The police found the house empty the next morning. The door hung off its hinges, the locks broken from within. On the kitchen counter, in my handwriting, was a note:

“They always come back hungry.”

But I wasn’t gone. I was with them, under the oak tree, where the roots had pulled me down. The hunger wasn’t theirs alone—it was the thing we’d fed, the thing we’d bound ourselves to. It had waited decades for me to complete the circle.

And now, it’s full. For now.

But it’ll get hungry again.

And it’ll call someone else.