The moon hung low and swollen over the forest, casting a pale silver glow over the dense tangle of branches and thorns. The silence was broken only by the sound of something crashing through underbrush-heavy, panicked footsteps pounding against the dirt, snapping twigs and kicking up dry leaves.
A man, wild-eyed, gaunt, and pulsing with an aura of rotting darkness ran like a hunted animal. His coat was torn, soaked with blood not entirely his own. Veins darkened unnaturally around his throat and temple, as if whatever was inside him had begun to rot him from within. His breaths were labored, rasping like broken bellows.
Behind him, a figure moved.
It did not run.
It walked.
And yet it was always closer than it should have been.
"Get away from me!" the man screamed into the trees. "You can't have me! I didn't die! I didn't...!"
But no one answered.
The figure kept coming.
A blur of black, faceless and cloaked in a slow-moving, patient dread.
In a burst of adrenaline, the man stumbled out of the forest onto the main road. Tires screeched in the distance. He barely turned his head before
BAM!
The red Ferrari hit him at full speed.
His body lifted, twisted grotesquely midair like a rag doll before slamming into the asphalt with a sickening crunch. Blood pooled in thick tendrils beneath him, a halo of ruin on the road's surface.
The Ferrari swerved to a stop some feet ahead.
"Shit...shit...shit!" a voice shrieked.
The driver's door flew open. A young woman stumbled out in high heels that didn't belong on cracked asphalt, her manicured hands trembling. She was beautiful, almost unreal. Her voluminous chestnut hair pulled into a designer scarf, her makeup flawless despite the stress. Dressed in a white silk blouse tucked into high-waisted, pinstripe trousers, she looked like she'd just stepped out of a luxury fashion shoot. Her lips trembled. "Oh my God. Oh my God…"
She gasped. "Is he...? Is he alive?!"
"Liya, stay in the car!" the man beside her warned as he got out from the passenger side. He wore a fitted grey suit with a designer watch on his wrist. His eyes darted to the crumpled body lying twenty feet away.
He sprinted to the man's side. He crouched, held two fingers to the stranger's blood-slicked neck.
Nothing.
Liya ran to his side anyway. "We...we hit him. Oh god, I hit him." Her voice cracked.
He looked up at her, stricken. "Shit...He's dead."
The woman's eyes widened until they looked like they'd fall out of her skull. Her red lipstick trembled.
"No. No, no. This can't be happening." Her knees wobbled. She staggered back, her heels nearly slipping on the road. "I...I can't be involved in this. No. My film's about to premiere. I just signed a three-year endorsement deal with Valmir. I'll be ruined!"
"Calm down!" the man snapped, pulling her away from the body.
"My life is over".
"No one's here," He cut her off, glancing down the road. The stretch was empty, swallowed in darkness.
"No dash cam. No traffic. No witnesses. We leave. Now."
She hesitated, trembling, mascara streaking down her cheeks. Her breath came in broken sobs. "We just leave him? Like roadkill?"
"If this gets out, your career is finished. Think! This guy came out of nowhere! It's not your fault," he coaxed, eyes scanning the trees nervously.
The woman nodded numbly. "Okay. Okay.....We're in the middle of nowhere. There's no CCTV. No one saw."
"But the body...!"
"We'll say we hit a deer. There's no evidence. He jumped in front of the car. It's not your fault."
"But we left him." Her voice cracked, raw with horror. "Paul..."
He reached out, gripping her arms. "Do you want your career to die right here? You'll be eaten alive if the tabloids find out."
She shook, frozen in indecision then, slowly, nodded.
Paul ran back to the car, pulling the door open. Liya, whose name was splashed across every billboard in the city cast one last look at the motionless figure on the ground.
Her hands curled into trembling fists.
Then she turned and got back in the car.
They sat back in the car, tires screeching as the red Ferrari vanished down the dark road. Neither of them saw the mist of shadow rise from the broken corpse, tendrils curling through the air and latching onto the woman's back as it disappeared with her.
From the trees, the figure in black watched, silent and still.
Later That Night…
The bar was dim and quiet, tucked into a forgotten part of the city. She liked it for that. No one knew her name here. No one looked at her with pity or expectations.
She sipped the amber liquid, letting it burn down her throat.
Her mind spun backward.
Five years ago.
She'd walked in with bubble tea and sketchbooks, giddy after getting her first art commission. Only to find them.
Her best friend, Isabelle.
Her boyfriend, Ryan.
Entangled. Laughing. Naked.
"You don't understand, Cassie," Ryan had said, his eyes full of guilt.
"I don't understand?" she'd spat, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might break through her chest. "I walked in on you and Isabelle! My best friend, Ryan!"
"She was there for me when you weren't!" he'd shouted. "You were too busy chasing your art dreams, you didn't even see how unhappy I was!"
Cassie blinked back tears now. The memory was like a punch to the gut every time.
Isabelle's smug face unapologetic, cold. "Maybe if you hadn't been such a drama queen, he wouldn't have left you."
They were gone from her life, but the scars had never healed.
She'd left that night. With nothing but her rage and a heart bleeding so hard it wouldn't stop for years.
Even now, it still hurt.
Cassie downed the last of her whiskey, the glass clinking hard against the bar counter.
"Another," she muttered.
The bartender gave her a wary glance. "You sure? That's your third."
Cassie snorted. "Unless you're my liver, you don't get to complain."
He poured.
Cassie stared into her drink. "Why the hell do I always give my heart to the people most likely to smash it?"
No one answered.
She paid her tab in silence and stumbled out into the cool night, her boots echoing against the sidewalk. Her breath formed little clouds as she mumbled to herself.
"…I'm fine. Totally fine. Just a girl who sees ghosts and gets betrayed for sport."
By the time she got home, her buzz had dulled into exhaustion.
Her body moved on autopilot. She collapsed onto her bed, eyes fluttering shut.
And jerked awake moments later with a scream caught in her throat.
A ghost was leaning over her.
It was a woman this time. Half her face had been torn away, the flesh scorched and blackened like it had melted off her skull. Her remaining eye glowed red. Blood pooled at her feet except it wasn't blood. It was shadow. Living, writhing shadow.
Cassie screamed, scrambling back against the wall. Her legs shook. Her breath hitched. "G-Get away from me!"
The ghost opened her mouth and lunged.
Cassie threw herself off the bed, slamming into the floor as the entity tried to crawl into her. Her screams tore through the apartment.
The ghost tried to climb into her.
Cassie sobbed, her hands shaking uncontrollably. "Leave me alone! I'm not your host! Go away!"
The ghost faded, its scream echoing in her skull.
Cassie sat on the floor, hugging her knees, tears soaking her cheeks.
"…I just want to sleep," she whispered into the void.
But sleep wouldn't come.
Not tonight.
Not with a monster inside her mind.
And somewhere far away…
A red Ferrari kept driving down the highway, a beautiful woman trembling behind the wheel, unaware of the darkness that now nestled inside her like a sleeping serpent.