Sato stepped into the room and shut the door behind him.
The weak overhead bulb buzzed once, then settled into its same sickly hum. Dust drifted lazily through the light. The crater in the middle of the floor looked worse up close, the broken concrete sloping inward around Hannah like the room itself had tried to fold beneath her.
He stopped just inside the doorway, one hand still in his jacket pocket, the other hanging loose at his side.
"You done talking to ghosts?"
For a moment, nothing changed.
Then Hannah moved.
Not much. Just enough.
Her head tilted up a fraction from where it rested against her knees. Long black hair shifted with it, sliding aside in uneven strands until one eye became visible through the curtain of it.
Purple.
Not just in color. In presence.
That one exposed eye glowed with a deep, unnatural violet, and thin wisps of energy leaked from her eyelashes like smoke peeling away from a dying ember. The glow trembled with each shallow breath she took.
