The morning sun struggled to pierce Ravenwood's haze, but Alex Monroe hardly noticed. He sat at his desk, the locket lying open before him. Eli Turner's boyish grin stared back at him, frozen in time, unscarred by fire or ash.
Alex rubbed his eyes, gritty with exhaustion. He hadn't slept since the night at the ruins. Every time he closed his eyes, the darkness surged with whispers, with the boy's hollow face, with that other voice—the voice that didn't belong to Eli, or to anything human.
The knock on his door was sharp, impatient.
"Monroe," Captain Shaw's voice cut through the fog of his thoughts. "A word."
He shut the locket and slipped it into his coat pocket before she entered.
"You look like hell," Shaw said flatly.
"I've seen worse."
She crossed the room, arms folded. "I don't care what ghosts you're chasing. You've been drawing attention, and not the good kind. People are whispering. Reporters are sniffing. And Hale's already filed two complaints about you sneaking around the Turner ruins."
Alex exhaled slowly. "Let him complain."
"This isn't a game, Monroe. If you lose yourself in this case, I can't pull you out. I won't."
Something in her tone made him pause. She wasn't just warning him. She was afraid—for him, maybe even of him.
"I'll handle it," he said, though his voice lacked conviction.
Shaw's gaze lingered on him a moment longer before she left.
By afternoon, Alex was driving aimlessly through Ravenwood's backstreets, cigarette smoke curling from his lips, the locket heavy in his pocket. His thoughts circled like vultures.
What had Margaret said? It was a sacrifice. Who would sacrifice a child—and why?
The word AWAKEN gnawed at him, more than the whispers, more than the shadowy figure. Something was being prepared, something unfinished.
His phone buzzed. Unknown number. He answered.
Static hissed at first, then a faint voice.
Alex…
He gripped the wheel tighter. "Eli?"
The line crackled, then went dead.
His heart pounded. No one should have had his number—not like that. He pulled over, staring at the phone screen. Call log: No record of the call.
That night, Alex didn't go home. He couldn't face the silence of his apartment. Instead, he sat in the precinct archives, stacks of files surrounding him. He pored through decades of cold cases, searching for patterns—other fires, other missing children, anything that tied into the Turners.
Hours bled away. His eyes blurred. And then he saw it.
A case from 1964. The Granger fire. Four dead. One child unaccounted for. Official cause: faulty wiring. The notes—also scrubbed of anomalies.
Another from 1978. The Holloway blaze. Three dead, one missing child. Again, "faulty wiring."
Alex's blood ran cold.
It wasn't just the Turners. Ravenwood had been burning children for decades.
The fluorescent lights overhead flickered. He rubbed his eyes, exhaustion clawing at him. When he lowered his hands, someone sat across the table.
A boy. Thin. Ash-streaked.
Eli.
Alex froze, every muscle rigid.
The boy didn't speak. He only stared, eyes vast hollows, lips trembling as if on the verge of forming words.
"Why me?" Alex whispered. "Why show yourself to me?"
The boy's mouth opened—but what came out wasn't his voice.
Because you're already breaking.
The lights snapped off. The room plunged into darkness.
Papers rustled violently, as though a wind tore through the archives, though the air was still. Alex's pulse roared in his ears. He scrambled for his flashlight, hands shaking, but before he could switch it on—
A face loomed inches from his. Not Eli's. Something else. Twisted. Grinning. Teeth too long, eyes like burning coals.
Alex staggered back, crashing into a shelf. Files tumbled, pages scattering across the floor. The lights blinked on again.
The room was empty.
Only his ragged breathing filled the silence.
By dawn, Alex stumbled into Doc Harris's diner, the only place in Ravenwood open that early. The smell of frying bacon and stale coffee grounded him, if only for a moment.
"Detective Monroe," Doc greeted, pouring him a cup. "You look worse than the hash I served last night."
Alex offered a faint smile, sipping the bitter coffee. The warmth steadied him, but his reflection in the window unsettled him. The lines in his face seemed deeper, his eyes darker, like the shadows were carving themselves into him.
From the corner booth, someone watched him.
A man in a dark coat, face obscured by shadow. He didn't touch his food, didn't look away. Just watched.
Alex's nerves tightened. He set down his cup, stood, and approached the booth.
"Something you want to say?"
The man's lips curved in a faint smile. His eyes were pale, almost colorless. "You should stop digging, Detective. The ashes don't want to be disturbed."
Alex's jaw clenched. "Who are you?"
"Just someone who knows the pattern." The man slid a folded paper across the table. "You're not chasing ghosts, Monroe. You're chasing what made them."
Before Alex could respond, the man rose and walked out into the fog.
Alex unfolded the paper. Scrawled across it was a single phrase:
THE WATCHER IS HUNGRY.
That night, Alex dreamed of fire.
He stood in the Turner basement, the walls blazing with unnatural light. Eli stood across from him, but his skin melted like wax, features sliding away until nothing remained but bone. The symbols on the walls pulsed, glowing like veins.
Behind Eli, a shape grew. Tall. Gaunt. Stretching higher until it scraped the ceiling. Its face was faceless, only a shifting void.
It leaned close, whispering into Alex's ear.
You can't save him. You can't even save yourself.
Alex jolted awake in his chair, drenched in sweat. The locket dangled from his hand, swinging gently.
On his desk, scratched into the wood with fresh gouges, were words that hadn't been there before.
WE SEE YOU.