The laughing started at 2:47.
I remember the exact time because I was watching the clock, counting seconds until the bell released me. Then the door opened and they filed in—four of them, moving like they already owned the room.
The sound they made wasn't amusement. It was hunting. That was six hours ago. Now my lungs are burning and my shoes are full of blood. I don't know if it's mine.
The school corridor stretches endless, fluorescents strobing as I pass, each burst of light searing the afterimage of their faces behind my eyes: mouths twisted, eyes bright with that particular joy of finding something weak.
I learned early that survival meant disappearing. But some things find you anyway.
"I can't stay here." The whisper tears my throat. I don't recognize my own voice—too high, too broken, belonging to someone who has already lost. Beneath the words: fear, shame, and a third thing I won't name because naming it would make it real. The sun dies as I run.
The horizon swallows it whole. My legs shake, exhaustion clawing at my ankles, but stopping isn't an option. Not when I'm finally getting away.
The road finds me empty, anonymous, far from everything I knew. My body quits first. I stumble, bent double, sucking air in jagged gulps that taste like copper.
Silence.
Then—headlights. They cut the dark slow and deliberate. A car rolls to a stop, engine humming low. The door opens.
"Are you alright?" The voice is deep. Measured. No one I know.
I freeze. My throat has gone to dust. I nod instead. He approaches, tall and backlit, hand extended. For one clear second, something buried screams don't— I take it anyway.
His grip is firm, impersonal. He guides me into the passenger seat. The door closes with soft finality. We move. The town vanishes behind us, consumed by the dark. And for the first time since 2:47, I can breathe.
But when I glance at the stranger beside me—shadowed profile, hands easy on the wheel, watching the road like he knows exactly where we're going—that buried thing stirs again.
Maybe escaping them was only the beginning.
Maybe the man who saved me is worse.