The next memory burned colder.
We were sitting by the lake behind his uncle's house.
Sunset painted the water orange.
He leaned beside me, quiet—too quiet.
We had ice cream from the corner shop, arguing over the stupidest things, making bets about who could throw the wrapper into the trash from the farthest distance. We stayed up late talking about dreams, music, and places we wanted to see. He made me feel like I mattered. Like I was someone worth noticing.
I hated these memories now.
Because the sweetness of those moments only made the betrayal worse.
The cracks began quietly, imperceptibly at first.
One afternoon, Daniel—Kian's friend, enabler, and silent accomplice—was with him when I made a casual remark to a classmate. Kian's dark eyes had narrowed, shadowed, angry. He pulled me aside later, saying my words were "reckless," that I "owed him" my attention, my loyalty, my silence.
"Do you talk to that guy in your class a lot?"
I looked at him, confused.
"It was just a group project."
He didn't smile.
His jaw clenched.
He stood abruptly.
That was the first time I saw it—
the flicker of darkness behind his eyes.
He apologized an hour later.
I forgave him.
I didn't know better.
Another crack appeared days later:
He squeezed my hand too tightly while we walked, leaving a bruise.
When I winced, he said,
"You're being dramatic."
But his eyes were scanning the street, searching for someone.
Anyone.
Someone he feared I might be interested in.
Jealousy had grown inside him like mold, quiet and fast.
Another memory:
I stood in his room while he paced.
"You're different," he snapped.
"You don't look at me the way you used to."
"I'm just tired."
"You're lying."
He slammed his palm against the wall beside my head.
I didn't flinch. Not then.
But I felt something inside me shrink.
The night I stopped believing he could ever be anything but dangerous.
We had argued in the stairwell behind the school. Shadows from the dim light flickered across the walls, elongating, twisting, echoing every word.
"You're avoiding me," Kian had said, voice low but cutting.
"I just needed space," I had whispered.
"From who?" he shouted, fists clenched, eyes sharp.
I tried to step past him. He grabbed my wrist—too hard. My skin tore under his fingers.
"Let go," I said, voice trembling.
He gave me a resounding slap and I crouched to the ground.I gasped and looked at him.
He shook his head, eyes dark and gleaming. He picked me up and shoved me against the wall, breath hot against my cheek, knuckles digging into my arm.
"You don't walk away from me," he growled.
Daniel watched from the shadows, smirking, saying nothing, doing nothing, letting it happen. Letting him hurt me, knowing I trusted Daniel once, and failing me.
I gasped as pain tore through me—not only from his hands but from the realization that I had been wrong to trust anyone. My sixteen-year-old self had learned that night that kindness could be a trap, and trust could be deadly.
He finally let go. My arm was bruised, purple. My heart heavier than it had ever been. I cried quietly, alone in the stairwell, wishing the earth would swallow me whole.
Daniel didn't comfort me. He didn't apologize. He merely walked away, grinning faintly, leaving me with him—the boy who had claimed I couldn't escape him, and the friend who had abandoned me to his cruelty.
That was the moment I knew.
He didn't love me.
He owned me.
Or believed he did.
Two days later, he was gone.
Just… gone.
No goodbye.
No apology.
No explanation.
Just disappearance.
And a single message left on my phone:
"You pushed me away. Remember that."
I deleted it.
But I never forgot.
I could feel it now. Karma wasn't just an idea, or a warning whispered by Mara. It was alive. Cold, patient, relentless.
It moved through the shadows, curling around corners, lingering near doors. It was waiting for me to acknowledge it. Waiting for me to understand the weight of every choice, every betrayal, every broken promise.
And through it all, Kian's cruelty was etched into my memory like a permanent scar. The fear, the humiliation, the helplessness—all of it now had a shape, a presence in my home.
And I hated him.
Hated Daniel.
Hated the fact that I had once trusted either of them.
Because now I understood: my fear was justified. My hatred was righteous.
And karma was watching.
I gasped as the memory loosened its grip, and suddenly I was back in my living room—standing, shaking, staring at the blood-smeared footprints.
He was back.
He was alive.
But something else was here, too.
Something older.
Something patient.
Something that remembered every wound he inflicted.
Karma.
A presence, no longer abstract. A force that moved through my home, watching me, urging me to face what I had buried.
Only now… it wasn't just his crime that was being counted.
It was everything tangled around it.
Everything unfinished.
Everything owed.
---
The next morning, exhaustion wrapped around me like chains, but I forced myself outside. I needed air. I needed distance. I needed the sun, though even the daylight felt dimmer than usual.
I walked down my street, and every few steps, I felt it—that prickling at the back of my neck. That twist of instinct that said: you're not alone.
I glanced behind me.
No one.
But the feeling didn't leave.
I kept walking. Faster.
Still watched.
Still followed.
Still hunted.
A shadow darted across the sidewalk beside me, long and thin, though no person cast it. I stopped. My breath hitched.
The shadow paused too.
It stretched.
Lengthened.
Reached toward me.
I stumbled backward, my heart nearly tearing itself out of my chest. I blinked—
And the shadow snapped back to its normal shape.
Just… a streetlight's shadow.
Or that's what anyone else would have believed.
But I knew better.
Something stalked me.
Something tied to karma's arrival.
Something that wanted me to witness.
I returned home in a panic, slamming the door behind me, locking it, then locking it again. I leaned against the wood, trying to breathe.
For a moment, the house was quiet.
Then—
A whisper.
Soft.
Almost tender.
Right beside my ear.
"Watch."
I didn't scream.
I couldn't.
My voice was gone.
---
I was no longer just remembering ghosts.
I was living with them.
And one of them had begun to follow me.