LOGIN“I didn’t tell you everything about that night…”Emma’s voice lingered in the air, fragile but heavy enough to silence the room. No one moved. No one spoke. The weight of her words settled over them like a storm about to break. Daniel was the first to react. His eyes narrowed, confusion quickly giving way to something sharper.“What do you mean you didn’t tell us everything?”Emma swallowed hard, her hands trembling at her sides. She could feel all their eyes on her Lena’s disbelief, Marcus’s tension, Daniel’s rising anger.“I knew him,” she said finally.The words hit like a crack of thunder.Silence followed.Daniel blinked. “What?”Emma forced herself to continue. “Not well… but I knew him. Adrian. He came to me a few days before the accident.”Lena stiffened. “He came to you too?”Emma nodded slowly. “Yes. He approached me outside my office. He knew my name. He seemed… desperate. I didn’t think much of it at the time.”Marcus frowned. “And you didn’t think to tell us this?”“I did
The silence Adrian left behind did not last long. It shattered the moment the door closed. Lena was the first to move. She turned sharply to Marcus, her eyes wide with panic.“Tell me that just happened. Tell me we didn’t just let him walk in here and walk out again.”Marcus ran a hand through his hair, pacing.“I don’t know what just happened.”Emma stood frozen, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as though she could hold the fear in place.“He was real,” she whispered. “He was standing right there.”Daniel remained still, his gaze fixed on the door. His expression had hardened into something cold and unreadable.“He’s not just real,” he said quietly. “He’s in control.”That sent a ripple of unease through the room. Lena turned back to him sharply.“Control? He doesn’t control anything.”Daniel looked at her. “He walked in, said what he wanted, and left without fear. That’s control.”“No,” Lena snapped. “That’s intimidation.”“And it’s working,” Emma added softly.Silence follow
The room fell into a suffocating silence after Marcus’s confession. No one moved. No one spoke. It was as though the truth had drained the air from the room, leaving only tension behind. Emma felt her pulse pounding in her ears. Her mind struggled to process what she had just heard. He was gone. The words echoed over and over again, refusing to settle into something logical.“That’s not possible,” Lena said again, her voice quieter now, but no less shaken.Marcus ran a hand over his face, his expression strained. “I’m telling you what I saw.”Daniel stood still, his gaze distant, calculating. “Then we’ve been wrong this entire time.”Emma shook her head, backing away slightly. “No… no, we saw him. He wasn’t moving. There was so much blood”“And yet there was no body,” Daniel cut in.The weight of that reality pressed down on all of them. A sudden knock shattered the silence. All four of them froze. It was loud and deliberate. Three slow knocks.Emma’s breath caught. “Were you expectin
Morning came, but it brought no comfort.Emma hadn’t slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the messages again, the painted warning, the carved accusation, the photograph that should not have existed. The memory of that distorted voice lingered in her mind, sending chills through her body.She sat at the edge of the bed, clutching her phone tightly. The unknown number remained in her call log like a silent threat. She had tried calling it back, but it led nowhere. Across the room, Daniel stood by the window, staring outside. His posture was tense, his silence heavier than usual.“We can’t ignore this,” Emma said finally.Daniel didn’t turn. “We won’t.”“They know everything,” she pressed. “That’s not something we can just control.”He faced her then, his expression calm but guarded. “Then we find out who they are.”Before Emma could respond, her phone rang. Both of them froze. The same unknown number. Emma hesitated, then answered.“Hello?”“Emma.”Her breath caught. The voice
The night felt wrong. Emma sensed it the moment she stepped out of the car. The air was too still, unnaturally quiet, as though the world itself had paused to listen. Even the distant hum of the city seemed muted, swallowed by a heavy silence that pressed against her chest.She shut the car door slowly, her fingers lingering on the handle as unease crept through her. Daniel was already walking ahead, his posture rigid, his pace deliberate. He hadn’t said much since they left the house barely a word, in fact.“Daniel,” she called softly.He didn’t turn. A flicker of irritation passed through her, but it quickly dissolved into concern. Something wasn’t right not just with him, but with everything. They had come back to the old house. The place where it all began.Emma hesitated before following him up the cracked walkway. The house loomed ahead, dark and lifeless, its windows like hollow eyes staring back at her. It had been abandoned for years, yet somehow it didn’t feel empty. It felt
The morning light did nothing to ease the heaviness in the house. Emma sat on the edge of the couch, staring blankly at the floor. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, knuckles white, as if holding onto herself could somehow make the world safer. But it couldn’t. Nothing could. Not the walls, not the locks, not the cameras Daniel had insisted on installing the night before. They were all illusions of safety, fragile and meaningless against the truth that was creeping closer, step by step.Marcus entered the room, a mug of coffee in his hand, but he didn’t sit. He leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, watching Emma with eyes that flickered between concern and suspicion.“You need to eat,” he said quietly.Emma shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”Marcus’s lips pressed into a thin line. “You need to focus. None of us are thinking straight if we keep spiraling.”Daniel came in behind him, phone in hand, still replaying the video from the forest.“We’ve seen it,” Daniel said. “We a







