Chapter Text
You
You watch from the shadows, patient, quiet.
The city smells different here, heavier somehow, like it knows secrets it hasn't shared yet.
Every step she takes, every glance she throws over her shoulder, you notice.
She doesn't know you exist, but you know her ... more than anyone ever will.
Soon, very soon, the past she buried will start to stir, and when it does, you'll be waiting.
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LIA
The woods never end.
Branches claw at my arms and legs, tearing at skin I didn't realize I'd exposed. The air is thick with the smell of wet earth, rotting leaves, and something metallic I can't place. My lungs burn, my chest heaves, but I can't stop. I won't stop. I don't look back.
I can feel him. Always just behind me. Every snap of a twig, every whisper of wind feels like him. Patient. Watching. Waiting.
"Lia."
The voice slides between the trees, soft but certain. Familiar, impossible. It coils around my spine, curling tight and cold.
I stumble over roots, my ankle twisting. Pain shoots up my leg, but I don't falter. I can't. Not yet. Not now.
The shadows stretch longer, moving on their own. Branches bend like fingers reaching for me. I hear laughter...low, cruel, impossible to locate. The ground is slick, sucking at my boots, and the trees seem to tilt toward me, pressing closer, folding in.
I reach out for something... anything... but there's only air. Only darkness.
Then he's there. I see him in flashes between trunks, just far enough that I can't grab him, just close enough that my skin prickles in warning. His eyes are nothing, yet I know them. I can feel them burrowing under my skin.
I run.
Every step is heavier than the last, my feet dragging through mud that sticks like glue. The laughter rises, mocking, surrounding me. The sky above twists and warps into something jagged, red, and black, and I can't breathe.
A hand, cold, hard, grabbing my shoulder. I scream. I wrench away, but it doesn't release me. I twist, snap, strike, and.....
I WAKE UP.
My body jerks against the sheets, heart hammering so violently it feels like it might tear itself out of my chest. My lungs fight for air, gasping, clawing, refusing to cooperate. Every muscle in my body trembles, uncontrollable, raw. Sweat drips into my eyes, stings, and I blink it away, but it won't stop. My hair sticks to my face, damp and suffocating, and the sheets cling to me like they're part of the nightmare, holding me down.
I curl up, pull the pillow against my chest, and my stomach twists so violently I wonder if it will ever settle. My hands shake, my fingers digging into the fabric until my nails hurt, just to remind myself that I'm real. The room is silent except for my ragged breathing, and still, in the back of my mind, I feel him there. Not in the room, not physically, but in the space behind my eyes, in the hollow of my chest, in the pulse that refuses to slow.
I open my eyes. The ceiling is just a ceiling. The walls are just walls. Nothing moves. Nothing watches.
He's not here.
He's not here.
Nobody's here.
And yet, my body still refuses to believe it.
I stare at the ceiling, counting the cracks, the imperfections, the little marks that anchor me. Slowly, the pounding in my chest becomes something manageable. My fingers twitch as I reach for the drawer beside my bed. I pull out the bottle, the rattle of pills like a small, private drum in the quiet room.
I shake out two, dry swallow them, and push the bottle back in.
The sheets are warm. The pillow is soft. Comforting in a way I almost don't trust.
But the echo of the woods, the laughter, the unseen eyes .. it lingers. Always there. Waiting.
Sleep will come again.
Eventually.
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