By morning, Liam hadn't moved from the floor. The light leaking through the blinds turned the room a dull gray, flattening everything it touched.
The hum had stopped sometime before dawn, but its absence was worse. His ears rang with it anyway, an echo his body refused to forget.
He pushed himself upright, every muscle protesting. The screwdriver he'd used to pry the floorboards lay beside him, smeared with something that looked like dust but smelled faintly metallic. He didn't want to touch it again.
The vent cover sat crooked where he'd left it. He kept glancing toward it, half-expecting that thin ribbon of liquid to rise again, searching for air.
"Get a grip," he muttered. His voice came out hoarse. "Just a leak. Nothing else."
He forced himself to replace the boards, hammering them back with the heel of his hand until the seams were invisible. Then he cleaned the area with shaking fingers, wiping away anything that might look out of place.
When he was done, the apartment looked normal except for him.
He stared at the neat, quiet room and felt like an intruder inside his own life.
Noah came in that morning .
"Dude, you've been up all night again ?"
Liam blinked at him, eyes unfocused.
"Couldn't sleep," he said. "Had to fix something."
Noah frowned, scanning the floor. "You're sweating. Did you?what's that smell?"
"Bleach," Liam lied. "The sink overflowed."
Noah didn't look convinced, but he let it drop. "You've been missing practice."
"I'll make it up."
"Coach was asking for you."
That name twisted something in Liam's stomach. He turned away, grabbed his bag, and headed for the door before Noah could ask anything else.
Outside, the air was cool and clean. Every sound,a passing car, a slamming door,made him flinch. He told himself he was just tired, but fatigue didn't explain the pounding in his chest or the metallic tang still clinging to his tongue.
He walked to the field automatically, drawn there the way a needle finds north. The gravel crunched beneath his shoes, and for a moment he imagined hearing the faint click of a camera again.
Nothing.
Just wind moving through the fence.
The dugout was empty. The puddle near the door had dried, leaving a ring of chalky residue. He crouched to look at it and froze. In the thin crust of dried water, there was a faint outline half a footprint, the tread of a sneaker.
Not his.
He took a step back, heartbeat quickening. Someone else had been here after him.
He wanted to call the police, report a break-in, a theft,something. But the moment he pictured trying to explain what had been stolen, the words tangled in his throat. A few vials of fluid from a dead girl's case? Something that hums? They'd lock him up before he finished the sentence.
So he left the field and kept walking until his legs hurt.
By late afternoon, he was sitting in the student café, nursing coffee gone cold. The world around him buzzed softly,students talking, machines whirring but all he could hear was the faint pulse of his own thoughts.
You left something important at the field. Come alone tonight.
He took the note from his pocket again. The paper was still damp at the edges, as though it had been left in the rain on purpose. The handwriting looked rushed slanted, unfamiliar. But the ink was thick, dark, deliberate.
Whoever wrote it had wanted him to see it.
He folded it again, slipped it back into his jacket, and scanned the café.
Ryan sat across the room with two other teammates, laughing. When he caught Liam's gaze, he lifted his cup in a mock toast and smiled.
Liam looked away.
That smile had been haunting him since yesterday.
He skipped dinner and returned to the apartment early. Noah wasn't back yet. The quiet was a relief and a curse at the same time.
He dropped his bag, sat on the bed, and took a long breath.
He could still smell the field on his clothes damp soil, rust, the sharp sting of bleach.
He thought about Emily. Her voice. Her laugh the day she'd walked onto the field for the first time, teasing him about his swing.
"Every diamond hides its own dirt," she'd said.
At the time, he'd laughed. Now, the memory felt like a knife.
He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until stars flared behind them. When he lowered them, the world wobbled slightly. His heart stuttered, skipping beats.
He opened his desk drawer and found a small bottle of pills leftovers from the last time he'd tried to quit using. He took two dry, then three more for good measure.
Night fell quickly. The city lights painted faint patterns across the ceiling.
He tried to sleep, but each time his eyelids dropped, he saw that glint of silver rising from the dark alive, breathing.
He sat up again. The floor beneath him was perfectly still. No sound. No movement.
He should have felt relief.
Instead, he felt watched.
He went to the window and looked down at the street.
Empty.
Then, just as he turned to close the blinds, he saw it one sharp flash from the parking lot across the street. White. Instant. Gone.
His pulse jumped. He pressed his forehead to the glass, searching for the source. Nothing moved. No footsteps. No car door. Just the slow swing of a loose streetlight wire in the wind.
He backed away, throat tight. The note's words repeated in his head: Come alone tonight.
He looked at the clock—12:47 a.m.
He grabbed his jacket
The field was darker this time. The floodlights were off, and mist crawled low across the ground. He parked near the bleachers, headlights cutting through the fog like blades.
He stepped out and waited, every nerve on edge.
"Alright," he whispered into the still air. "I'm here."
Nothing answered. Not the hum. Not even the wind.
He walked to the dugout, flashlight in hand. The beam caught only empty benches, a tangle of wires, a dented metal bucket. The puddle from before was gone, but a faint streak of silver ran along the baseboard, drying into the wood like a scar.
He followed it with his light until it disappeared under the back wall. He crouched and touched the spot.
Dry. Cold.
He exhaled, shakily, and turned to leave
Click.
He froze.
The sound was close. Not a hum this time. A shutter.
He spun around, scanning the darkness.
"Who's there?" he shouted.
No answer.
He ran toward the parking lot, light slicing through the mist. Halfway there, his foot caught something. He stumbled and fell, hands scraping against gravel.
When he looked up, his beam caught a small object half-buried in the dirt.
A lens fragment.
He picked it up carefully. It gleamed faintly under the light, edges smooth, as if cleanly broken.
His reflection stared back at him from the curved glass pale, frightened, lost.
By the time he got home, dawn was smearing gray across the horizon. The apartment was silent. Noah's side of the room was still empty; he must have stayed somewhere else.
Liam dropped the broken lens on his desk. It clinked softly, rolling in a slow circle before stopping.
He stared at it for a long time, until the first rays of sun hit the glass and split into thin streaks of color across the wall.
For a moment, they looked like the shimmer inside the vials.
He closed his eyes.
The hum didn't return that morning.
But its absence screamed louder than any sound.