dull smacking sound, followed by a sharp “Shut the hell up and focus, Toby. We’re not here to admire the fucking furniture.”

Y/N’s blood turned to ice. There were people in her apartment. Strange men who knew her name, who had been watching her long enough to form opinions about her living situation, who were now inside her space discussing her like she was some kind of prize to be collected.

“The photo was supposed to be subtle,” the second voice continued, clearer now that Y/N was actively listening. His voice was familiar in a way that made her skin crawl, she’d heard it before, somewhere. “It looked like a fucking threat, you idiot.”

“It w-wasn’t a threat!” The first voice, Toby? Sounded defensive and slightly whiny. “I just w-wanted her to know we were w-watching, that we’d be m-meeting her soon. How the fuck is that c-creepy?”

“Jesus Christ.” There was another smacking sound, harder this time. “Everything you do is creepy, you twitchy piece of shit. That’s why the Operator keeps you around, you’re good at being disturbing.”

Y/N’s mind raced as she processed the conversation. The Operator, that was the name she’d seen in her research, one of the terms used to describe the faceless figure that appeared in so many accounts of stalking and disappearance. These men weren’t just random intruders; they were connected to whatever had been hunting her.

And they were here to take her.

“Both of you shut up,” a third voice interjected, deeper and rougher than the other two. This speaker seemed to prefer economy of language, his words clipped and professional. “She’s probably awake by now. Toby’s big mouth carries through these old walls like a megaphone.”

“Hey!” Toby protested. “I w-was being quiet!”

“You were being your usual spastic self,” the man said with clear irritation. “Tim’s right, we need to move before she—”

Moving as quietly as possible, Y/N crept toward her dresser where she’d left her shoes and jacket. If she could get dressed and reach her backpack, she might be able to slip out through the fire escape window before they realized she was awake.

But as she was pulling on her sneakers, trying to move without making any sound, she heard footsteps approaching her bedroom door.

“She should be asleep by now,” the third voice, Tim? Fuck. “The surveillance showed she usually goes to bed around eleven.”

Y/N’s heart hammered against her ribs as she realized just how thoroughly she’d been watched. The bedroom door was opening, revealing a figure that filled the entire doorframe.

He was tall, impossibly tall, with broad shoulders that blocked out the light from the living room. His face was hidden behind a black balaclava with two red dots where his eyes should be and a red frown drawn across the mouth area. The makeshift mask gave him an unsettling appearance that was made more disturbing by his imposing physical presence.

For a moment, they stared at each other in perfect silence. Y/N crouched by her dresser with one shoe on and the kitchen knife clutched in her hand, while the hooded figure stood motionless in the doorway.

Then, slowly, almost lazily, he tilted his head to one side, studying her with what seemed like mild curiosity rather than surprise. Like he had expected to find her awake and was vaguely interested in her reaction to being discovered.

“She’s up.” he called over his shoulder, his voice the same deep, rough tone she’d heard giving orders moments before. “Hello sweetheart.”

“What? Fuck!” There was a scrambling sound from the living room, and suddenly the tall figure was pushed aside as two more men crowded into the doorway.

The one in front wore a simple white porcelain mask with black holes for eyes and a black line drawn across the mouth. Even with his features hidden, something about his build and the way he moved was familiar, this was the man who’d been following her. He was holding a gun, she realized with a spike of terror, the barrel pointed casually in her direction like this was just another day at the office.

“Well, well,” he said, his voice carrying a hint of amusement. “Looks like our girl’s got some fight in her after all. I was starting to think this would be boring.”

Behind him was a shorter figure with curly brown hair and what looked like yellow-orange goggles pushed up on his forehead. His face was partially obscured by some kind of mouth guard, but Y/N could see enough to notice that something was wrong with the left side of his face, like part of it was missing or damaged. He was practically vibrating with energy, shifting his weight from foot to foot and cracking his neck with sharp, involuntary movements.

“O-Oh, look at th—that,” he said, his voice carrying the same stutter she’d heard through the walls. “Looks like sleeping beauty decided to j-join the party early. Hi there, Y/N!” He waved at her with disturbing enthusiasm, like they were old friends meeting for coffee instead of predators cornering their prey.

The man with the white mask, Tim, swore under his breath and reached out to smack Toby on the back of the head. “This is your fault, you hyperactive piece of shit. I told you to keep your fucking mouth shut.”

“Hey!” Toby protested, rubbing his head. “It’s not my f—fuh-fault she’s got good h-hearing. B-Besides, now we can have a p-p—proper introduction instead of doing this while she’s u-unconscious. Much more p-personal, don’t you think?”

Y/N found her voice, though it came out stronger than she’d expected. “What the fuck do you want from me?”

The three men exchanged glances, and she could sense some kind of silent communication passing between them. Finally, it was the tall one in the hoodie who answered.

“You’re coming with us,” he said simply, like he was stating an obvious fact. “The Operator has been waiting for you. Long time.”

“The hell I am.” Y/N’s grip tightened on the kitchen knife, and she slowly rose from her crouch, trying to project more confidence than she felt. She’d never backed down from a fight in her life, and she wasn’t about to start now. “I don’t know who you psychos are or what you want, but you need to get the fuck out of my apartment. Now.”

Toby laughed, a sound that was equal parts amusement and instability. “Oh, s—s-she’s got spirit! I fucking l-love that. This is g-guh—going to be so much more fun than I thought.”

“Language, Toby,” Tim said mockingly, though his own vocabulary had been far from clean. “We’re in the presence of a lady.”

“Fuck you,” Y/N spat, surprising herself with her venom. “And fuck your boss too. Whatever the hell this ‘Operator’ wants, he’s not getting it.”

The tall one, Brian, she realized, remembering the name from their earlier conversation took a step into the room. “You don’t understand the situation you’re in,” he said, his voice carrying a note of what might have been sympathy. “This isn’t a negotiation. This isn’t a choice. You’re coming with us whether you cooperate or not.”

“The only choice,” Tim added, adjusting his grip on the gun, “is whether you make this easy or hard. Easy means you walk out of here conscious. Hard means…” He shrugged. “Well, let’s just say the Operator didn’t specify what condition you needed to be in when we delivered you.”

But Y/N had spent years refusing to be intimidated, first by school bullies, then by professors who thought she didn’t belong in advanced classes, then by anyone who tried to make her feel small or powerless. She wasn’t about to start cowering now.

“Try me, you masked fuck,” she said, raising the kitchen knife. “I’ve had a really shitty week, and I’m looking for someone to take it out on.”

Toby clapped his hands together in delight. “Oh, I like her! Can we k-keep her, Tim? She’s got m-more personality than the last three combined!”

“Toby,” Brian warned, his tone sharp. “Focus.”

But Toby was already moving, pulling something from his belt with fluid, practiced motion. Y/N caught a glimpse of metal and wood, two hatchets, she realized with horror before her survival instincts kicked in and she was moving too.

“Time for s-some fun!” Toby called out, his voice taking on a sing-song quality. “Don’t worry, Y/N, I’ll try not to d-damage anything important!”

Y/N lunged toward the window, hoping to reach the fire escape before any of them could stop her, but Brian was faster than his size suggested. He stepped smoothly into her path, not grabbing for her but simply positioning himself as an immovable obstacle.

“Come on, Y/N,” he said, almost conversationally. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”

Y/N changed direction, aiming for the bedroom door, but Toby was there with his hatchets raised and that disturbing grin visible even through his mouth guard.

“Come on, come on!” he chanted. “Don’t m-make this harder than it has to be. We’re all going to be great f-fucking friends, you’ll see!”

Tim was moving too, trying to flank her, and Y/N realized she was trapped in her own bedroom with three armed intruders who seemed to know exactly what they were doing.

But she’d been trapped before, and she’d survived. She’d be damned if she was going down without a fight.

Y/N feinted toward Toby, then spun and threw herself at the window, the kitchen knife clutched in her hand. The old Victorian’s windows were large and opened easily, and she managed to get the latch undone before strong hands grabbed her around the waist.

“Oh no you f—fuh-fucking don’t,” Toby said, pulling her back into the room with surprising strength for his size. “The Operator wants you in one p-piece, but he didn’t say anything about undamaged.”

Y/N twisted in his grip, bringing the knife around in a wild arc that caught him across the forearm. She felt the blade bite into flesh, saw blood bloom across his sleeve, but Toby just laughed like she’d told him the funniest joke in the world.

“That t-tickled,” he said, his eyes bright with something that might have been pain or pleasure. “My turn!”

The hatchet came down, and Y/N barely managed to throw herself sideways, the blade embedding itself in the hardwood floor where she’d been standing. She rolled, came up in a crouch, and found herself facing Brian.

He moved faster than seemed possible for someone his size, and suddenly she was on the floor with her wrist pinned, the kitchen knife skittering away across the room.

“Enough,” he said, his voice calm and level despite the chaos. “We’re not here to play games.”

But Y/N had spent years in therapy learning to cope with trauma, learning to fight back against the helplessness that had consumed her after Jeff’s disappearance. She brought her knee up hard, aiming for what she hoped was a vulnerable spot, and felt a moment of savage satisfaction when Brian grunted and loosened his grip.

“Bitch.” he muttered, but there was something like respect in his voice.

She rolled away, scrambling for her backpack by the front door, her phone tucked in the side pocket. If she could just call 911, bring police sirens and flashing lights, maybe these intruders would retreat rather than risk exposure.

Toby was between her and the door, blood still seeping from the cut on his arm, his remaining hatchet ready. But his attention seemed divided, his head jerking to the side in rapid, involuntary movements that suggested some kind of neurological condition.

“You k—k-know,” he said conversationally, “most p-people would have given up by now. I respect that. I really do.”

Y/N waited for one of his tics, then darted past him, her fingers closing around her phone just as she heard the whistle of metal through air.

The hatchet caught her phone dead center, the blade cleaving through plastic and circuitry with a sound like breaking bones. Sparks flew, and the device split in half, useless pieces scattering across the floor.

“Oops,” Toby said, not sounding sorry at all. “G—guh-g-Guess you won’t be c-calling for help after all.”

“You’re really starting to piss me off.” Y/N snarled, but she was already moving, adrenaline and desperation giving her speed she didn’t know she possessed. She grabbed her backpack and threw herself toward the front door, her fingers working frantically at the locks.

The deadbolt turned just as hands grabbed her shoulders, trying to pull her back. Y/N twisted, swinging her backpack like a weapon, and felt it connect with something solid. Someone cursed creatively, and the grip on her shoulders loosened enough for her to wrench the door open.

“That’s it,” Tim’s voice followed her into the hallway. “No more playing nice. Toby, if she runs again, aim for her fucking legs.”

The hallway was empty, dimly lit. Y/N ran for the stairs, taking them two at a time, her bare feet slipping on the worn carpet.

Behind her, she could hear pursuit. Heavy footsteps, multiple sets, and Toby’s voice raised in what sounded like genuine excitement.

“T—T-This is the best part!” he was calling. “I love it when they r-run! It makes the catch so much sweeter!”

“Shut up and corner her,” Tim snapped. “Brian, cover the back exit. I’ll take the front.”

Y/N reached the second floor landing and kept going, her lungs already burning. The front entrance was too far, too predictable. They’d catch her before she reached the street. But there was another way out, if she could reach it.

The fire escape was accessible from a window at the end of the third-floor hallway, an old emergency exit that the landlord had never bothered to secure properly. Y/N had used it before, sneaking out late at night during her first year in the apartment when she’d felt too restless to sleep.

She reached the window and struggled with the latch, her hands shaking with adrenaline and fear. Behind her, she could hear her pursuers reaching the third floor, their voices echoing off the walls as they coordinated their search.

“She went up,” Tim was saying. “Toby, check the roof access. Brian, cover the back stairs.”

“What if she w-went for the fire escape?” Toby asked.

“Then we’ve got her cornered,” Tim replied. “It’s a dead end.”

The window finally opened, and Y/N threw herself onto the fire escape. The metal platform was slick with autumn condensation, and she nearly lost her footing as she scrambled for the stairs leading down.

Behind her, she heard the window slam open again, and Toby’s voice calling out in delight.

“Found her! She’s on the f—fire escape!”

“Jesus Christ,” Tim’s voice followed. “Can’t you do anything quietly?”

Y/N didn’t look back, just focused on getting down the narrow metal stairs as quickly as possible. The fire escape was old and not entirely stable, swaying slightly under her weight and the vibrations from her pursuers above.

She made it to the second floor platform before disaster struck. Her foot slipped on the wet metal, and suddenly she was falling, her backpack flying off her shoulder as she tumbled through the air.

Y/N hit the ground hard, her shoulder absorbing most of the impact, pain flaring through her entire right side. For a moment, the world went gray around the edges, and she wasn’t sure if she could move.

But above her, she could see figures moving on the fire escape, flashlight beams cutting through the darkness as they searched for her. Pain or no pain, she had to keep moving.

“Fuck,” she muttered, struggling to her feet with her right arm hanging useless at her side. “Come on, Y/N. Don’t give these assholes the satisfaction.”

Y/N stumbled toward the street, her backpack somewhere in the darkness behind her, but there was no time to search for it. She had to get away, had to find help, had to—

The street was empty.

Not just quiet, not just sparse with late-night traffic. Completely, impossibly empty. No cars, no pedestrians, no signs of life anywhere. The streetlights were working, casting pools of yellow illumination, but between them were pockets of darkness that seemed deeper and more absolute than they should be.

Y/N stood at the edge of the sidewalk, swaying slightly from shock and pain, and tried to process what she was seeing. This was a college town, there should be students out late, delivery drivers, someone. But the street stretched away in both directions like a movie set after the cameras stopped rolling.

“Help!” she called out, her voice echoing off empty buildings. “Someone help me!”

But even as she shouted, some instinct told her to stop, to be quiet, to avoid drawing attention to herself. Whatever was happening here went beyond three intruders in her apartment. This was bigger, more coordinated, involving resources and planning that suggested an organization with serious capabilities.

Y/N chose a direction at random and started walking, cradling her injured arm against her chest. Every few steps, she glanced back, expecting to see pursuit, but the street behind her remained empty. Either her attackers had lost track of her in the fall, or they were confident enough in their ultimate success that they weren’t worried about her temporary escape.

The silence was oppressive, broken only by her own footsteps and the distant hum of electrical equipment. No traffic, no voices, no signs of normal urban life. It was like the entire world had been evacuated while she wasn’t paying attention.

Y/N walked for what felt like hours but was probably only twenty minutes, her destination clear in her mind. Emma’s apartment was on the other side of campus, a route she’d walked dozens of times in daylight and normal circumstances.

“Just keep moving,” she muttered to herself. “One foot in front of the other. Don’t let the bastards win.”

Every few blocks, she’d stop and listen, straining to hear any signs of pursuit or signs of life. But the silence was complete, so absolute that she began to wonder if she’d gone deaf, if the trauma of the attack had damaged her hearing somehow.

It wasn’t until she was three blocks from Emma’s building that she heard the first sound that wasn’t her own footsteps.

A car engine, distant but approaching, the first sign of activity she’d encountered since escaping her apartment. Y/N felt a surge of relief so intense it made her dizzy. Help was coming, or at least the possibility of help.

She moved toward the sound, waving her good arm, ready to flag down whatever vehicle was approaching. But as the headlights came into view, something made her step back into the shadows instead.

The car was moving too slowly, prowling rather than traveling.

Y/N pressed herself against the side of a building and watched the car cruise past. Through the windshield, she caught a glimpse of the driver: a tall figure in dark clothing with something blue covering their face. Not one of the three men from her apartment, but clearly connected to whatever was happening.

They were searching for her. Systematically, methodically, with the kind of coordination that suggested they’d done this before.

“How many of these fuckers are there?” she whispered to herself, waiting until the car was out of sight before continuing toward Emma’s apartment.

She stayed in the shadows now, moving from building to building like some kind of urban guerrilla. Her shoulder throbbed with every step, and she was beginning to feel lightheaded from shock and blood loss, but the knowledge that she was being actively hunted kept her moving.

Emma’s building was a converted warehouse in the artsy district near campus, the kind of place that attracted students who couldn’t afford the nicer apartments but wanted something with character.

But as she approached the building, something felt wrong.

The front entrance was open, the heavy glass door that should have been locked after ten PM standing ajar. Light spilled from the opening onto the sidewalk, but it was the wrong kind of light, too harsh and clinical for the building’s usually warm ambiance.

Y/N approached the entrance cautiously, every sense screaming danger. She could hear something from inside the building, a low humming that seemed to vibrate through the walls, and underneath it, a sound that might have been voices or might have been something else entirely.

“Emma?” she called softly, her voice barely above a whisper. “Please be okay. Please just be okay.”

She climbed the front steps, her injured arm pressed against her chest, and peered through the open door.

The lobby looked normal, if you ignored the fact that all the lights were on and there was no sign of the security guard who usually worked the front desk. The elevator was open, waiting, its interior lights bright enough to hurt her eyes.

Y/N chose the stairs instead, climbing slowly, listening for any indication of where the danger might be coming from. The humming was louder inside the building, seeming to come from the walls themselves, and she could swear she felt it in her bones, a vibration that made her teeth ache.

“This is so fucked up,” she muttered, forcing herself to keep climbing. “But I’m not abandoning Emma. Not happening.”

Emma’s apartment was on the second floor, unit 2B, at the end of a hallway lined with doors that all looked identical. Y/N had walked this route countless times, usually carrying coffee or textbooks, discussing classes and relationships and the normal concerns of college students.

The door to 2B was slightly open, just a crack, with light spilling out into the hallway. Y/N approached it carefully, every instinct telling her to turn around, to run, to get as far away from this place as possible.

But Emma was her friend, possibly her only remaining connection to normal life, and if she was in danger, Y/N couldn’t just abandon her.

“Emma?” she called softly, pushing the door open with her good hand. “Emma, are you okay? Talk to me.”

The apartment was too bright, every light turned on, including fixtures that Emma never used because they were too harsh. There was a smell in the air, metallic and wrong, that made Y/N’s stomach clench with dread.

She moved through the apartment slowly, calling Emma’s name, checking the kitchen, the bedroom, looking for any sign of her friend. Everything appeared normal, until she reached the bathroom.

The door was open, and light from inside spilled across the hardwood floor in a rectangle that should have been welcoming but somehow wasn’t. Y/N approached the doorway, her heart hammering against her ribs, some part of her already knowing what she was going to find.

Emma was on the floor.

She was lying in a pool of blood that had spread across the white tile, her brown eyes open and staring at nothing, her face frozen in an expression of surprise and terror. There were wounds on her throat, precise cuts, and horrific gaping holes in her sides where something had been removed with surgical precision.

“No,” Y/N whispered, sinking to her knees in the bathroom doorway. “No, no, no. Fuck. Emma, I’m so sorry. This is my fault. This is all my fucking fault.”

Y/N stared at her friend’s corpse, and felt something fundamental break inside her chest. Emma had been kind and loyal and trying to help, and now she was dead, probably because someone had used her to get to Y/N.

This was her fault. Her stalking, her danger, had spilled over into an innocent life and destroyed it.