Patterns in the Mist.
Charlotte awoke to the sound of rain tapping against her window, a soft rhythm that matched the anxious beating of her heart. The house was still, yet she felt a presence, a subtle weight pressing against the walls, as if Grey Hollow itself was breathing around her.
She dressed quickly and stepped outside. The fog clung to the streets like a living thing, curling around the crooked houses and twisting the familiar corners into strange, unrecognizable forms. Each step she took seemed to echo longer than it should, as if the town were measuring her movements.
From a distance, she noticed a figure moving along the street. At first, she thought it was a townsman, but as she focused, she realized it was someone she had already seen—a shadowy figure repeating the same path, over and over, appearing and disappearing like a glitch in her memory. Charlotte's pulse quickened. Was she imagining it? The pattern was too precise.
Objects along the path seemed to shift in subtle ways. A lamppost that had been crooked yesterday now leaned the other direction. A door she remembered as closed yesterday was ajar. A stray scarf appeared again, the same pattern as before. Charlotte tried to grasp at certainty, but it slipped like water through her fingers.
She turned a corner and found a shop she had passed countless times, yet its sign was different. Letters rearranged themselves in her mind as she read: the name remained familiar yet wrong, like an echo of itself. Inside, the shelves were stocked with items she didn't recognize, yet each item triggered vague memories she could not place.
A soft whisper grazed her ear: "You're late…" It wasn't from anyone visible. Charlotte spun, but the street was empty. Only the mist moved around her, swirling with subtle intention.
Suddenly, she noticed a shadow on the ground that did not belong to any object. It shifted and stretched unnaturally, moving independently, mimicking her steps before vanishing when she looked directly at it. Fear pricked her spine, a cold, icy sensation. The town was alive, aware, and it was watching her closely.
By the time she returned home, Charlotte's mind was a whirlwind of confusion and unease. Nothing in Grey Hollow stayed constant; everything repeated, shifted, and contradicted memory. Even the mantra echoed in her mind, now louder and more menacing: Nothing happened here. Yet everything—shadows, whispers, objects—insisted otherwise.
As she closed the door behind her, she caught a glimpse of the shadow figure again, just beyond the windowpane, watching silently. Charlotte shivered. The town's secrets were no longer subtle—they were beginning to reveal themselves, one distorted reflection at a time.