Chapter 2: Silence After the Howl
The room was too quiet.
LyraVale stared at the screen, her reflection faintly visible against the harsh white letters:
Connection Lost.
They didn't flicker. They didn't change. They didn't blink. They were final.
"…Hello?" she whispered.
Her voice sounded too loud, too human, in the empty room. Even the soft hum of her computer fans felt deafening. Somewhere outside, a car passed. Life went on. The disconnect made her chest tighten.
She reached for the keyboard, then stopped.
What was she supposed to do? What could she do?
Her VTuber model remained frozen mid-expression, eyes wide, mouth half-curved into a smile that no longer fit. It looked like a mask stuck on a face that didn't belong there.
Her headset slipped from her head and hit the desk with a soft clack.
"No," she breathed. "No, no, no—"
She stood too quickly. The chair scraped across the floor. Her heart pounded. Her breath came fast, uneven, as if it had been held the entire stream. Every sound—the snap of branches, the snarl, the crack of bones, his eyes—replayed in her head, sharper than before.
He told me to mute the stream.
Her stomach twisted.
She hadn't listened.
Her phone buzzed.
Once.
Twice.
Then nonstop.
She ignored it at first.
Instead, she slid down the wall, wrapping her arms around herself, knees pulled tight to her chest. The smell of her room—lavender spray, electronics, warm fabric—felt wrong, suffocating, like someone had shoved the forest into her chest and left her with the echo.
Her phone buzzed again. This time, she looked.
Trending: #LyraVale
Trending: #ForestStream
Trending: #Werewolf
Her breath hitched.
"No," she whispered. "It can't be this fast…"
Clips were already everywhere. Fans had slowed the footage, zoomed in, highlighted his eyes in red. Others isolated the audio, boosting the sounds of cracking bones. Bold titles screamed: REAL OR HOAX??
Some users pinned the location. Others circled the bruises. Comments flew past her eyes so fast she could barely read them. Accusations, theories, pleas, panic.
Her chest tightened until it hurt.
"They're tearing you apart," she murmured, pressing a hand to her mouth. "And you're not even here to defend yourself."
Her jacket draped over her chair caught her attention—the one she'd worn earlier in the forest. A dark smear ran along the sleeve.
Blood.
Not hers.
Her knees nearly buckled. She sank to the floor again, breathing fast. Her fingers trembled as they hovered over the phone.
A private message appeared. Unknown sender:
If that wasn't staged, your friend is in serious danger.
Her heart skipped. Her fingers froze.
Another message:
People are already organizing search parties. Not all of them mean well.
Lyra swallowed hard.
Images flashed in her mind: strangers combing the forest, cameras, drones, weapons. Hunters. The wrong kind of attention. Someone could hurt him before she even got there.
"He doesn't come back," she whispered to the empty room.
And suddenly, staying here, staring at dead screens and notifications, felt unbearable.
She wiped tears from her cheeks. Her hands shook violently, but her movements became purposeful. Bag. Jacket. Keys. Phone.
Her phone buzzed again. She ignored it.
She stood by the door, heart hammering. Fear gnawed at her chest, sharp and urgent. She imagined him out there, injured, alone, hiding… and every second she waited could make the difference.
"Don't let go," she whispered—to herself, to him, to whatever fragile thread still connected them.
The hum of her PC, the quiet of her room, the faint city noises outside—they all felt wrong now.
She stepped out of her room and closed the door softly behind her. The internet screamed without her. The world had already seen him. Already decided.
Somewhere in the forest, he was still alive.
And she would find him.