Chapter 1: The Envelope

Ava almost missed it.

The envelope was lying on the floor just inside her bedroom door, half-buried beneath the hoodie she’d peeled off and tossed carelessly earlier that afternoon. At first glance, she thought it was one of those takeout flyers her mom’s boyfriend, Rick, sometimes slid under the door when he wanted her to check out a new pizza place. Cheap glossy paper, too many exclamation points, pictures of greasy cheese.

But this wasn’t glossy. It wasn’t flimsy.

It was thick, creamy stationery—the kind that felt old-fashioned, like the letters in period dramas her mom binged late at night when she thought Ava was asleep. The kind of paper that didn’t belong in their house, where most communication happened through half-shouted conversations over running faucets and clattering dishes, or more often through texts that could be ignored.

Her name was written across the front in looping black ink: AVA.

No last name. No return address. No stamp.

Just three letters that made her skin prickle.

Ava crouched to pick it up, her brows pinching together. Her mom never wrote notes. Ever. And her friends? If they had something to say, they texted, snapped, or spammed her with memes until she responded. Nobody her age owned envelopes, let alone used them.

She turned it over in her hands. The flap wasn’t sealed. Which was almost worse, like the writer hadn’t even bothered to pretend this was private—like they wanted her to read it right away.

Ava hesitated, then slid a finger beneath the fold and pulled out a single sheet of paper.

The handwriting was neat but quick, the kind of script that looked like it had been scrawled in a hurry, as though every second mattered.

It read:

Tomorrow, do not take the shortcut home. If you do, he will never wake up.

There was no greeting. No signature.

Just one word at the bottom, pressed harder into the paper than the rest, as though the pen had nearly torn through.

You.

Ava’s heart gave a hard, uncomfortable thud.

She read it again, slower this time, but the words didn’t change. The threat hung there on the page, bold and certain, like a verdict.

Do not take the shortcut home.

Her shortcut.

Everyone at school knew Ava used the cracked, narrow path behind the gas station to shave ten minutes off her walk home. Everyone teased her for it, too—it stank of motor oil and rotting garbage in the summer, and stray cats always hissed from the shadows—but she took it anyway. Every single day. She hated wasting time, and those ten minutes mattered.

If you do, he will never wake up.

Her chest tightened. He.

There was only one person that could mean.

Eli.

Eli had walked the shortcut with her more times than she could count, their sneakers crunching on gravel, their conversations bouncing from school gossip to weird hypotheticals to who would win in a fight between a T-Rex and a grizzly bear. Eli, who was the only person she trusted with her real secrets. Eli, who always carried extra gummy worms because he knew she’d “forget” her money at the corner store.

He would never wake up.

She dropped the letter on her bed like it burned.

It had to be a prank. Some sick joke. Someone from school messing with her, trying to get under her skin. Kids could be cruel, and Ava had made herself an easy target more than once with her too-quick temper and her habit of zoning out in class.

But how would anyone know? How could they possibly know about the shortcut—and about Eli?

Her throat went dry. She picked the letter back up, holding it with both hands like it might shatter.

The handwriting snagged at her memory. Something about the way the letters curled, the sharp angle of the Y in You—it was too familiar. She’d seen it before, somewhere close. Not from her mom, not from Eli. From herself.

It looked disturbingly like her own handwriting.

Her breath caught.

That wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. Unless—

“No,” she muttered, shaking her head hard, like she could rattle the thought out before it stuck. “Nope. Not going there.”

She folded the letter once, then again, then shoved it deep into her backpack beneath her math binder. Out of sight, out of mind. That was the plan.

She wasn’t going to tell her mom. Her mom would just sigh, rub her temples, and chalk it up to Ava being dramatic again. She definitely wasn’t going to tell Rick, who’d probably joke about stalkers and creep her out even more.

She thought about texting Eli, maybe sending him a picture of the letter with a string of laughing emojis to prove how little it rattled her. But the idea made her stomach twist. What if it wasn’t funny? What if showing him made it too real?

Instead, she paced.

Her room was too small for pacing. Two steps from the desk to the closet, pivot, two steps back again. Her curtains fluttered against the cracked-open window, letting in a faint breeze that carried the distant sounds of traffic and kids still playing on the street. Normal noises. Normal day.

And yet.

She couldn’t stop hearing the words. Couldn’t stop picturing them glowing on the inside of her eyelids every time she blinked.

Do not take the shortcut home. If you do, he will never wake up.

Her pulse drummed in her ears.

She sat on the edge of her bed, gripping the comforter until her knuckles turned white. The letter was just paper. Words written in ink. Nothing supernatural, nothing impossible.

So why did it feel like her tomorrow had already been hijacked?

Why did it feel like the moment she opened that envelope, she’d stepped into a story she didn’t understand—one she couldn’t walk back out of?

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to slow her breathing. It was fine. It had to be fine. Tomorrow she’d go to school, pretend nothing happened, and laugh it off. Maybe she wouldn’t take the shortcut—just to prove to herself she wasn’t shaken. Then again, maybe she would—just to prove she wasn’t scared.

Either way, she was still Ava. Just a normal sixteen-year-old.

But deep down, in the quiet place she rarely admitted even to herself, Ava wasn’t sure she believed that anymore.

And for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t sure she wanted tomorrow to come at all.