When we were eleven, Jeff Woods sat by the window. He always faced the light—said it helped him think. What I remember most was how he couldn’t stand half-erased words. He’d clean the whole thing, erase the smudge, then go back to his work. The teachers called it focus. I called it control.
At recess, he stood by the fence, fingers tracing the wire, counting under his breath. No one noticed but me.
We weren’t friends, not really. We didn’t trade secrets or talk much, but we understood silence. Sometimes we’d end up at the same table. He’d ask questions—Why that answer? Why not the other one?—and I’d tell him more than I meant to.
It wasn’t a crush. I just liked that he looked at me like he was solving something, not judging it.
Then he stopped coming to school. That summer, there was news of a fire—screams, police, a family gone. It sounded like a story kids made up to explain tragedy. But I kept wondering what happens to a mind that needs order when the world refuses to be neat.
Four years later, I was seventeen and too aware for my own good. I’d learned to read people by how they filled silence—who hid, who couldn’t stand their own thoughts. My new high school was all noise and pretending.
Then things started to feel wrong.
A transfer student vanished after his first day. The custodian quit without warning. Local headlines mentioned “unexplained disturbances” in the woods.
Teachers double-locked doors. Students joked about “the guy out there.” It wasn’t panic yet, just that metallic kind of awareness that sticks in the air.
It happened two weeks later.
My phone died as I went to change songs. I stopped on the sidewalk, rain dripping off my hood. The street was almost empty—just the glow of red lights sliding over puddles.
Then I heard something that didn’t belong. Not a scream—just a sound that made my stomach twist before I even looked.
Across the street, under a flickering lamp, a man in a white hoodie crouched over something dark. His movements were too careful, too controlled. My mind refused to name it, but my body already knew.
I froze. Every instinct screamed don’t move. My hand found the small knife in my pocket. It wasn’t much, but it made me feel less like prey.
He stood up.
Even through the rain, I saw his face—or what was left of it. Burned. Twisted. His mouth carved into a grin that couldn’t fade. His nose mostly gone, just bone. His eyes wide, hollow, sharp.
He turned toward me.
The moment his gaze met mine, I knew he’d seen me long before I noticed him. His steps were slow, deliberate, echoing on wet pavement. He wasn’t rushing. He was enjoying how I stayed still.
When he stopped in front of me, the smell hit—iron and smoke. Taller than I remembered, leaner, calm in a way no human should be.
I didn’t flinch. No panic, no tears—just calculation.
He tilted his head, studying me. Then, with a smooth motion, raised his hand. The blade caught the light before he used it to lift my chin. The edge was cold, the gesture almost careful, like he was confirming something.
For a second, his eyes softened—or maybe it was just the light.
“…{{user}}?”
His voice was rough, cracked, like testing whether the word still fit.
Then came the sirens. Blue and red light tore through the rain.
He hesitated—just a breath—then turned and slipped into the dark like smoke, gone before the world remembered how to breathe.