Chapter 1: She Tasted Like Trouble And Felt Too Familiar

Chapter 1: She Tasted Like Trouble And Felt Too Familiar

Aria had a talent for being unnoticed. Not out of fear or shyness — more like quiet resistance. The city moved fast, loud, and unforgiving, but she’d learned how to drift through its cracks, like fog slipping between streetlights.

Morning started the same as always: too early, too gray. Light crept through her blinds like it was tired, stretching across the linoleum floor in fractured gold. Her apartment smelled faintly of lavender and stale tea, dust curling in corners no one else noticed. She shuffled into the kitchen in mismatched socks, her oversized cardigan sliding off one shoulder. The kettle hissed, warming water she probably didn’t need. But ritual mattered.

She spooned sugar into her chipped ceramic mug — three heaps, always — and dropped in a pinch of rose petals from the jar above the sink. Her fingers paused, as they always did, on the faded label: For Mom. They weren’t fresh anymore, but the scent still clung. Still meant something.

She sat on the edge of her loveseat, knees tucked up, steam curling around her face. Outside, the world sounded… heavy. Not loud. Just dense. Tires on wet pavement. The metallic screech of the subway two blocks away. Her neighbor’s window slamming shut like it was mad at the wind.

Her phone buzzed once — Jules. Her phone buzzed again at 7:34.

Stopping by. Hope that’s okay. I have snacks.

Aria stared at the message. She didn’t reply, but her stomach flipped. She checked her reflection in the hallway mirror, ran her fingers through her hair like that would do anything. It didn’t. Still, she stood a little straighter.

At 7:58, a soft knock.

She opened the door, and there was Jules — hood up, cheeks flushed from the walk, paper bag in one hand, the other in her pocket.

“I brought the good chips,” Jules said, holding the bag up like a peace offering. “And those tiny soda cans you weirdly like.”

Aria stepped aside, letting her in. “You mean the ones with actual sugar? Like nature intended?”

Jules kicked off her boots. “Exactly.”

They didn’t head to the couch. Not at first. They stood by the door like gravity was different there, and neither wanted to break it.

“You look cozy,” Jules said, tugging gently on the edge of Aria’s scarf.

“It’s my armor,” Aria replied, eyes flicking down, then back up.

Jules smiled, eyes trailing slowly over Aria. “You’re cute as always, sweetie.”

She leaned in and kissed her. Just a soft peck. No warning. No tongue. Just skin to skin, breath to breath. Aria didn’t move, didn’t pull away. Her chest rose sharply, but her lips stayed there, close, warm, still tasting the moment.

When Jules pulled back, Aria’s cheeks were already pink.

“You always tease me,” Aria muttered, voice low.

Jules tilted her head. “Do I?”

Aria huffed, rolled her eyes dramatically, and pushed Jules gently back onto the couch. She climbed on top of her, straddling her lap with a mischievous grin. Her lips landed on Jules’ neck, kissing, then sucking softly, her voice barely a whisper.

“I’m not that innocent, you know.”

That made Jules grin, but not in a mean way. She just looked at Aria like she’d found her favorite book again after thinking it was lost forever.

Then Aria stood up like what she’d done hadn’t been provocative at all.

“You want soda?” she asked, already heading to the kitchen to reset the atmosphere.

They opened the drinks, shared the chips, talked about nothing — about weird customer names at the library, about a pigeon Aria swore was following her on her walk last week. But underneath it all, there was something threaded tighter now, something that hadn’t been there before. Or maybe it had always been there, just quiet.

Later, they watched a horror movie that Jules had picked, something Aria regretted instantly but tried to act cool about. She crossed her arms, feigned boredom, and pretended not to flinch at the first jump scare. But her legs slowly curled up tighter, her fingers gripping a pillow, her wide eyes flicking toward the screen then away.

By the halfway mark, she couldn’t take it anymore. She climbed onto Jules’ lap again, this time without sass, just raw need for safety.

“I’m not scared,” she whispered into Jules’ neck.

Jules chuckled. “Right. You’re just… resting on my heartbeat.”

Aria didn’t reply. Her arms tightened around Jules, her head tucked under her chin like a child clinging to their lifeline. She stayed like that for the rest of the movie, flinching occasionally, squeaking softly, always holding on.

When the credits rolled, Aria lifted her head, groaning. “Worst movie choice ever. I hate you.”

“You picked it.”

“Lies.”

Jules laughed, but Aria suddenly realized she was still wrapped around her. Still in her lap. Her cheeks flushed deep pink.

“Uhmmm… sorry.” She tried to slide off, awkward and blushing.

But Jules caught her waist and pulled her back in gently, their faces close again.

She leaned down, placing a warm kiss just under Aria’s jaw. Then another. Lower.

Aria gasped softly as Jules left a hickey on her neck. “Jules… it tickles…”

Jules sucked harder, hands brushing against Aria’s waist, pulling at the edge of her cardigan. Aria bit her lip. The tickle shifted. It felt like heat now. Want. Her breath quickened, hips shifting slightly.

She opened her mouth, meaning to say something. What came out instead was a soft moan.

Her body responded before her brain could. Jules loved it.

She traced Aria’s skin slowly with her fingers, slipping beneath fabric. Teasing. Exploring. She kissed and nibbled along her collarbone, dragging her teeth lightly. Aria trembled, completely taken. Her cardigan had slipped again, baring more of her shoulder. She didn’t fix it.

Jules tugged the neckline of her shirt down just enough to leave more hickeys, darker ones this time, claiming space. Her tongue circled before sucking deeper. Aria’s hand clutched Jules’ hoodie. She breathed fast now, panting, and didn’t even remember when she started whispering,

“Jules… don’t stop… please…”

She didn’t know if it was begging or permission. Maybe both. Jules kept going, letting her hands roam, skimming Aria’s ribs, tracing down her stomach. She didn’t go further, just enough to press Aria into the present, to keep her in that pulse - heavy space between tease and ache.

By the time Jules stood up to leave, the clock read 10:42.

“I should go. Early shift tomorrow,” she said, half - apologetic.

“Right,” Aria murmured, walking her to the door.

Jules paused right before stepping out. Her hand reached for Aria again — not to grab or pull, just to anchor. She hugged her tight. Arms around her like she thought Aria might disappear. Like if she didn’t hold on right now, something would slip through her fingers.

Aria hugged her back, slow and unsure at first, but then with more weight.

When they pulled away, Jules leaned in again.

Another kiss. Lips to lips. Nothing messy. Nothing fast. Just them.

Aria inhaled sharply between it, but she didn’t stop. She kissed back. Her lips parted just slightly, just enough to feel Jules’ shape, to let her in without words.

A soft moan slipped from Aria’s throat. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even intentional. It just happened — like her body was agreeing to something before her brain could interrupt.

They lingered like that for a moment, wrapped in that charged stillness, like a held breath neither of them wanted to release.

Then Jules whispered, “Night, Aria.”

And she left.

The door clicked closed, and Aria stood there, hand still on the knob, heart louder than it had any right to be.

The next day, Aria was getting dressed while scrolling through her phone, sipping her coffee, and eating a croissant when Jules texted her.

Library still standing. Barely. You coming by today?

She texted back without looking at the screen.

Maybe tomorrow. Dust dragons await.

Jules sent back a thumbs - up emoji followed by a gif of a yawning cat. She smiled. Just a little.

By 7:10, she was dressed: soft black hoodie, frayed jeans, her favorite scarf wrapped twice around her neck even though it wasn’t that cold. She always layered. Something about the weight made her feel more… real.

The walk to the bookstore took thirteen minutes. She counted the cracks in the sidewalk like always. Forty - seven. Same as yesterday.

The flower shop on the corner opened as she passed. The bell jingled and Mrs. Leva waved through the fogged glass.

“Morning, sweetheart,” the old woman called, pushing open the door with her elbow. “You need something bright today?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Aria said.

“You say that every day.”

“And one day I’ll mean it.”

Mrs. Leva laughed, her breath clouding the cold. “Be careful. Weird air today.”

“Isn’t it always?”

The bookstore was still dark when she got there. Niko was already inside, crouched behind the counter and cursing softly.

“Forgot the freaking breaker again,” he muttered as she opened the door.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I’m fighting a war with old wiring. Losing.”

She flicked on the front lights. “Need backup?”

He looked up. “You bring coffee?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

They worked in easy silence after that. The store was narrow, crammed with secondhand fiction, occult guides, poetry chapbooks, and weirdly specific memoirs no one asked for but somehow still sold. Aria loved it. The smell, the hush, the way time bent in corners when you were surrounded by too many lives stacked on dusty shelves.

A box waited behind the counter. Niko tapped it. “From some estate guy. Might be haunted.”

“Everything in here might be haunted.”

“Yeah, but this one’s got weird energy.”

She sliced the tape and flipped the flaps open. A mix of hardcovers and leather - bound journals, yellowed at the edges. One smelled like cloves and mildew. Another had pages stuck together with something she didn’t want to name. She set them aside, one by one, cataloging quietly.

Piper — cat, queen, bookstore menace — stalked over the counter like she owned it and plopped herself on the pile.

“You’re in the way,” Aria said.

Piper blinked at her, stretched, and knocked a paperback to the floor.

“You’re fired.”

The bell above the door rang just before noon. A woman stepped in, tall, sharp, her coat the green of frozen leaves.

“Do you have anything that feels like winter?” she asked.

“Genre?”

“Poetry. Something cold.”

Aria nodded, stepping toward a shelf. She traced the spines until she found it: The Book of Hours by Rilke. She handed it over without a word.

The woman flipped it open. “Mm. You’re the quiet kind.”

Aria shrugged. “Guess so.”

“That’s good. The loud ones never know where the magic is.”

After she left, the stillness thickened. Aria cleaned the counter. Watered the snake plant. Reorganized the occult section by color just because.

Around two, a child wandered in alone. Couldn’t have been older than eight. No jacket. Bare feet. Dirt on her palms.

“Hey,” Aria said softly, kneeling. “Are you okay?”

The girl looked up, eyes huge and glassy. “They’re waking up.”

“Who is?”

The girl pointed toward the window. “Underneath.”

Aria blinked — and the girl was gone.

She checked the street. Empty. No footprints. No voice calling after her. Just the wind threading through traffic like it knew something she didn’t.

She paused at the door, watching how the air shimmered faintly outside the glass. Not heat. Not light. Just a subtle flicker — a ripple in reality, like bad reception on a screen. She rubbed her eyes, but it didn’t go away.

The shadows under the bookstore sign stretched a little too far. One of the streetlights buzzed, then blinked out — then back on — then split in two for a second before returning to normal. Nobody outside reacted. A man crossed the street right under it, humming to himself, oblivious.

Inside, her reflection in the window stuttered. It was just for a heartbeat — but Aria saw it.

She moved to grab a book on the counter. Her reflection didn’t move at all.

She froze. Her hands trembled.

The reflection finally caught up, like a delayed feed. Aria tried to laugh it off. Maybe too much caffeine. Maybe not enough. But deep down, something ancient twisted inside her. Like a compass trying to reorient. Like her instincts had caught something she wasn’t supposed to see yet.

When she turned, the girl was back.

Standing between shelves, exactly where the light broke through the front window.

Her feet hovered slightly off the ground.

The tips of her hair shifted like static, strands phasing in and out as if reality couldn’t quite hold onto her.

“Stop looking,” the girl whispered, but her mouth didn’t move.

Aria blinked hard. “You’re not real.”

“I am,” the girl said, only it didn’t come from her. It came from behind Aria, from the section labeled Unclassified History.

Aria turned, fast. No one there. She whipped back. The girl was gone again.

This time, the store felt colder. Not physically — emotionally. Like something sacred had just walked across her grave and left wet footprints on her soul. She touched her chest. Her heart pounded. Not scared. Not exactly. More like… warned.

That was the word. Warned.

Aria walked behind the counter and touched the register screen. It flickered, glitched, showed symbols she didn’t understand for a second — thin white symbols like wireframe letters that didn’t belong to any human language — and then the screen returned to normal.

She leaned back, breath shallow.

Outside, a couple passed by, laughing. One of them paused, looked in, and for half a second, their face pixelated — a smooth blur over skin, like a poor video feed trying to buffer — then they kept walking like nothing happened.

Aria touched her temple. “What the hell is happening?”

In the back corner, one of the old journals she’d unpacked earlier fell from the shelf. No wind. No tremor. It just dropped.

She approached it slowly. The spine was cracked open to a page with a sketch: a woman — or something close — surrounded by hundreds of red flowers. Her eyes were hollow, her mouth open wide like she was screaming. The petals curled toward her like claws.

Aria shut the book and shoved it back onto the shelf. She turned off the music, heart loud in the silence.

The problem wasn’t that the world was glitching. The problem was that she was starting to see it.

And she knew — in her gut, in her bones, in the quiet throb behind her eyes — those weren’t ghosts.

They were warnings.

Something in her was waking up. Something the universe itself was trying to contain — or disguise — behind masks of static and spectral flickers. The glitch wasn’t a malfunction. It was a message. A prelude. A law bending, breaking, or maybe just failing to restrain what she was meant to become.

She wasn’t being haunted. She was being reminded. And whatever was underneath was watching.

She didn’t tell Niko. What would she even say?

Later, as she locked up, the streetlights flickered. Once. Twice. Then stayed dark. The city dimmed around her. Not a blackout — just… hesitation. Like the power wasn’t sure it should keep going.

She took the long way home.

In the alley by the flower shop, she saw it again — heat shimmer where there shouldn’t be heat. Like the air was holding its breath.

She turned sharply. Nothing. Just shadows and a dead pigeon.

That night, Aria sat in front of the bathroom mirror, hair damp, hoodie still on. The reflection didn’t feel like hers. It looked right. Same tired eyes. Same soft mouth. But off. Like someone playing her in a dream.

Then, the mirror fogged. She hadn’t breathed on it. Her reflection tilted its head.

She didn’t. Then it smiled.

Aria bolted upright, stumbling out of the room, heart hammering. Piper hissed from the windowsill, tail twitching.

She didn’t sleep.

The next morning, there was a flower.

A crimson bloom curled out of an old book spine — Myths of the Hollow Earth. She hadn’t touched that book in months. No soil. No root. Just the flower, perfectly formed.

She crouched, breath shaking, and reached out.

Warm. Alive.

The petals twitched like they were breathing.

She didn’t call anyone.

Instead, she opened her laptop and typed in:

Unnatural flower growth indoors + hallucinations + mirror smiling

Click. Click. Scroll.

Forums. Reddit threads. One mentioned thin places. Another linked it to collective dreaming.

She shut the laptop. Piper stayed hidden all day.

The dreams got worse. Fire under her skin. Oceans above her head. Names whispered in languages that didn’t belong on human tongues. She’d wake up breathless, mouth full of smoke, heart trying to escape her body.

Jules texted again:

You okay? You’ve gone full ghost mode.

She replied:

Just tired. Something’s weird lately.

Weirder than usual? Yeah.

Then:

Want company?

Aria stared at the screen.

Maybe tomorrow.

But tomorrow didn’t come.

That evening, as she turned the bookstore lights off, the city went silent.

No engine noise. No phone buzz. No footsteps.

Everything just… paused. The air trembled. She felt it in her teeth.

A pressure, low and rising. She turned to the window. And the sky split.

A vertical tear, like lightning drawn slow and deliberate. Light poured out — but not golden, not white. It was blue. Deep blue. Ocean - at - night blue.

Shapes moved behind it. Like something looking back.

Then darkness again. Just like that.

Power surged back. The lights flickered on. Traffic returned. A horn honked.

Aria stood still, keys in hand, unsure if she’d screamed.

No one else seemed to notice. The news called it a power grid anomaly.

She didn’t believe that. Not anymore.

Back in her apartment, the flower had bloomed again. Three now. Each petal a different color, all leaning toward the mirror.

She sat down on the couch. Hugged her knees to her chest.

The kettle hissed on the stove, untouched. In the mirror across the room, her reflection watched her like it was waiting.

Waiting for her to remember.

Waiting for something to end.

Or begin.