The night didn't end when Jessica vanished.
Leo stood frozen at the edge of the alley, heart hammering in his chest. The silver thread that had once bound Jessica still quivered in the air, severed, its frayed edges curling inward like a dying thing.
The silence pressed in. Not the quiet of an empty campus, but something deeper. A void.
Then, the shadows moved.
A shape unfolded from the darkness—tall, thin, wrong. Its silhouette stretched too far, bending against the angles of reality. Leo didn't see eyes, but he felt its gaze settle on him, heavy and suffocating.
The silver threads pulsed, writhing in his vision, stretching toward him.
Leo stumbled back. His breath came in short, panicked gasps.
Run.
His mind screamed it, but his body refused to obey. His feet felt rooted to the pavement, as if something unseen was holding him in place. The alley seemed to deepen, the shadows pooling outward, threatening to swallow him whole.
Then—
A voice.
Low. Amused. Too close.
"You shouldn't have seen that, Leo."
His body snapped into motion.
Leo turned and ran, sprinting across the empty courtyard, his pulse thundering in his ears. His dorm was too far from here. The library. The library was closer.
The air behind him rippled, heavy with something unseen. The sensation of being chased slithered down his spine—except there were no footsteps. Only silence.
The library doors loomed ahead. Leo slammed into them, yanking the handle—locked.
No. No, no, no—
A click.
The door opened on its own.
Leo didn't question it. He darted inside, shoving the door shut behind him. His lungs burned. His vision swam.
Outside, the courtyard was empty.
But the shadows had shifted.
Something was still watching.
The library was wrong.
Leo had spent countless nights here, but now, it felt different. Stretched. Distorted. The overhead lights flickered, casting elongated shadows across the endless rows of bookshelves. The air smelled of dust and something else—something metallic.
He moved deeper inside, trying to steady his breathing. His fingers itched to grab his phone, but instinct told him not to look away from the shadows for too long.
Then, a whisper.
Soft. Just beyond hearing.
Leo's pulse spiked. His gaze darted between the bookshelves, searching for movement. The library was supposed to be empty. It wasn't.
A figure stood at the far end of the aisle.
Leo's breath caught.
Not a student. Not a librarian.
The man in gray.
His silver hair shimmered under the dim lights, absorbing the glow rather than reflecting it. His suit, crisp and immaculate, seemed untouched by dust or time. His smile was too wide.
"Leo," the man said, his voice smooth, effortless. "You've started to see, haven't you?"
Leo's body screamed run, but he forced himself to stay still.
"Who are you?" His voice came out hoarse, unsteady.
The man in gray tilted his head. "A better question: what are you?"
Leo's fingers curled into fists. "What the hell did you do to Jessica?"
Something flickered in the man's expression—amusement.
"Jessica? Oh, no," he murmured. "She was already marked. You should be more concerned about yourself."
The silver threads in Leo's vision tightened, looping around the man's fingers like a puppet's strings.
Leo took a step back.
The man chuckled. "You don't even understand what you are yet. But you will."
The shadows behind him unfolded.
The whispering grew louder.
Leo turned and ran.
The library blurred around him, the rows of bookshelves stretching impossibly long. His own footsteps barely made a sound.
Then, suddenly—
A hand grabbed his wrist.
Leo gasped, wrenching away.
But it wasn't the man in gray.
It was Javi.
Between the Lines.
"Leo—what the hell, man?!" Javi's voice was sharp, grounding.
Leo's breath came in ragged gasps. The library was… normal. The shadows were just shadows. The whispering was gone.
Javi frowned. "Dude, you look like you saw a ghost."
Leo swallowed hard. "Not a ghost."
Javi's expression darkened. "Jessica's missing."
Leo's stomach twisted. "I know."
Javi hesitated. Then, lowering his voice: "This isn't the first time, is it?"
Leo stiffened. "What do you mean?"
Javi exhaled sharply. "Come with me."
He led Leo past the empty study tables, through a door marked Staff Only.
The room was small, lined with filing cabinets and an old security terminal. Javi pulled open a drawer, shuffling through papers before yanking out a folder stuffed with missing persons reports.
Leo stared.
"You ever notice how many people disappear from this campus?" Javi muttered. "Because I have. And every time it happens, no one remembers them."
Leo's skin went cold.
Jessica's name wasn't on the reports.
It was as if she'd never existed.
He thought of the threads. Of the thing in the alley. Of the man in gray.
"You've started to see, haven't you?"
Javi looked at him, eyes hard. "Leo. What did you see tonight?"
Leo's throat felt tight.
Outside the window—
A figure stood beneath the streetlamp.
The man in gray.
Waiting.
Smiling.
The lights in the library flickered.
And in the dim reflection of the window, behind Leo and Javi—
Something else moved.
Something with too many hands.
Too many mouths.
And the whispers began again.
The Watcher in the Shadows.
Leo's Honda Civic coughed, sputtered, and died.
He sat there for a moment, gripping the steering wheel, waiting for the engine to cough back to life. It didn't.
Outside, dawn bled into the sky, staining the campus in pale, watery colors. The buildings of Westlake University loomed like silent monoliths, their familiar edges softened, warped—as if reality hadn't quite settled into place.
Leo ran a hand over his face. His skin felt stretched too thin, buzzing with exhaustion. He hadn't slept. Couldn't.
His phone buzzed.
A message. No number.
Watch the patterns. They're getting bolder.
Leo exhaled slowly, his grip tightening on the steering wheel.
The man in gray.
Always watching.
Always one step ahead.