Chapter 2: Trace #002 — The Paper That Screamed
I was ten years old the night my world went silent.
It wasn't raining. It wasn't stormy. There was no thunder, no omen. Just a quiet night in a small apartment on the edge of the city — the kind of night where nothing should have gone wrong.
My mom was cooking in the kitchen.
My dad was sitting on the couch, a book in one hand and his glasses slipping down his nose. The soft clatter of dishes and the occasional page flip made the apartment feel warm, lived-in. Safe.
I was in bed, pretending to sleep but secretly reading under the covers.
I remember the exact page I was on — the hero had just found the hidden chamber, a secret door beneath the castle. He'd opened it, thinking he'd found treasure.
He hadn't.
And neither had I.
It started with a sound.
A single, soft click.
The door to my room… closing by itself.
I froze. My blanket over my head, flashlight still on. I thought maybe it was the wind. But the window was shut, and I'd been alone in the room for over an hour.
I peeked out from under the blanket.
And saw it.
Not a person.
A piece of paper.
Folded once. Sitting on my desk.
I hadn't left it there.
My body didn't want to move.
I felt… watched. Not by eyes. By something heavier.
Like the air itself knew something I didn't.
I slid out of bed. Slowly.
The floor creaked. The sound felt too loud.
I crossed the room and reached for the paper.
The moment my fingers touched it—
> I screamed.
Not out loud. Not with my voice.
But something inside me tore open.
Like someone else's fear had surged into my chest. Like a scream that had no throat, just raw panic. My knees buckled, and for a second, I couldn't breathe.
> I felt fire.
I felt silence.
I felt someone die.
I didn't know it then, but that was my first Emotion Trace.
I dropped the paper.
Ran.
The hallway was too quiet.
No footsteps. No TV sounds. Just a heavy, awful silence that made my skin crawl.
I turned the corner into the living room.
They were there.
My mom and dad.
Sitting upright. Their heads tilted at strange angles. Their eyes open.
Smiling.
Just like the man in Room 304.
Their bodies hadn't been touched. No wounds. No blood. But something was wrong—off. Like they'd been frozen in fear, then forced to smile.
The warmth from earlier was gone, sucked out of the apartment like air from a vacuum. I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. My body didn't understand what I was seeing, but something in me already knew.
I screamed for real that time.
But no one came. No one heard.
The police found me an hour later, curled up under the kitchen table, holding a crumpled piece of paper like it was the only thing keeping me alive.
They said there were no signs of forced entry. No broken locks. No disturbed furniture. Just... silence. And two bodies. And one terrified kid who wouldn't speak for days.
They never found the killer.
No sign of forced entry.
No fingerprints. No clues.
Just one folded piece of paper.
Blank.
Except it wasn't blank to me.
Not then.
And not now.
Back in the present, I stared down at the paper from Room 304.
Ten years later, and it was the same fold.
The same size. The same feeling.
Whatever left this behind…
…it knew me.
And it had done this before.
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To be continued...