Mark stopped near the lockers, shoulders tense.
"There's something wrong with Clara."
Simon looked up from his phone. "Wrong how? She's new. Everyone's weird on day one."
"No," Mark said. "Not that kind of wrong."
Iris turned to him. "Then what?"
He hesitated. Just a second too long.
"I saw markings. On her notebook. Not doodles. Symbols."
Simon shrugged. "Bro, drawing weird stuff isn't a crime."
Mark exhaled sharply. "I saw the same markings last night."
That made Iris pause. "Last night… where?"
Simon leaned in. "Yeah, where exactly?"
Mark rubbed the back of his neck. "At the banquet."
Both of them froze.
"The meeting had hunters there," Mark continued, voice low now. "They showed photos. Dead bodies. People who went missing."
Iris's face drained of color.
"They were… mutilated," Mark said. "And every single one of them had those same markings carved into their skin."
Silence.
Simon stared at him. "How could you forget to tell us that?"
"I didn't forget," Mark snapped, then softened. "I just—there was too much happening. And I didn't know if it meant anything."
Iris swallowed. "And now you do."
Mark nodded. "Yeah."
Simon looked between them, nervous energy kicking in.
"So let me get this straight. New girl shows up. Draws murder-symbols. And somehow you feel this urge to investigate."
He forced a laugh. "Great. Of course this happens after I become friends with a werewolf."
Iris didn't smile.
"She left school early," she said. "Walked alone."
Mark met her eyes. "I know."
Simon sighed. "no please don't"
Mark nodded.
"We follow her."
Simon sigh
"Oh come-on"
They followed Clara at a distance—far enough to look accidental, close enough that Mark never lost her scent. She didn't walk like someone afraid. She walked like someone aware.
She turned three corners. Crossed a narrow street. Stopped at a house that looked… forgotten.
Small. Unlit. No car. No sound.
Clara unlocked the door and went inside without looking back.
Simon whispered, "She lives alone?"
Iris frowned. "That's not normal."
Mark didn't answer. He was already focused.
The Listening
He closed his eyes.
Pushed his hearing outward.
Heartbeat. Wind. Distant traffic. A dog barking four streets away.
Then—nothing.
It wasn't silence.
It was blocked.
Like trying to tune a radio and hitting pure static.
"What?" Simon whispered. "What do you hear?"
Mark opened his eyes slowly.
"I can hear a man coughing two houses down," he said.
"I can hear a fridge humming inside the next block."
He stared at the house.
"But that place?"
He shook his head.
"It's like… the sound goes in and never comes back."
Iris swallowed. "That's impossible."
Mark didn't look at her.
"I know."
Meanwhile Inside the house,
The living room was lit only by candles placed in a wide circle on the floor. Every flame stood unnaturally still, as if time itself was holding its breath. At the center of the circle, Clara sat cross-legged, back straight, eyes closed.
She hadn't moved in minutes.
Her chest didn't rise.
Her fingers didn't twitch.
She looked less like a girl and more like a statue someone had forgotten to finish.
Outside, across the street, Mark slowed his steps.
Something was wrong.
Not loud wrong.
Not obvious wrong.
It was the kind of wrong that crawled under the skin.
He tilted his head slightly, listening.
Nothing.
No heartbeat from inside the house. No movement. No breath. It felt like trying to tune into a radio station that should exist—but every frequency collapsed into static the moment he focused.
Iris felt it next.
She stopped walking, her hand instinctively tightening around her sleeve. Her pulse thudded harder, her skin prickling as if the air itself had turned hostile.
Simon swallowed.
"I don't like this place," he muttered. "At all."
Before Mark could respond, the streetlight at the corner flickered once.
Then—
A figure stood beneath it.
It hadn't walked into view. It hadn't emerged from anywhere. One moment the space was empty—
The next, it wasn't.
The robe swallowed the shape of the body completely, fabric darker than the night itself. No face was visible beneath the hood. Symbols faintly etched along the sleeves shimmered for a heartbeat, then dulled.
The figure turned its head.
Straight toward Clara's house.
Mark's muscles tensed instantly. His wolf howled a single word through his veins.
Predator.
The robed figure moved.
Not fast.
Not slow.
Certain.
It crossed the distance to the house without urgency, as if nothing in the world could stop it from reaching its destination. The front door handle turned with a soft click.
Mark moved.
"Iris. Simon. Now."
They didn't argue.
The door opened inward.
The robed figure stepped inside.
And the moment it crossed the threshold, Mark felt it—
A pressure snap into place, like invisible teeth closing around the house.
They sprinted.
Mark hit the door shoulder-first, the wood cracking as it burst open. Iris and Simon rushed in behind him.
Candlelight flooded their vision.
The circle with weird Markings.
The girl.
Clara sat in the center, unmoving, eyes closed, completely defenseless.
The robed figure stood only a few steps away from her. A blade emerged in robed figure's hand out of thin air.
Then it froze.
Slowly, deliberately, it turned.
The hood tilted toward Mark first.
Then Iris.
Then Simon.
The symbols on the robe reacted—flickering sharply, like something recalculating.
This wasn't part of the design.
Mark stepped forward, positioning himself instinctively between the figure and Clara. Iris felt something answer inside her chest, low and unfamiliar. Simon's breath came shallow, every instinct screaming that he should not be here—and yet his feet refused to move.
The robed figure took one step back.
The air warped.
The symbols flared once—bright, jagged, wrong—then folded inward on themselves.
And the figure vanished.
No smoke.
No sound.
No trace.
The pressure snapped.
The candles around the circle guttered violently, flames collapsing all at once. Clara's body jerked forward as if something had been ripped away.
She gasped.
Her eyes flew open.
And the first thing she saw—
Was Mark.
Iris.
Simon.
Staring down at her.