Another day for work. Eliana woke before her alarm.
That alone unsettled her. She never wakes up before her alarm.
She lay still in her small apartment, the city murmuring outside her window. Nothing was wrong. Nothing had changed. And yet her pulse was already awake, steady but alert, like it was waiting for something.
Or someone.
She sat up in bed.
The memory of the bar came back without warning.
Dark eyes.
A stillness that had wrapped around her like a held breath.
The way the world had narrowed until there was only him.
She pulled the sheets away, pressing a hand to her chest. There was no heat this time. No flare of something dangerous. Just a low, persistent awareness—like embers refusing to cool.
Get a grip, she told herself.
By the time she stepped into the shower, the feeling followed her. Not fear. Not paranoia.
But awareness.
As if she were no longer alone in her own life.
⸻
The city looked the same on her walk to work—crowded sidewalks, honking traffic, street vendors calling out to no one in particular. Yet everything felt sharper. Sounds carried farther. Scents lingered longer. Even colors seemed deeper, heavier. And something almost deeper than what the eyes can see.
She caught her reflection in a shop window and paused.
Her eyes looked… different.
Not visibly. Not in a way anyone else would notice. But she recognized the intensity in them. A focus she hadn't had before. A stillness beneath the surface.
The law firm towered ahead of her, all glass and ambition. She squared her shoulders and stepped inside.
Normal life.
That was the goal.
She tried to lose herself in work—briefs, research, meetings that went nowhere. But the sense of being watched followed her through every hallway, every elevator ride. Not eyes on her back.
Something deeper.
Like attention.
At one point, she looked up suddenly, heart skipping, convinced she would find someone standing there.
But there was no one.
Daniel passed her desk an hour later, files tucked under his arm. "You look tired," he said casually. "Long night?"
She met his gaze, unblinking. "Not long enough."
He scoffed and walked away.
The air felt heavier after that, as if the building itself had noticed her mood.
When the lights flickered overhead, she froze.
Just for a second.
No one else reacted.
Coincidence, she told herself.
But her hands trembled as she gathered her things at the end of the day.
Night had fallen by the time she reached her apartment. The streetlamp outside her building buzzed faintly, casting long shadows across the pavement. Eliana paused at the entrance, keys clenched between her fingers.
The feeling surged. She turned slowly.
The street was empty. Still, her heartbeat refused to calm.
Inside her apartment, she locked the door and leaned against it, exhaling. Silence wrapped around her, thick and unnatural. She crossed the room, drew the curtains, and poured herself a glass of water.
Her reflection in the dark window startled her.
For a moment—just a moment—she thought she saw something behind her.
A shadow where there shouldn't be one.
She spun around.
Nothing.
The apartment was exactly as she'd left it.
Eliana sat cross-legged on her bed, her laptop balanced in front of her, the glow of the screen the only light in the apartment. The city outside had quieted into its late-night rhythm—distant sirens, the hum of traffic, the occasional shout drifting up from the street below.
She should have stopped thinking about the Raventport case.
Instead, she opened the folder she'd hidden beneath three layers of innocuous file names.
Her work.
Notes she wasn't supposed to have. Photos she'd memorized before access had been revoked. Autopsy summaries copied line by line when no one was looking.
She exhaled slowly and clicked the first image.
The victim lay still, expression frozen in something far worse than pain.
Fear.
Not the kind that came with surprise or panic. This was deeper. Darker. As if whatever had ended their life hadn't just taken breath or blood—but something essential.
Eliana's fingers hovered over the keyboard.
"This definitely does not look human," she murmured.
She pulled up the timeline she'd constructed—times of death, locations, witness statements. On their own, each killing looked isolated. Random. But together…
A pattern emerged.
Every victim had been alone.
Every location was shadowed, poorly lit, forgotten by the city.
Every time of death fell within a precise window after sunset.
Too precise.
She zoomed in on a still frame taken from a nearby security camera. The footage was distorted, the image warped around the moment the victim disappeared from view.
"Like the camera didn't want to see it," she whispered.
Her eyes drifted back to the autopsy notes.
No signs of prolonged struggle.
No defensive wounds.
Heart stopped abruptly.
But what caught her attention—every time—were the eyes.
Witnesses had mentioned it in passing. Coroners had avoided writing it directly. But the photographs didn't lie.
The victims looked… hollow.
As if whatever they'd seen in their final moments had reached into them and taken something invisible.
Like their soul was being pulled away.
The thought sent a chill down her spine.
Eliana leaned back, rubbing her temples. "Calm down Eli," she told herself. "This is just stress."
But the feeling inside her disagreed.
She dug deeper—cross-referencing older cases, cold files. Her fingers moved faster now, instinct guiding her more than logic.
Nothing.
No shared suspects.
No consistent evidence.
No motive that made sense.
Every path led to a dead end.
Hours passed without her noticing. The clock read 2:17 a.m. when she finally stopped typing.
Her screen stared back at her, full of half-formed theories and unanswered questions.
She had found the pattern.
She had found the fear.
But not the cause.
Eliana closed the laptop slowly, frustration simmering beneath her skin. The heat rose again—faint, restrained, like something waking but not yet ready to be seen.
Whatever had done this wasn't careless.
It was strategic.
Careful.
And it knew how to disappear.
Almost like it was demonic.
She stood and moved to the window, peering out at the darkened street below. The sense of being watched returned, stronger now. Not threatening.
Observant.
As if something out there was aware that she was getting too close.
"What the hell is going on with me?" she whispered.
The city offered no answer.
But deep inside, something answered back—
Soon.