Breach 1.02
January 6th, 2011
Rain ticked softly against the windows of the Brockton Bay Police Department, turning the late evening into a gray smear of reflected light and wet asphalt. Inside, the building carried the steady background noise of phones, keyboards, and low conversations. Routine noise. The sort that usually meant the city was behaving itself for a few hours.
The front doors opened and two PRT officers stepped in from the rain.
They made an odd pair at first glance.
The younger one entered first. His posture was straight, controlled. His eyes swept the room quickly but thoroughly, taking in exits, personnel, the layout of the desks and hallways. A dark jacket bearing the insignia of the Parahuman Response Team sat neatly across his shoulders.
The man behind him walked with an entirely different energy.
He was older, broader, his coat hanging open despite the damp weather outside. His expression carried the weary tolerance of someone who had long ago accepted that most assignments were inconvenient rather than important. He glanced around the station once, taking in the clutter and the smell with mild disinterest before shoving his hands into his pockets.
At the front desk they paused. The receptionist looked up, professional, bored in the specific way that comes from seeing emergencies worn down into paperwork.
Only when they were an arm's length from the counter did the man in the back pocket of his jacket slide a PRT badge across the laminate. The older officer set a folder on the desk without fanfare.
"Officer Hank Anderson," said the older officer before he gestured toward the man behind him. "And this is my partner Officer Connor Dechart. We're here to assume custody of evidence related to the Winslow High case."
For a moment the desk officer looked like he was about to give a routine response.
Then something shifted.
"Locker incident," he said.
The way he said it carried weight. Connor noticed immediately. His posture did not change, but his attention did sharpen a fraction.
"That is correct," he said.
The desk officer let out a quiet breath through his nose and rubbed the back of his neck before Connor continued.
"We were informed the remains were transferred here for forensic analysis."
The officer leaned back slightly in his chair.
"They were. Forensics finished their rush work a little while ago. Detective unit cleared the release for PRT custody."
He pushed himself up from the desk.
"Follow me."
They moved through the station corridors, passing a few curious looks from detectives who had clearly heard the rumors already circulating through the building. Nobody stopped them. The presence of the PRT patches tended to do that. The hall opened into the forensic lab. The room was brightly lit and sterile, the air cooler than the rest of the station. Stainless steel surfaces reflected the harsh overhead lights, and the smell of antiseptic replaced the coffee and paper of the outer offices. A technician stood beside a workstation, sorting through a stack of reports. On the central table sat a sealed biohazard container, heavy plastic reinforced with multiple locking clips and bright red evidence seals.
Connor's gaze went to the container immediately.
The technician noticed.
"You must be the PRT pickup," he said.
Connor stepped forward.
"Yeah, that's us," said Hank before Connor could say anything.
The technician slid a thin report across the table.
"That's everything we were able to run before the transfer."
Connor opened it and began reading.
"You finished the analysis already?" Hank asked the technician. "It's only been a few hours."
"As much as we could," the man replied. "PRT jurisdiction means we don't dig any deeper than necessary. We have a good enough setup for rush jobs though, so it didn't take long."
Connor closed the folder halfway, eyes lifting.
"You confirmed the identity," he asked.
"Only a few minutes ago," the tech said without padding the sentence. "We haven't had time to inform the next of kin yet. We couldn't use dental. The teeth were in fragments. Most of the soft tissue had broken down so badly we couldn't trust it. Too much risk of contamination from everything that was in that locker. The dental pulp was the only place we could still recover intact genetic material. Once we had that, we compared the sample to personal effects from the home. Confirmed match to familial samples. Positive identification as Taylor Hebert, time of death estimated within a narrow window consistent with arrival at school earlier this morning."
Hank grimaced slightly. "Locker wasn't exactly a clean environment, huh?"
"You could say that. She was locked in there with used feminine hygiene products," said the technician, causing Hank to make a face.
"We couldn't risk pulling DNA from the soft tissue," the tech continued. "Too much foreign biological material in that environment. The pulp cavity in the teeth was the only place we could be confident the sample was uncontaminated."
Connor nodded before taking out a notebook and pen. Quickly, he began writing notes.
Hank straightened a little.
"So what did you find besides that?"
The tech hesitated in that specific way that said there was an issue someone had tried to phrase gently and failed.
"There are a few things missing that we would normally expect to see," he said. "There isn't much putrefactive gas for this stage of decomposition. Hardly any insect activity either. And the tissue itself doesn't show the normal fibrous breakdown you see when a body decomposes."
Connor's pen slowed.
"Instead," the technician continued, "the material presents as a kind of homogenized mass. Not progressive decay. More like everything broke down at once. There are markers consistent with collagen denaturing under heat, but not in a way that matches normal thermal exposure. It isn't classic necrosis and it wasn't a slow process. The tissue structure looks destabilized, like the body just broke down very quickly."
Hank leaned on the counter. "So, someone found a way to microwave a body and then stir it up," he said, his voice was casual.
The tech did not laugh. "We ruled out exogenous heat sources at the scene. No accelerants in evidence. No evidence of the kind of thermal exposure that would account for the molecular signature we see. The breakdown is too uniform for that. It reads…" He paused, as if searching for the right words. "It reads like the body just became a viscous biological slurry with bone fragments suspended inside it."
Connor's face stayed even, but his jaw tightened.
"So she melted?" asked Hank bluntly.
The technician's eyes did not flinch at Hank's blunt summary. He shifted his weight, rubbing the bridge of his nose under the harsh light.
"Yeah, something like that," he said flatly. "Not my problem anymore. I'll call someone to move it to your transport, and then it's yours."
Hank raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly. "Sounds simple enough."
Connor gave a small nod, jotting a few more notes. "Understood. Chain of custody begins once it's in our vehicle. No further analysis required on your end?"
"None," the technician said, finally letting his shoulders relax. He glanced at the clock on the wall. "I've got a backlog of crimes that do fall within our jurisdiction to deal with. All that's still waiting. So if there's nothing else…"
The technician trailed off.
"No, we got it from here," said Hank.
The Technician nodded, glancing at the clock before he pulled his radio from his belt and spoke into it in clipped tones. Someone replied, and within ten minutes two uniformed transport techs in full biohazard overalls appeared in the doorway, pushing a wheeled cradle that had been designed to cradle anything too ugly or dangerous to be carried by hand.
They eased the cradle alongside the table and slid the crate onto it.
Connor's eyes narrowed as the crate shifted on the cradle, the wheels squeaking faintly against the tile. The plastic walls were thick and frosted, not completely transparent, but enough of the interior showed in vague shapes and shifting shadows. He had expected the mass to shift slightly under the motion, the way a fluid would slosh with every bump and turn, but this… this seemed different.
It wasn't random. The movement had a rhythm, deliberate, almost searching. When the container was placed on the, a part of the interior darkened briefly, stretched, then receded. Connor's pen paused mid-note. He tilted his head, studying it. This mass… it seemed aware of the direction of travel, almost compensating for it.
The rest of the room was calm, Hank chatting casually with one of the transport techs.
Hank noticed the shift in his partner's posture and looked over. "What?"
Connor didn't answer immediately. He only stared at the container, eyes calculating, hand tightening slightly on his pen.
"Sorry. Just being thorough," said Connor.
He wasn't keeping it to himself. Not exactly. He was just… uncertain. The movement had been subtle, fleeting, almost imperceptible. He needed confirmation before he risked drawing attention to a possibility that might not even exist. He glanced at Hank, whose attention was already drifting back to chatting with one of the techs. Nothing in Hank's expression suggested he had noticed, or that he would. Connor's eyes flicked back to the crate.
It could be his imagination. Fluids did odd things in containment. Lighting cast strange shadows. He told himself that. Yet the memory of that brief darkening and stretching inside the crate lingered, uneasy.
Hank waved him casually. "You coming or you gonna stare at that thing all day?"
Connor straightened and nodded. "Sorry, moving now."
He did not take his eyes entirely off the crate as the transport techs began wheeling it toward the exit.
The corridor stretched a little longer than Connor expected, a series of harsh fluorescent lights bouncing off the polished tile. The crate rolled steadily between the four hands of the transport techs, its wheels squeaking faintly with each turn.
Connor kept his gaze trained on it, noting the opaque walls and the way light barely penetrated the frosted plastic. For a moment he half-expected to see the shadows shift again.
They didn't.
He studied it closely, every subtle ridge and curve in the container, every faint movement in the fluid mass. Nothing unusual. No stretching, no compensatory darkening, just the expected, passive slosh of a dense, viscous material as it tilted gently with each push. Connor allowed himself a slow, steadying breath, letting his pen lower slightly. Maybe he had been mistaken. Maybe the first movement had just been a trick of the lighting, a fleeting play of shadow across the surface.
Hank ambled beside him, hands shoved into his coat pockets, speaking idly to one of the techs about the van waiting outside.
"Figures the weather's gonna be crap all day," he said, half to himself.
Connor said nothing. His attention remained on the crate until they reached the van, the back doors already swung open to receive them. The air smelled faintly of rain and exhaust, a clean, sharp scent that contrasted with the antiseptic of the lab. The techs guided the wheeled cradle up the small ramp, easing the crate into the van's cargo area.
Connor's eyes flicked over the interior of the vehicle, noting the reinforced floor, the restraint straps, the empty compartments for other biohazard containers. It was standard transport procedure, secure and sterile. Still, he didn't let his guard down.
Once the crate was seated squarely, one tech fastened the straps across it, the thick nylon bands snapping tight. Connor's hand brushed lightly along the edge, not touching the container itself but close enough to feel its slight vibration under the bands.
The last tech gave a thumbs-up to Hank. "Good to go."
Hank nodded as the doors were closed. Connor finally allowed himself to take a small step back, straightening his coat.
"Alright," Hank muttered. "Let's get this over with."
Connor gave a small nod. Without another glance toward the sealed rear doors, he walked around the side of the vehicle toward the passenger side. Hank circled the other direction toward the driver's seat, boots splashing lightly through shallow puddles forming along the curb.
The engine turned over with a low rumble.
Connor pulled his notebook back out briefly, flipping through the pages he had just written. His pen tapped once against the margin as he reviewed the technician's statements, the chain-of-custody times, the condition of the remains.
Across the cab, Hank adjusted the mirrors with practiced flicks of his hand.
"PRT morgue first," he said. "Then paperwork hell."
"That is the job," said Connor.
Hank snorted quietly at that as he merged into traffic, the van's engine settling into a steady hum as they pulled onto the main road. Rain streaked across the windshield. For a minute neither of them spoke.
Then Hank sighed.
"Kid melts in a locker," he said. "I swear this city keeps trying to top itself."
Connor looked out the passenger window, watching storefronts slide past. His thoughts lingered on the container in the back of the van. Not the report.
The movement he thought he saw.
He replayed the moment in his mind. How the shadow inside the crate had stretched, then pulled back. He still wasn't sure if he imagined it or not.
"Something bothering you?" Hank asked.
Connor blinked once, pulling his attention back to the road ahead.
"No."
Hank snorted softly.
"That sounded convincing."
Connor did not answer right away.
The van rolled steadily through the gray streets of Brockton Bay, tires hissing against wet pavement. The memory replayed itself again: the shadow inside the crate stretching, pressing briefly against the interior wall before sliding away. Subtle. Quick. Easy to dismiss.
Maybe it had been nothing.
Maybe it hadn't.
Hank drove with one hand resting on the wheel, the other drumming absently against the door. After a moment he glanced sideways.
"You're doing that thing again," he said.
Connor turned slightly, glancing at Hank.
"What thing?"
"The quiet one," Hank replied. "Where you stare at nothing and pretend you're not thinking about something. Lotta people do that when they actually are thinking about something, and you're one of them. So, spit it out already."
Connor looked forward again, a sigh escaping his lips. For several seconds he said nothing.
"When they moved the container in the lab," he said, "I observed something… unusual."
Hank's fingers stopped drumming, he gave a side glance at his partner.
"Unusual how?"
Connor hesitated.
"I am not… entirely certain," he admitted. "It may have been an artifact of the lighting or fluid displacement inside the container."
Hank gave him a sideways look, brow raised.
"That's a lot of words for 'maybe.' You went to one of them Ivy League schools didn't you?"
Connor inclined his head slightly before nodding.
"Yale," he said.
"Fucking knew it," said Hank.
The van passed through another intersection.
Hank waited.
"Well, you going to explain what you saw, or are you going to make me guess?" asked Hank.
Connor exhaled quietly.
"The contents of the container moved," he said.
Hank frowned.
"Yeah. It's a box full of liquefied corpse. That tends to happen. You did say they were moving it right?"
Connor shook his head once.
"No. Not like that."
That got Hank's attention.
"How then?"
Connor chose his words carefully.
"The movement appeared… directional."
That got Hank's attention.
"Directional," he repeated.
Connor nodded once.
"A portion of the mass stretched toward one side of the container when it was lifted. It looked like it didn't exactly move in the direction it should have. It almost appeared to compensate for the sudden movement."
Hank looked back at the road, processing that.
"You're saying it moved on purpose?"
"No. I mean…I'm not exactly an expert on fluid dynamics. It could have been lighting distortion through the plastic. Or a normal redistribution of the mass that just appeared intentional but wasn't."
"Or," Hank said slowly, "it moved."
Connor didn't respond to that.
Hank tapped his fingers lightly against the steering wheel.
"You seen it do it again?"
"No."
"Anything else weird?"
"No."
Hank leaned back slightly in his seat.
"Okay," he said.
Hank was silent again.
Then he gave a short grunt.
"Well."
Connor glanced at him.
"Well?" he repeated.
Hank shrugged slightly.
"If this is parahuman-related, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing I've heard this month. Actually, you know what that sounds like."
Connor glanced toward him.
Hank's expression had shifted. The casual tone was still there, but there was a sharper edge to his attention now.
"It sounds like a breaker," Hank said.
Connor blinked once.
"That possibility did occur to me," he said. "However, it does not fully align with the evidence."
Hank flicked him a look. "Well, why not?"
Connor lifted the small notebook from his lap, tapping it once with the pen.
"Forensics confirmed the victim's identity through genetic testing," he said.
Hank frowned slightly.
"And?"
Connor's tone remained even.
"Breaker states typically represent a fundamental alteration of the body's structure," he explained. "Energy dispersal, particulate forms, altered matter configurations. In the cases I've studied, there's usually nothing left you could call normal human cells, sometimes nothing cellular at all."
Hank's brow creased a little deeper.
"In English, please."
Connor glanced forward. "Right. Basically, if this were a standard breaker transformation, there wouldn't be any intact human DNA for forensics to identify. Nothing they could trace back to the original person."
Hank was quiet for a moment as the van rolled through another intersection.
"Right," he said slowly. "Because they're… not really made of meat anymore."
"Correct, can't get blood from a stone."
Hank nodded slowly.
"I suppose that's true," said Hank, "and breakers usually snap back to normal, unless their powers are constantly on."
Connor didn't respond.
"How about a changer?" asked Hank.
Connor turned his head slightly.
"A Changer classification is more consistent with the physical evidence," he said.
Hank glanced at him. "Yeah?"
"Still doesn't fit," said Connor. "Changers that are amorphous in some way typically maintain a core structure, usually a brain, a central node where the Corona Pollentia resides. That's what allows them to control the transformation, to maintain a coherent self while the body shifts around."
Hank raised an eyebrow. "So, what's the problem? How do you know she doesn't have one of those?"
Connor tapped his notebook lightly. "If there were a core present in the remains, forensics would have found it. There's no evidence of any centralized organ. Nothing that could house the neurological control necessary for a traditional changer state. Breakers don't have that issue since they either are in their breaker state and have powers, or they're not in their breaker state and they don't. It's an on-off function."
Hank exhaled, leaning back in his seat.
"So maybe she's something in between? A lot of breakers have sub-classifications; in fact most do. Look at Shadow Stalker. Breaker, Mover, and Stranger."
Connor shrugged lightly, letting his gaze drift back to the rain-streaked windshield.
"Or… it was just a completely mundane situation, a trick of the light. Maybe we're reading too much into it. Based on the evidence, it's more likely she was a victim of a parahuman, rather than one herself."
Hank tapped the wheel once, slow and deliberate. "Yeah… maybe. Could be that simple." He let the words hang, then shook his head just a little. "But in our line of work? Simple doesn't exist. It's always better to assume the worst and take precautions than to get sloppy and regret it later."
Hank kept his eyes on the road, but his posture had changed slightly. The lazy slouch was gone. He sat a little straighter now, one hand resting firmly on the wheel.
"There is a first time for everything," Hank said, "parahumans don't tend to follow iron-clad rules, this could be one of those fringe cases. Point is, absence of precedent ain't proof of absence. She still could be a breaker, even with DNA, or a weird kind of changer, or fucking both. The classification system is just bullshit anyway. It's just a guideline for how we engage capes, not some law of nature that parahumans follow. There's a chance she's still in there, alive even."
Connor did not answer immediately.
The van rolled through a yellow light, the wipers sweeping away another sheet of rain.
"It's not... impossible," Connor said. "Just unlikely. I imagine if she were still alive, the reaction would not have been passive."
Hank glanced at him briefly before looking back at the road.
Connor continued.
"A newly triggered parahuman is usually disoriented, frightened, and operating on instinct. If she retained any awareness at all, the people who first handled the remains would have been perceived as a threat."
Hank's fingers tapped once against the steering wheel.
"Meaning she would've lashed out," he said.
Connor nodded once.
"Yes. Even unintentionally. Panic responses are common during the immediate aftermath of a trigger event."
He glanced down briefly at his notebook before closing it.
"According to the reports, the remains were collected at the scene, transported to the station, and subjected to multiple stages of forensic analysis," Connor said. "There were no recorded incidents. No sudden movements. No injuries to personnel."
Hank grunted softly.
Connor tapped his pen against his notebook. "Any one of these anomalies alone could be explained. A breaker with DNA? Could be a novel trigger. A changer without a core? Some unusual variant. No movement or reaction while being handled? Could just be shock or unconsciousness. But all of them together? That is a lot of exceptions stacked up. Statistically, it is unlikely she is active. If anything, the evidence leans toward her being gone."
Hank let out a low breath through his nose.
"You willing to bet on that?" asked Hank.
Connor said nothing. Traffic thinned as they moved farther from the downtown blocks, the gray skyline of Brockton Bay rising in damp concrete silhouettes beyond the windshield.
Hank tapped the steering wheel once.
"Alright," he said.
Connor glanced toward him.
"Alright?" he repeated.
"If there's even a chance that's a breaker state or some kind of blob changer," Hank said, "then we treat it like one."
Connor nodded slowly.
"I suppose... that would be the prudent approach. Still seems unlikely."
Hank flicked his eyes toward the metal partition behind them.
"Unlikely my ass. I've seen enough weird shit to assume the worst. I'd rather be paranoid than dead. We don't shake the van around, we don't start poking the box, and we definitely don't open the damn thing until we're inside a containment room."
"That was already the plan," Connor said calmly.
"Yeah, well," Hank replied, "now I'm a lot happier about that plan. If you're right, we'll find out soon enough; if not, well, let the lab boys figure it out."
Connor leaned back slightly in the passenger seat. Behind the metal wall, the reinforced crate sat exactly where the technicians had strapped it down.
The van hit a shallow bump in the road.
Inside the container, the viscous mass shifted.
Spores left behind from when the portal first opened grew into long threads within. Bone fragments rolled slowly through the thick suspension of fluid and softened tissue. Strands of denatured muscle fibers and dissolved connective tissue were drawing together in long, faint threads pressing outward as if testing the walls.
A thick ribbon of tissue slid across the interior, oozing along the container's wall. It crept in small arcs, testing the surface, stretching as if feeling for a weak spot. Bone fragments drifted along these currents as tendrils of flesh writhed along the bottom, slipping over each other, thick and sticky, struggling toward every weak seam but finding none.
There was no give.
No weak point.
Not yet.
Then, slowly, it drew itself inward, limbs of flesh contracting, bone fragments floating in the slick slurry. Threads of tissue drifted apart, bone fragments turning slowly in the fluid until they found a position of least resistance, suspended in waiting.
Inside the crate, the mass rested once more.
For now.Last edited: Mar 21, 2026469Beastrider9Mar 18, 2026NewView discussionThreadmarks Breach 1.03 New View contentBeastrider9AKA Sketchelf CthulhusonMar 19, 2026#46Breach 1.03
January 7th, 2011
The smell of Jack Daniel's had settled into the house.
It wasn't sharp anymore. It had soaked into everything, clinging to the air, the walls, in the fabric of the couch, in the faint humidity of the kitchen where nothing had been cleaned since yesterday. Or maybe the day before. Time had started to blur at the edges. The bottle rested in Danny Hebert's hand, tilted just enough that the whiskey slid slowly against the glass when he shifted his grip. It was warm now. The label had gone damp and wrinkled, the edges peeling slightly where his fingers had worked at it without thinking.
He didn't remember when he had opened it.
There was a vague impression of evening. Rain, maybe. The sound of it against the windows. After that, nothing clear. Just a series of small, disconnected moments. Sitting down. Standing up again. Walking into a room and forgetting why. The bottle always somewhere nearby, moving with him without ever being consciously picked up.
The house had been quiet for nearly a full day.
Not the normal kind of quiet, either. Not the comfortable absence of noise that came when Taylor was out or in her room with the door closed. This was something heavier. The kind of silence that pressed in from all sides, that made every small sound stand out.
It was the wrong kind of quiet. The hollow kind.
The clock on the wall ticked, each second landing with a soft click that sounded louder than it should have in the stillness. Danny sat slumped in the old armchair in the living room, the same chair he had owned for years, the same one that had survived two moves, a marriage, and a funeral. The cushions sagged under his weight, stained in places from coffee spills and years of wear. His elbows rested on the arms, the bottle dangling loosely from his fingers as he stared at nothing in particular.
The television was on.
Muted.
Some late-night talk show flickered across the screen, faces moving, mouths opening and closing in silent arguments and laughter. Danny had turned the volume off hours ago but never bothered to shut it off completely. The shifting light from the screen cast dull reflections across the room, painting the walls in pale blues and whites. He had not changed the channel in hours.
Or maybe longer.
His gaze drifted, unfocused, sliding past the screen to the hallway beyond. The door at the end of it was closed. It had been closed the last time he checked.
He had checked.
He was sure he had.
At some point.
The thought came, slow and thick.
She should be home.
Danny lifted the bottle and took another drink.
The whiskey burned less now than it had when he started. The first few swallows had hit like fire. Now it barely registered, just another dull sensation layered on top of the others. That worried him a little. He remembered when it used to hit harder.
He rubbed his eyes, trying to push away the fog settling behind them.
The room seemed colder than it had earlier.
He glanced toward the thermostat on the wall. The temperature read the same as it always did. Maybe the alcohol was messing with his circulation.
He shifted in the chair, pulling his shirt tighter around himself.
The lamp beside him flickered once.
Danny blinked.
The light steadied again immediately.
He stared at it for a moment before shaking his head, his eyes drifting again toward the stairs without really meaning to.
Taylor's door was closed.
It had been closed since the police left.
They had been polite, at least as polite as people could be while standing in a doorway and asking questions nobody wanted to hear. They had asked whether Taylor had seemed distressed lately, whether she had anywhere else she might have gone, whether she had friends she could be staying with. Danny had answered as best he could, though half the words still felt like they had come from somewhere outside himself. He remembered nodding. He remembered the uncomfortable weight of their silence when he had nothing useful to say.
They had asked their questions, and he had answered as best he could.
Had she seemed distressed lately?
He had hesitated on that one.
Because yes. Obviously yes. Taylor had been distressed for a long time. Withdrawn. Quiet in a way that went past normal teenage moodiness into something heavier, something that sat in the house with them like a third presence neither of them acknowledged. But that was not recent. That was not new. That had been there for… how long now?
Since Annette.
The thought came uninvited and settled there.
He had said something vague instead. That she kept to herself. That she had been having a hard time at school, maybe. Even as he said it, he had felt how insufficient it sounded. How much it left out.
Or how much he did not actually know.
Did she have friends she might stay with?
He had almost said Emma.
The name had come to mind automatically, reflexively, like muscle memory from a life that no longer existed. He honestly couldn't even remember he last time he saw Emma. Months at least, maybe even longer.
No, he had said. Not really.
Not really.
The words tasted sour even in memory.
Had she ever run away before.
No.
That one had been easy. Simple. Certain.
Beneath the questions and the answers and the careful tone the officers had used, there had been that growing, quiet realization.
He did not have anything useful to give them.
Not because he was hiding something.
Because there was nothing there.
Or at least, nothing he could point to cleanly.
He did not know who she spent time with. He did not know what her days at school actually looked like. He did not know what she thought about when she shut herself in her room for hours at a time, or where she went in her head when she stopped answering him at the dinner table. After Annette died, everything had become about getting through the next day. Then the next week. Work had filled the gaps. Exhaustion had filled the rest. He had told himself he was giving Taylor space, that she needed it, that pushing too hard would only make things worse.
He had believed that.
Or maybe he had needed to.
Because the alternative was admitting that he did not know how to reach her anymore. That the distance between them had not appeared all at once, but grown slowly, quietly, until it was simply the way things were.
Danny rubbed a hand across his face.
The stubble there had grown rough. He had not shaved that morning. Or the day before, maybe. His shirt was wrinkled, the collar bent slightly where he had tugged at it earlier without thinking.
His eyes drifted to the stairs.
The railing there caught his attention again.
It was an old house. Older than most of the buildings near the docks. The wood creaked when you stepped on the stairs in the wrong places. The banister had been repaired twice since Danny bought the place, once after a loose spindle snapped under Taylor's weight when she was eight.
It would probably hold.
The thought slipped into his mind the same way it had earlier. Quiet. Matter-of-fact.
Just a sheet.
Tie a few knots. Loop it over the railing. Gravity would do the rest.
Danny stared at the stairs for a long moment, the image forming unbidden in his mind. The angle. The drop. The dull thud of something hitting the floor.
He took another drink.
The bottle was lighter now.
The thought shifted slightly.
The railing might hold, but the rafters would be better.
Upstairs. In the hallway. There was a spot near the ceiling where the drywall bowed slightly between the beams. He had noticed it years ago while patching a leak in the roof. Solid wood up there.
That would definitely hold.
Danny squeezed his eyes shut.
The thoughts did not come with panic. That was the strange part. They arrived calmly, logically, like a problem being solved step by step.
You could end this.
You could stop sitting here.
Maybe… maybe you could even see them again.
He let out a slow breath and opened his eyes again.
The television continued to flicker silently.
On the screen someone was crying.
Danny lifted the bottle and took another long drink.
The whiskey was almost gone now.
The lamp flickered again.
This time it lasted a little longer.
Danny frowned at it.
"Great," he muttered.
He pushed himself out of the armchair, legs unsteady as he crossed the room. The floorboards creaked under his weight.
The lamp steadied again just as he stood there for a moment, staring down at the bulb. After a brief moment, he reached down and twisted the bulb slightly, tightening it in the socket.
The light remained steady.
Danny nodded to himself and turned away.
Behind him, the bulb dimmed for half a second before returning to normal.
Danny did not notice.
His gaze drifted back to the hallway again.
Taylor's door.
Closed.
He tried not to picture her room.
The police had asked if they could look inside.
Danny had said yes.
Of course he had said yes.
They had moved carefully through the room, opening drawers, checking the closet, photographing things Danny did not understand the significance of. One of them had picked up a notebook from the desk and flipped through the pages while the other wrote something down.
They had spoken in low voices to each other.
Professional.
Detached.
Danny had stood in the doorway the entire time, watching strangers examine the life his daughter had built piece by piece inside that room.
Eventually, they left.
They said they would call if they found anything.
Danny took another drink.
They called back a few hours later, or maybe it was the next day.
The memory came slowly at first, the way painful things often did. Not as a clean sequence of events, but in fragments. Sounds. Faces. The dull pressure that had built in his chest while the phone rang across the kitchen counter.
He had known, even before answering.
Some part of him had already understood that calls like that never carried good news.
His hand had hovered above the phone for a moment that felt far longer than it could possibly have been. Long enough for his mind to run through every possibility it could invent. Long enough to imagine a dozen different outcomes that were all somehow better than the one that waited on the other end of the line.
Then he picked up.
The voice on the other end had been careful.
Measured.
The kind of tone people used when they were trying very hard not to shatter something fragile.
Danny remembered leaning one hand against the kitchen counter as the words came through the receiver. The wood beneath his palm had felt strangely cold. He had stared at the small scratches in the surface of the counter while the officer spoke, focusing on them with an intensity that surprised him.
Fragments of human remains.
That was the phrase.
Not a body.
Not a victim.
Fragments.
The remains had been incomplete. Severely degraded. Some of the larger bones had survived. Most hadn't. Danny remembered staring at the wall while that part sank in, his eyes fixed on a spot in the peeling paint while his brain tried to picture what that actually meant.
They could not use dental records.
There had not been enough left for that.
The identification had come another way.
The officer had explained that they had recovered trace material from the remains that could be tested. Small samples preserved in places where the decomposition had not reached as completely. Bone marrow. Tissue residue in protected cavities.
They had compared it to DNA from the house.
From Taylor's room.
The result had been conclusive.
The remains recovered from the locker belonged to Taylor.
Danny had not said anything for several seconds after hearing that.
He could remember the silence stretching across the line while the officer waited for a response that never came. Danny didn't remember much after that.
The bottle was empty now.
He turned it slightly in his hand, watching the last amber droplets slide down the inside of the glass before settling at the bottom.
His shift started in a few hours.
The thought surfaced slowly, like something rising through deep water.
Work.
The docks.
Crates, schedules, manifests, machinery, the constant rumble of engines and steel against steel.
Something to do.
Something that would fill the hours.
Danny leaned forward slightly in the chair, elbows on his knees.
If he could just make it to the next shift.
Just get through the next eight hours.
Then the next.
Then the next.
He had done it before.
After Annette.
The memory came without warning.
The phone call.
The hospital.
The moment when the doctor's expression changed and Danny understood what he was about to say before the words even left his mouth.
He had thought then that the world had ended.
Thought there was no way forward.
But there had been.
Taylor had been there.
Her hands clutching his shirt at the funeral.
Quiet dinners at the kitchen table where neither of them spoke much but the silence had been shared instead of empty.
They had built something after that.
Something fragile but real.
And now Taylor was gone.
Danny leaned back in the chair again, staring at the ceiling.
Maybe a drive would help.
Just get in the car and go.
Leave the house.
Leave the empty rooms and the quiet and the smell of alcohol soaking into the furniture.
He could head out of town.
Just keep driving until the city disappeared in the rearview mirror, and just keep going until… Danny shook his head slowly.
No.
That felt wrong.
Too much like Annette.
The thought settled heavily in his chest.
She had left in the morning like any other day.
Coffee half finished on the counter. A quick kiss on the cheek before heading out the door.
And then the call.
Danny rubbed his face again.
Running from things never fixed them.
He knew that.
The clock on the wall ticked again.
And again.
And again.
Danny sat there in the quiet house, the empty bottle still dangling loosely in his hand, waiting for the hours to pass until he could throw himself back into work and pretend, just for a little while, that the world had not quietly collapsed around him.
Danny slumped back in the armchair, the empty bottle resting on the table beside him. The whiskey was gone, leaving only the warmth in his chest and the dull ache that had settled behind his eyes. He blinked once, twice, trying to focus on the dim shapes the television cast across the room, but the screen was nothing more than pale blue shadows against the walls.
Then, the lamp beside him blinked again, briefly cutting out the warm circle of light around his chair. His eyes tracked the sudden darkness, and he frowned, a dull irritation prickling at the edge of his fatigue. He had noticed it before, of course, earlier, but now it seemed almost deliberate, like the lamp itself was aware he was watching.
When the flicker repeated, faster this time, Danny slammed his hand down on the table. Frustration surged, a short-lived spike that cut through the haze of grief. He yanked the lamp's plug from the wall with a sharp tug, the cord snapping taut in his fingers. The room fell darker, quieter. For a moment, the silence was almost comforting. He leaned back again, rubbing his eyes, letting the muscles in his shoulders loosen fractionally.
And then the light flashed again.
He froze.
The lamp flared faintly, a brief, almost impatient glow that defied all logic. Danny's stomach sank, a cold knot tightening under his ribs. His head swung toward the lamp, and for the first time in hours, he felt sober. Not the clean, efficient sobriety of clarity, but the kind that comes suddenly from adrenaline being dumped in his veins. The sudden sharpness of alertness was exhausting in its own way, pulling him out of the haze of alcohol and grief, only to leave him exposed.
The lamp was not plugged in.
He was certain of that.
He could see the cord.
The lamp pulsed again, almost as if it were breathing, the light coming alive for a fraction of a second before fading. He swallowed hard, the motion catching in his throat. The silence around him seemed heavier now, thick and almost expectant.
Danny's hand hovered over the table, unsure whether to reach for the lamp again or just stay put. He leaned forward slightly, the muscles in his shoulders taut. He scanned the room as though expecting to see a figure standing somewhere he had not noticed. The lamp flared again, briefly bright, then dimmed, then brightened once more.
It wasn't just flickering now. There was a rhythm to it, subtle but undeniable. Danny forced himself to breathe. Slowly. He forced his eyes to trace the pattern again. Short, long, short. Pause. Short, long, short. Pause. Something in his memory screamed at him. He knew this signal. He had been trained, learned it through years of routine, long nights waiting at the dockyards, watching for distress lights on the water. Every muscle in his body knew it before his conscious mind did.
It was an SOS.
A distress signal.
The same pattern sailors had used for more than a century.
The same signal every dockworker learned to recognize before they were even trusted near the harbor at night.
The lamp flashed again.
Three short.
Three long.
Three short.
Danny did not realize he had stood up until the chair legs scraped faintly against the floor behind him. His hands trembled slightly at his sides as he stared at the bulb like it might explode at any second.
The pattern started again.
Three quick flashes.
Three longer ones.
Three quick.
His throat tightened.
The thought came without permission, rising up from somewhere deep in the part of him that still refused to accept what the police had told him.
"Taylor?"
The word left his mouth as little more than a whisper.
The light stopped.
Instantly.
The bulb went dark and stayed that way.
Danny blinked.
For a few seconds he simply stood there, staring at the lamp, his brain struggling to catch up with what had just happened. The silence in the room thickened until it felt almost physical, pressing in from the walls, from the ceiling, from the empty hallway behind him.
The adrenaline that had flared through his system seconds earlier twisted into something colder.
Sharper.
His mind began scrambling for explanations.
Maybe he had imagined the pattern.
Maybe the alcohol had finally caught up with him.
He had been drinking for hours. Maybe longer. The bottle had been nearly full at some point. Now it sat empty on the table beside the chair.
Maybe grief had cracked something loose inside his head.
He took a step toward the lamp, his eyes still fixed on the dead bulb.
Nothing happened.
The room remained still.
Danny felt panic begin to creep in around the edges of his thoughts.
"Was that…" His voice caught halfway through the sentence. He cleared his throat, the sound loud in the quiet house. "Was that you?"
The lamp flashed once.
A single, quick pulse of light that lasted less than half a second.
Danny froze.
The air left his lungs all at once, like someone had punched him in the stomach.
"No," he said under his breath, shaking his head slightly. "No way."
But he had seen it.
There was no mistaking it.
The bulb had lit up.
Once.
Not a flicker. Not a fading glow.
A deliberate flash.
His heart hammered against his ribs now, fast enough that he could feel the pulse in his throat. The fear from earlier had changed into something else entirely. Something fragile and terrifying and desperate all at once.
Hope.
The word tried to form in the back of his mind and he shoved it down immediately.
Hope was dangerous.
Hope was the thing that made the waiting worse.
Still, his eyes stayed locked on the lamp, as if afraid looking away might break whatever was happening.
"Okay," he said slowly, the word came out rough, like it had scraped its way up his throat.
His mind scrambled for some way to test it. Some way to know if he had truly just seen what he thought he had seen.
The answer came almost immediately.
Simple.
Obvious.
Danny licked his lips, suddenly aware of how dry his mouth felt.
"Alright," he said quietly. "Let's try something."
He forced himself to take a slow breath.
"One flash for yes," he said.
His voice sounded strange in the quiet house.
"Two flashes for no."
The room remained dark.
Danny felt his chest tighten again as seconds stretched into something longer.
Maybe it was nothing after all.
Maybe the single flash had been coincidence.
He opened his mouth to speak again.
The bulb flickered once.
A single, clear pulse of light.
Danny's knees nearly gave out beneath him. He grabbed the back of the armchair to steady himself, his fingers digging into the worn fabric.
For a long moment he simply stood there, staring at the lamp with wide, disbelieving eyes.
His breathing had become uneven now.
"Okay," he whispered.
His voice trembled despite his effort to keep it steady.
"Just… just to make sure I'm not seeing things," he said quietly. "Can you flash no for me?"
The bulb blinked.
Then blinked again.
Two flashes.
Danny closed his eyes for a brief moment. When he opened them again the lamp sat dark and still.
"Taylor… is that you?"
The question hung in the air between him and the silent lamp.
A second passed.
Then the bulb flashed once.534Beastrider9Mar 19, 2026NewView discussionThreadmarks Breach 1.04 New View contentBeastrider9AKA Sketchelf CthulhusonMar 20, 2026#75Breach 1.04
January 7th, 2011
Sophia stood in front of Winslow. It took a second for her to even realize that's where she was. It wasn't so much that the shape of the school was off, no it was clearly Winslow… it was everything else that took a moment to process.
The school itself stood beneath a sky that… wasn't really a sky. Above the building stretched a ceiling of black clouds, slowly rolling and folding in on themselves. Less how clouds should move and more like smoke. Red lightning flashed inside those clouds every now and then, but it was never followed by the sound of rolling thunder. Only brief flashes of red light that painted the world in bright vermillion before fading back into darkness.
She took a breath. The air was stale and thick, almost like it had weight. There was a distinct impression that it was moving sluggishly around her, wrapping her shoulders. Like wind, but… not. Sophia watched as something drifted on those unseen currents… constantly. Black flakes that moved too slowly to be ash and too irregularly to be snow. She watched as they floated past her, before settling against the cracked pavement under her feet and the rusted metal of the railings.
She looked back at the school.
The building sagged slightly, as though the weight of the sky above had been pressing down upon it for years. The bricks were darkened with moisture, streaked with what look like black vines that spread out and over the walls like diseased roots. Windows stared out across the empty courtyard, most of them shattered, the jagged edges of glass reflecting faint red light from the clouds above.
The flagpole near the entrance was bent nearly in half. No flag hung from it, only strands of those same black vines. For a second it almost looked like they were twitching. It was faint, barely perceptible even, but she could swear she saw it. She started walking, lest those vines reach out and ensnare her. Idly, she noticed that the surface under her shoes was slick, like she was walking through a thin layer of mud.
It was only in the back of her mind that Sophia was faintly aware that she did not even remember coming here. One moment, there had been nothing, and the next she was standing there beneath the entrance. All she knew was the pull of the front doors, the way her foot stepped forward as if some invisible hand guided her.
She could feel the vines reaching for her, slowly, almost cautiously. She didn't look to confirm, afraid she would turn to see what she expected to. Ropy black tendrils swaying and reaching and probing and grabbing and squeezing. Instead, her fingers brushed the warped metal handles. They were sticky, coated with grime, but she found herself pushing through anyway, the old hinges groaning with sound that echoed down the endless halls inside. The air smelled like mold and burnt plastic.
The halls looked wrong.
Older than they should have been. Winslow had always been a dump, but it had never looked like this. The interior was decrepit. Lockers lined the halls, their surfaces warped and twisted. Some were blackened like charred wood, others covered with those same vines that oozed a dark liquid that left pools on the floor. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed faintly, struggling to ignite. Half of them were dead. The others hummed with a dull electrical buzz that rose and fell in uneven waves.
Sophia stepped forward, and the door behind her swung slowly shut.
The sound echoed down the hallway. Sophia and shoulders tightened. Her head dipped slightly as she continued walking. The paint on the walls had peeled and cracked in long curling strips. Lockers sagged slightly in their rows as if the metal had softened over time. Ceiling tiles hung loose in places, some collapsed entirely, leaving black cavities above them.
Her head tilted downward without her meaning it to, and she watched the shapes of cracks and grime pass her by with each step she took. A weight that settled over her shoulders and pressed down with steady insistence. It reminded her of the kind of feeling people got when they looked up at the sky and saw something massive.
Like the first time she had seen footage of an Endbringer attack. The scale of it, the inevitability. Something deep in her chest tightened, yet Sophia's steps slowed slightly. The weight pressing down upon her grew heavier, more present. Almost tangible really. Despite being alone, she didn't feel like it. She felt like she was being watched from everywhere.
That was when the whispers started.
They drifted through the hallway like wind slipping through the myriad of cracks in the walls. At first they were so quiet she almost missed them. Just faint sounds brushing the edges of hearing. Then they grew louder. Words. Too many voices to count. Too many to place. They slithered along the walls and curled through the rows of lockers, brushing against Sophia's ears as she walked before sliding down her spine like cold, dead fingers. Their tones weren't kind.
Judging.
Mocking.
Cruel.
She could not see anyone. The hallway stretched empty in both directions. But the voices were there. Coming from nowhere and everywhere. Up and down and all around.
"Don't look at me like that," the voice came from her left. Close. Too close.
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," another, this one from behind. Sharper. Meaner.
"They'd laugh if they saw you now."
That one almost made her turn. Almost. The laughter was crueler now. It sounded familiar. Sophia could recall the same tone leaving her lips whenever she was in a bad mood, which was often enough that even if she couldn't identify the source, there was a distinct sense of familiarity to them. There was a cadence to it. A bite. A specific kind of cruelty that didn't just want to hurt. It wanted to prove something.
"You said it was for their own good."
"You said they needed it."
"You said you were helping."
"Say it again. Say it while you're shaking."
Sophia's breath hitched before she could stop it. "I'm not," she muttered, the words low and sharp, more reflex than anything, but she couldn't even finish the words when the whispers reacted, pressing in closer.
"Not what?"
"Not shaking?"
"Not scared?"
"Not lying?"
The last one lingered.
"You lied."
"You lying to me, just like you lied to Emma, you lied to the world, and you lied to yourself."
"You said the world is honest. So stop lying to yourself. You were never the predator. You just made sure nothing stronger ever noticed you."
Sophia's jaw clenched. Her hands curled slowly into fists as she continued down the hall. The air grew colder with each step. Those dead fingers drumming on her spine as the walls darkened further, their surfaces bulging outward in strange places as thick ropes of organic matter pushed through the brick and plaster. Black tendrils coiled along the ceiling, dripping thick strands of slime that fell in slow drops onto the floor below. The whispers followed her, grabbed her, clung to her shoulders, and finally they crawled through her ears.
"You lie about what you are."
"You pretend to be strong."
"You hunt the weak."
The hallway twisted slightly. Not enough to notice at first. The floor sloped subtly downward. The ceiling stretched higher than it should have. Lockers towered above her now, rising like dark skyscrapers on either side of the corridor. Their doors rattled softly as she passed, vibrating against their frames as if something inside them was trying to move. Sophia felt smaller with every step. The sensation crept into her chest slowly. A familiar pressure tapping against her spine. The same helpless dread people felt when an Endbringer siren wailed across the city. That overwhelming awareness of something vast. Something unstoppable. Something coming.
The whispers from her chorus of unseen tormentors twisted into laughter. It was the kind of sound she knew too well, the same edges that had once hunted others now aimed squarely at her. Sophia walked deeper into the school until eventually the hallway ended. She stopped, not because she wanted to. Simply because there wasn't anywhere left to go. Lockers to her left, and lockers to her right. Nothing up ahead but a wall. A dead end.
"Look," came one of the voiced.
Sophia's head jerked to the side, until her eyes fell upon a single locker.It looked ordinary compared to the towering structures that had surrounded her earlier. Its paint was scratched and chipped, but otherwise intact.
Except for the blood.
Dark red liquid seeped slowly through the vents on the door. It ran down the metal surface in thick streams before dripping onto the floor. A growing pool spread across the tile beneath it. Sophia stared at it. Her chest rose and fell slowly. She stepped forward. Her hand reached for the dial. The metal felt cold beneath her fingers. She turned it.
The dial spun with a grinding sound that echoed through the massive hallway. Too loud. Far too loud. The noise rolled outward like thunder. The whispers continued behind her.
Watching.
Waiting.
Sophia spun the dial again. The moment the number clicked into place, the lights died. The hallway vanished into darkness.
The whispers stopped.
All of them.
The silence that followed was worse. So much worse. With the whispers, at least there had been a presence she could name, something that explained that persistent feeling of being watched. Now there was nothing. No sound, no echo, no warning. And yet she did not feel alone. There was a presence that refused form, an unyielding gaze that seemed to come from everywhere at once and from nowhere, nowhere at all. She stood perfectly still. Her breathing sounded enormous inside the blackness. Then she found her fingers turning the dial in the opposite direction.
The lock clicked.
Sophia froze, her hand hovering over the cold metal of the locker handle. The click of the lock felt impossibly loud in the empty darkness, echoing down the twisted and magnifying the emptiness that surrounded her. Her arm trembled, though she wasn't sure if it was from fear or exhaustion, or if it mattered at all.
She wanted to pull away, to fight, but her body refused to answer.
Her body felt wrong, distant, like she was observing herself from somewhere far above. Each step she had taken to reach this point had been guided by something other than her own will. Her feet were heavy, leaden, yet moving in ways she could barely reconcile with thought. Her lungs drew air in shallow bursts. Her chest pressed tight, as if the building itself were squeezing her from all sides.
The longer she stood, the stronger the sensation became. Every instinct screamed to pull back, to step away, to escape… but her hands remained fixed, hovering, trembling above the handle. Whispers flitted along the edges of her perception again, soft at first, curling around her ears like smoke, then growing sharper, more insistent.
"Open it."
No.
"Open it."
No.
"OPEN IT!"
Her mind fought, claws digging at the edges of consciousness. It was like her body wanted to open that door, and it took all of her willpower to remain in place. She could feel the locker pulsing faintly under her fingers, as though it were alive, breathing. Her knuckles whitened, the cold metal doing nothing to ground her. Every nerve ending in her body buzzed with tension, every thought consumed by the terrible certainty that something wanted her here, wanted this moment, and she could not stop it.
Then, without warning, the locker door shuddered, a subtle groan of metal on metal, like a living creature on the other side was testing its strength. Sophia froze, chest tightening until she could barely inhale. Her muscles locked against her will, and it was only when the shuddering behind the door stopped that Sophia realized that she couldn't move.
Then something banged on the other side, and the door swung open.
Sophia staggered back, tripping over her own feet. She nearly hit the floor, scraping her hands against the warped tile, but something caught her. A long, pale arm erupted from the locker. The hand shot toward her throat before she could even gasp. Cold, heavy, and unyielding, it clamped around her neck with a grip that crushed and pulled in equal measure. Sophia struggled, clawing at the hand on her throat, her nails scraping against something firm and cold. Her legs kicked, trying to push off the tile, trying to right herself, but the arm held her suspended, its grip firm. The locker door slammed fully open behind the arm, revealing the shape of something humanoid, though wrong in every possible way.
It was tall. Too tall. Its body stretched upward in long, gaunt lines of muscle beneath grey, corpse-like skin. Its arms hung far too low, ending in hands with claws that curved like hooked knives. Where its face should have been was only smooth flesh. Featureless. Sophia tried to scream, but sound came out. The creature took two long steps forward and slammed her into the lockers behind her. Metal buckled inward with a thunderous crash. Pain exploded across her back. The hand around her throat tightened. She kicked and clawed, but the thing, whatever it was, had her pinned in plaace. Head moving foward, until it was only inches away from her own face.
Then whispers returned. Only now they were screaming.
"YOU KILLED ME!"
"YOUR FAULT!"
"PREY!"
The walls around Sophia cracked open, splitting apart as bones forced their way up through the surfaces. Long white ribs tore through brick and plaster. Vertebrae spiraled upward through the floor like grotesque columns. The ceiling vanished, crumbling away into dust, and Sophia looked up. Behind the faceless creature that held her by the throat, she saw that the sky above her became an endless inky black void, it almost looked empty... Almost.
It was only when the darkness shifted that Sophia realized it wasn't a void at all above her, instead, it was something enormous, and it moved. Lowering itself slowly. Like it was looking down upon her from the sky. A vast shape unfolded from the descending darkness. Branching limbs taking up either side of her vision, arms like black twisters and tornadoes. It towered above the ruined school, hanging from the sky. She saw flowing tendrils of black sand and smoke. Its limbs spread outward in branching structures that divided again and again into smaller arms, forming a shape that stretched across the entire empty sky. Its head, if you could even call it a head, tilted downward, studying her as something small, contained, and utterly insignificant beneath its gaze.
And Sophia felt the raw, all-consuming disgust that emanated from it.
She gasped, her vision narrowing as her air supply constricted, heart hammering in a cage of terror. The humanoid creature pressed closer, its head unfolding like a carnivorous flower, revealing the mouth: five gaping petals, lined with teeth that bent and twisted unnaturally. Sophia's scream was lost in the storm of sound and shadow. The world convulsed around her, halls elongating, lockers bending, ceilings falling away into nothing. The towering black mass shifted, its smoke-limbs writhing as if tasting the air around her. She was utterly, horrifyingly small, and utterly, horrifyingly alone.
The creature of black smoke lunged.
And then, impossibly, she awoke.
Her body convulsed violently, coughing and gasping. She clawed at the sheets and rolled off the bed, hitting the floor with a dull, sickening thud that rattled her bones. Pain shot through her side where she landed awkwardly, but she barely registered it. Her chest heaved, lungs burning as she sucked in greedy, ragged breaths, the air tasting sharp and metallic. She collapsed onto her side, pressing a trembling hand against the floor, trying to steady herself, trying to convince her racing heart that she was finally safe.
The room was dark, but not the black void of the dream. Shadows clung to corners, warped by the faint flickering lights filtering in through the curtains from the streetlights outside. Her hands went to her throat instinctively, feeling the soreness that remained from the grip of that… that thing. She staggered toward the door, knees weak, arms trembling, her hands brushing along the walls for guidance. Each step felt unsteady, as if the floor itself might give way beneath her.
She reached the bathroom in a near run, yanking the door open and quickly flipping the light on. The overhead light buzzed faintly, flickering once, then twice, sending brief, sharp shadows dancing across the white tiles as she turned on the sink. She didn't wait before plunging her hands into the cold water. She splashed her face over and over, gasping between splashes, letting the icy shock jar her senses back into focus. She cupped water into her hands and drank, gulping greedily until her stomach burned and her throat still ached.
When she finally lifted her head, the flickering light caught her reflection in a harsh, disjointed way as she caught her reflection in the mirror. Her skin was glistening with sweat, damp curls sticking to her forehead and temples. Her wide eyes were rimmed with exhaustion, and the pale streaks from the cold water made her look almost unreal for a moment.
And then she saw it.
The bruise around her neck. Dark purple and angry, blooming across her skin like a mark burned into her flesh. Her fingers went to it instinctively, pressing lightly against the tender skin, feeling the soreness and the residual weight of the thing that had held her down.
Sophia stepped back from the mirror, letting her hands drop to her sides, and took a slow, deliberate breath. The room smelled faintly of bleach and damp towels, mundane and grounding. The light from the ceiling above began to flicker, casting gentle, uneven shadows across the bathroom, and for a moment, just a moment, the world felt still.
But the memory of that hand, of being lifted and pressed against the locker, lingered. Her muscles were tense, ready to spring at any sound, and her mind refused to settle. She touched the bruise again, fingertips tracing over the dark mark, and realized that even now, the fear was not gone. It would stay, wrapped around her like a tight coil, until she could make sense of what had just happened.
Sophia took another shaky breath and forced herself to move. She wiped her face with a towel, splashed her hands one last time, and drank a little more water, letting the cool liquid steady her stomach. The bruise throbbed beneath her fingers.
A door creaked from down the hall.
"Sophia?"
The sound cut through the room, and the lights stopped flickering.
The voice was groggy, heavy with sleep. Her mother's voice. Soft, uncertain, and close enough to anchor Sophia a little to reality. Sophia froze, her fingers still brushing the sore skin of her neck, heart hammering. The tension in her shoulders did not ease.
The bathroom door swung open slowly. Sophia's mother stood there in a faded robe, hair pulled into a loose knot, one hand pressed to her mouth like she had only just woken up.
"Are you okay?" her mother asked, voice still hoarse. Her eyes swept over Sophia, taking in the wet hair, trembling hands, the tense line of her posture. "Did you… have a nightmare?"
"I… I'm fine," she finally croaked. "Just… give me a minute."
Her mother stepped further inside, rubbing at her eyes. "You woke me up with all that… racket. Are you sick? Did you fall?" Her tone shifted, softening, concern threading through the fatigue.
Then she took in Sophia's face, the ragged breathing, the sweat-matted curls clinging to her forehead, and then the woman's gaze dropped to the neck. Her hand went instinctively to the bruise before Sophia could clench her fingers tighter around it.
"Where did you get this?" Her voice was quick now, all the sleep gone.
"Probably just slept weird," Sophia said. The words came too fast, clumsy. She tried to force a laugh and it came out like a cough. "I fell out of bed or something. I am okay, really."
Her mother did not smile. Instead, she moved closer, the soft thump of her slippers on tile, and reached without asking to take Sophia's wrist. Her touch was practiced, steady. Her fingers were warm, callused at the edges.
"You are shaking," she said. "You smell like you've been sweating. Sit down, Soph."
Sophia did because she didn't have the energy to argue. She perched on the edge of the closed toilet seat. Her mother moved to grab a paper towel, soaking it in cold water before she slid it under Sophia's chin, before she pressed it to her forehead. The coolness shocked Sophia into focus. Her mother's thumb found the bruise and pressed there with a gentleness that made Sophia flinch despite the ache.
It was only now that Sophia realized something. The lights above her hadn't flickered once since her mother had woken up. She lifted her gaze slowly, tilting her head back to look at them. Her eyes lingered a moment longer, expectant at something happening.
She only looked away only when the light pressed too harshly against her vision, making the room seem brighter than it had any right to be so early in the morning. Her mother's hand stayed lightly on her chin and neck.
"You had a bad dream?" her mother asked gently.
Sophia hesitated, the urge to articulate the nightmare while also battling with the instinct to bury it deep where no one else could see it.
"Yeah," she said finally, voice quiet. "Just a nightmare."
Her mother nodded, accepting that without pressing further, though Sophia could tell that she probably wanted to.She looked up, watching Sophia with steady, unguarded concern.
"You look exhausted," she said. "You should get some water. You look like you need it."
"I'm fine, Mom," said Sophia, but she didn't sound convincing, not even to herself.
"You don't look fine," she said quietly.
Sophia let out a breath through her nose, slower than it needed to be, buying herself a second.
"I said I'm fine," she repeated, firmer this time.
Her mother studied her for a moment longer, searching her face. Then, slowly, she nodded.
"Alright," she said.
Her mother reached past her, turning the faucet back on for a moment before filling a glass and handing it over.
"Drink," she said.
Sophia took it, more out of habit than agreement. She lifted it and drank, slower this time. It still felt like it scraped something raw inside her throat, and the way was soothing it a bit, but not all that much.
Her mother watched until Sophia swallowed the last bit, and put the glass on the counter.
"Better?" she asked.
Sophia gave a small shrug. "Yeah."
"Do you want to maybe call in today? Take a day off from school?"
Sophia almost said yes, the word almost coming out automatically. An excuse to stay home, to put distance between herself and the place that had seemed so wrong in her dreams. Then something in her head clicked. That sounded like…Running. The thought cut through the lingering haze of her mind. Running was what prey did.
"No, I think I'm good," she said. "It's Friday anyway, I have two days off after school ends. Besides, it's not like I can't show up for the Wards. Pretty sure being on parole means you don't have as much control over when you can take a day off as everyone else."
"Alright," her mother said finally. "But if you start feeling worse, you call me. I don't care if it's in the middle of class."
Sophia nodded once. "Yeah."
"Or go to the nurse. Or the counselor. Or a teacher. Or… the janitor."
That almost got a reaction.
Sophia's mouth twitched faintly, something between a scoff and a smile, but she kept it contained.
"Janitor?" Asked Sophia.
"Yeah, I ran out of ideas, probably should have gone with the principal or something… you sure you okay?"
"I'm fine, Mom."
Her mother still didn't look convinced, but she stepped back anyway, giving Sophia space.
"Get dressed," she said. "I'll make you something quick before everyone else wakes up."
Sophia hesitated, then nodded again. "Okay."
Her mother lingered for a moment longer, like she wanted to say something else, before taking a breath. She gave Sophia a soft smile then turned and walked back down the hall.
The bathroom fell quiet again. Sophia stood there for a few seconds, staring at her reflection. The bruise stood out, but only if you really looked at it. It was…Dark and uneven. Too obvious to pass for something accidental if anyone looked too closely. Her fingers lifted, brushing lightly over it again. The pressure sent a dull ache through her neck.
It felt real… well, it was real. She could plainly see it, but dreams didn't leave marks. Maybe… maybe she slept weird, her arm carelessly placed, pressed against her own neck maybe? That was a thing that could happen, right? If that's all it was, then maybe her subconscious mind used that as inspiration for the dream she was having. Like how when you went to sleep listening to music, the song would play out in your dreams.
Sophia straightened, grabbing a towel and pressing it briefly to the back of her neck before tossing it aside. She reached for the light switch out of habit, then paused. The bulb above her remained steady. No flicker. No buzz beyond the normal low hum of a too old lightbulb. For a moment, she just stood there, watching it. Then, after a moment when nothing happened, she turned it off.