The screaming wouldn’t stop. Even when I wasn’t hearing it, I could feel it. Like the silence between heartbeats when you know something is about to snap.

I stood at the edge of the concert lot, my breath ragged, eyes on the corridor where the crowd had emptied minutes ago. Everyone had made it out… Except one.

Lira.

“NOA!” Kael’s voice cut through the chaos, grabbing my arm. “What are you doing?!”

“She’s not out,” I said, hollow. “She was right behind me—she should’ve been out.”

“What?”

“I saw her—she went to check the hallway, said she thought you’d gone that way. She hasn’t come back.”

Kael went pale. “Noa—”

I didn’t wait. I was already running.

Somewhere in the Corridors

She screamed once—sharp, short, defiant.

I wasn’t there to hear it, but I felt it later. Like a splinter in my spine.

Streets – My Feet, His Van

I saw the van before it disappeared down the far end of the street.

Dark. Plain. No plates.

“NOA, WAIT!” Kael shouted again behind me, but the pounding in my ears drowned everything.

I ran. Faster than I ever had in my life. Chased that van like I could outrun the inevitable.

But it was gone. Just… gone.

I stopped at the intersection, bent over, gasping like I was about to vomit out my heart.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and scrolled fast—past friends, family, emergency lines— until I stopped on an unsaved number.

I called it.

A low click. Then nothing.

I spoke into the silence.

“Your sister’s in trouble.”

And hung up.

The Factory Grounds

The abandoned factory sat like a carcass rotting in the dark. Forgotten. Familiar.

Sirens were growing closer. I heard Kael’s voice behind me again, then my mother’s—frantic and brittle like something was already broken.

But I couldn’t wait.

I wouldn’t.

I pushed through the rusted door and into the dark.

Inside the Factory

The smell hit first.

Burned wax, rust, and blood.

Then I saw her.

Lira was tied to a support beam, blood dripping from a cut on her arm, running in slow lines into a shape—a circle. A ritual.

The killer stood over her, reading from a book that looked older than the factory itself. His lips moved fast—desperate, reverent.

I didn’t know what I was seeing.

But I knew what I had to say.

“Step away from her!”

His eyes snapped to me.

Recognition came slower than I expected.

Not at me. Not really. But at the woman who appeared behind me seconds later.

My mom.

His expression collapsed into something twisted. Not rage. Not pain.

Obsession.

“You... YOU,” he hissed, voice cracking. “You turned me in. You took it from me.”

He hurled the knife. Time blurred.

I moved before I could think—shoving her aside. The knife clattered harmlessly across the floor behind us.

Cops poured in then. Guns raised. Orders barked.

But the killer didn’t stop smiling.

“I rigged this place to burn,” he whispered. “And I’ll watch it fall with me inside. I am eternal.”

His hand went to his pocket.

And froze.

He blinked. Once. Twice.

“Where is it?”

He patted himself. Panicked.

“WHERE IS IT?!”

And then—

A voice cut through everything.

Calm. Smooth. Untouchable.

“Looking for this, old man?”

I turned.

At the far edge of the factory floor, a silhouette emerged from the shadows like it had always belonged there. Cloaked in black, hood low over his face, he stood between the flickering lights and police barricades.

Something glinted between his fingers.

The detonator.

He spun it casually, effortlessly—like a toy.

No one spoke. Not even the killer.

The man’s posture was easy. Almost casual. But every part of me screamed danger—not from fear. From recognition.

Somewhere in my blood, I knew that voice.

And whoever he was, he wasn’t just watching.

He was orchestrating.

Then the lights flickered once. Twice.

And he was gone