A Warning in the Rain

The storm rolled in fully by morning, soaking the cliffs in grey and blurring the horizon until sky and sea became one indistinct veil. Sloane stood at her window, arms folded tight across her chest, watching the waves crash violently against the rocks below. The wind hit heavy against the glass, and the mansion groaned in answer, timbers shifting like old bones.

Sleep had not come easily. She’d tossed beneath heavy sheets, the fire dying to embers, haunted by unfinished sentences and the weight of memory pressing hard on her chest. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her old manuscript—page after page inked in her voice, her pain—slipping through someone else’s hands.

When she emerged from her room, the halls were dim, lit only by antique fixtures that flickered weakly against the stone walls lining the way. The house felt different now, less dormant, more alert. As if waking up alongside her.

She wandered without purpose, barefoot and quiet, following instinct more than direction. Eventually, she found herself in what must have once been a music room. A grand piano stood in the corner, its lid open, ivory keys yellowed with age. The room smelled faintly of rosewood and forgotten dust.

She crossed to it, dragging her fingers gently across the surface, pausing above middle C.

Then came the low rumble of his voice.

“You used to play.”

Sloane turned.

Theo leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, his presence almost too still—like a figure in a portrait that had just stepped down.

“Badly,” she said.

“You were getting better.”

She let her fingers fall from the keys. “Everything was supposed to get better.”

A beat passed. The air in the room seemed to hold its breath.

Theo stepped further in, his boots soft against the woven carpet. “You think I destroyed you.”

Sloane gave a short bitter laugh. “You didn’t destroy me, Theo. You erased me.”

He didn’t flinch. Just looked at her like he was analyzing a line of poetry too complex to grasp all at once.

“The night it happened,” she continued, “I called you. Five times. No answer. And then nothing. A month later, the world thought I plagiarized my own story.”

“I know.”

“You know?” she echoed, voice rising. “That’s it? You know?”

Theo nodded once, slowly. “I didn’t answer because I couldn’t.”

“Bullshit.”

His jaw tensed. “You were never supposed to see it.”

“What? The theft? The betrayal? Or the part where someone made a career off my bleeding heart?”

“No.” His voice was quieter now, edged with something harder to define. “The letter.”

Sloane froze. “What letter?”

But Theo said nothing.

In the silence that followed, the wind outside howled louder, and a curtain snapped loose from a brass ring.

Sloane stepped back from the piano. Her heart thudded in her ears now, not from fear but from the sudden, precise weight of that word: letter.

He turned away from her then, walking toward the tall bookshelf that spanned the far wall. She watched his fingers trail the spines, not looking at her, not speaking. It felt like a conversation half-told. Like something was bleeding through the cracks.

She moved past him toward the door.

“You shouldn’t wander alone,” he said without turning.

“Why?” she asked. “Afraid the ghosts will talk to me instead?”

He said nothing.

The hall beyond felt colder than it had moments ago. As she turned toward the east wing, she heard it again—that low creak of floorboards, but not behind her.

Above.

She stopped.

The corridor ceiling loomed above her, aged timber and iron beams, but nothing moved. And yet… she felt it. The weight of eyes. Watching from somewhere just beyond the visible world.

Back in her room, she shut the door quietly and sat on the edge of the bed. The notebook still rested on the desk, exactly where she’d left it. But something about it felt… off. The way it was angled. As though someone else had read the page. Maybe more than one.

She crossed the room slowly and opened it.

The first page was still the same.

Tell the truth.

But a second page had been added beneath it. Different handwriting. More fluid. Feminine.

The truth won’t save you.

Her blood chilled.

Sloane closed the book carefully, like it might bite. She stepped back from the desk and stared at the fire, which now burned lower than before despite being recently stoked.

A knock came at the door.

Sharp. Precise. One-two-three.

She opened it to find no one.

Only a single item on the floor.

A folded envelope, yellowed at the edges, sealed in deep crimson wax.

No name.

No handwriting.

No clue of its sender.

But she already knew.

Her fingers trembled as she bent to pick it up. The wax was warm, as if pressed only moments ago. Inside the envelope, she could just barely feel the texture of a single piece of thick parchment.

She didn’t open it.

Not yet.

Instead, she looked up at the hallway that was long, empty, and utterly silent.

But something was breathing there.

She was sure of it.