Morning came too quickly.
Oliver woke to the fractured echo of a dream he couldn't remember—something cold brushing against his skin, something whispering his name from the dark. The moment he opened his eyes, the world felt… heavier, as though his room were submerged underwater.
He lay still for a long moment, staring at the ceiling, expecting the feeling to pass. It didn't.
His alarm vibrated on his nightstand, the soft buzz unusually sharp, almost grating. Oliver winced and reached over to silence it. His fingers brushed the metal frame, and even that light contact made him flinch. Everything felt dialed up—sound, touch, the faint beam of sunlight sneaking through the blinds.
"Get a grip," he muttered.
Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was the fact he'd spent last night walking alone under the streetlights, unable to shake the sense that the shadows were pulling toward him, listening.
Or maybe it was the woman.
No—he didn't want to think about that yet.
He pushed himself up, feeling a strange stiffness in his muscles, like he had run miles in his sleep. When his feet touched the cold floor, he froze for a moment.
The cold didn't bother him.
Not like it should've.
Oliver shook off the thought and moved through his morning routine—shower, clothes, backpack—yet everything felt slightly off, like a familiar movie with one frame edited wrong.
He caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
His eyes looked… clear. Too clear. The faintest ring of silver shimmered around the iris when he leaned closer. He blinked, and the shimmer was gone.
"Great," he sighed. "Now I'm hallucinating."
But the unease stayed.
He grabbed a piece of toast on his way out, took one bite, and immediately grimaced. The taste was muted, flat. Like chewing on cardboard.
He tossed it back onto the plate and left the house.
The walk to school was usually a mindless routine, but today every sound drilled into his awareness—the distant rumble of a car engine, the flutter of a bird landing on a branch, the squeak of a neighbor's front gate swinging open.
He wasn't just hearing these things.
He was feeling them.
As if the world were whispering directly into his bones.
Oliver rubbed his temples and kept walking. He tried to convince himself it was nerves, a lack of sleep, or maybe he was just getting sick. But the deeper part of him—the part that remembered shadowed alleyways and crimson eyes—knew better.
Something had happened to him.
And it was starting to show.
When he stepped through the school gates, everything hit him at once—a tidal wave of noise, perfume, sweat, chatter, footsteps, laughter. The campus had always been loud, but now it felt like the volume had been turned up to a painful max.
He winced, gripping his backpack strap tighter.
"Oliver!" Someone waved from the courtyard.
It was Maren—always overly awake for someone who claimed to hate mornings. She jogged over.
"You look terrible," she said cheerfully.
"Thanks," he replied flatly.
Her expression softened. "Rough night?"
"You could say that."
"You didn't sleep?"
"Not really." Not wrong, but not the truth.
Maren leaned in to peer at his face. "Your eyes look… different."
His heart skipped.
"Different how?"
"I dunno. Sharper? Clearer? Like you're wearing contacts." She squinted. "But you don't wear contacts."
He forced a laugh. "Maybe it's the lighting."
"It's cloudy."
"Yeah. Guess even the clouds are helping me out today."
She smirked, but worry lingered in her eyes. "If you feel sick, go to the nurse, okay?"
"Yeah, sure."
He had no intention of doing that.
The first two classes were a blur. His senses fluctuated between unbearably sharp and strangely distant, like his body couldn't decide what level of human it wanted him to be.
During English, he swore he could hear the teacher turning pages from across the room—the soft, whispery drag of paper against paper.
During Math, he felt every heartbeat in his body, each thump a quiet fist knocking against his ribs.
And by the time lunch rolled around, even the fluorescent lights felt hostile, buzzing in his skull like wasps.
He sat at his usual table, head in his hands, forcing himself to breathe slow.
Maren plopped her tray across from him. "You're seriously pale, Oliver. Like—ghost pale."
He looked at his hands.
She was right.
His skin looked almost translucent, veins faintly visible beneath.
"What's up?" she asked.
He opened his mouth to answer—then froze.
A student across the cafeteria had just bit into an apple.
He heard it. Not just the sound.
He heard the juice burst beneath the teeth, the skin crack, the fibers tear. It sounded impossibly vivid, magnified, like his ears were pressed right up against the kid's mouth.
Oliver's stomach twisted.
Not in disgust.
But in hunger.
Not for the apple.
For something else.
Something warm.
Something alive.
He pushed back from the table so quickly Maren jolted. "I— I need some air."
"Oliver, wait—"
But he was already moving.
He stumbled out the back doors into the courtyard, gripping the railing as the world pitched around him. His heart hammered—with fear, yes, but also something else. Something feral. Something ancient.
The air tasted different out here. Clean. Sharp. He could smell everything—the grass, the wet pavement, the faint rust scent of blood from someone's scraped knee nearby.
His throat tightened.
He wasn't supposed to notice that.
He wasn't supposed to want that.
Oliver pressed a hand against his chest, trying to ground himself. "What the hell is happening to me…"
The memory struck him then—an alley washed in moonlight, a woman with pale skin and eyes like dying stars, her cold fingers brushing his neck.
A whisper.
"I've chosen you."
Oliver shivered violently.
He didn't know who she was. He didn't know what she had done. But he remembered her teeth glinting. He remembered the moment everything faded to black—the warmth draining from his veins, replaced by something colder.
Something hungry.
"Oliver?"
He spun.
Maren stood in the doorway, worry etched deep across her face.
"You left like you were gonna be sick. Are you okay?"
He opened his mouth, ready to lie, but the words felt stuck in his throat. She took a few steps toward him before he instinctively backed away.
She froze.
"Why… did you flinch?"
Oliver didn't know how to answer.
Because he could hear her heartbeat from here.
Because it sounded warm.
Because it made part of him want to step closer.
Because it made another part want to run.
"I'm just… overwhelmed," he said finally. "Everything feels too loud."
"Loud?"
He nodded. "Like the world's screaming at me."
She stepped closer, slower this time. "Hey. Whatever's going on, you can talk to me."
Her voice—soft and sincere—cut through the static in his mind. Grounded him, if only a little.
But the fear stayed.
Not fear of her.
Fear for her.
"I just need some time," he murmured.
Maren's expression fell, but she nodded. "Okay. But if it gets worse, promise you'll tell someone."
He didn't make that promise.
Because how could he?
How do you tell someone you're turning into something else?
Something wrong?
She hesitated a moment longer before heading back inside, leaving him alone with the echo of her heartbeat still pulsing in his ears.
Oliver sank onto the cold metal steps, fingers trembling.
His senses kept shifting, warping. The sunlight overhead felt like needles pricking at his skin—not burning, but irritating, like his body was rejecting it.
And beneath everything, like a distant storm, he felt it—
A pull.
A call.
A whisper in a voice he should not recognize.
"Night is coming, Oliver…"
He exhaled shakily, staring at his trembling hands.
Today was the day the sun felt wrong.
Today was the day his body began betraying him.
Today was the day he realized the truth he'd been avoiding since last night:
Whatever that woman did to him…
It wasn't finished.
And night would bring the next step.