The morning after the raccoon incident, Samuel's apartment smelled faintly of disinfectant and damp cardboard. The overturned books, shredded paper, and scattered pens were mostly back in their places, but there was still a gnaw mark on the corner of his desk that he hadn't bothered to fix. He'd spent half the night convincing himself it was over that maybe the universe had given him one good laugh at his expense and would now let him work in peace.
He made coffee carefully this time, placing the mug on the far end of the desk, well out of reach of anything with fur, claws, or bad intentions.
The cursor blinked at him from the laptop screen, where the last sentence he'd typed hung in limbo
Xirathul stared at the dead man's boots, the dust from the road still clinging to the leather. "You walked far to die here," he said quietly.
Samuel leaned back, rubbing his temples. Caleb Riker was supposed to answer him in this scene. He'd planned it out days ago Caleb, bleeding and worn, refusing to give Xirathul the name of the man he was hunting. But now, when Samuel tried to picture Caleb's face, he found it oddly blurred, like trying to recall the details of a dream after waking.
He cracked his knuckles and started typing again, forcing the dialogue into place.
"You're not worth the trouble," Caleb spat. "But the one you work for… he will be."
There was a faint click. Not from the keyboard this came from somewhere behind the walls. Samuel froze, eyes flicking toward the corner of the apartment. A dim buzzing noise followed, the sort of static hum you hear when a television is on in the next room.
The lamp on his desk flickered. Once. Twice. Then the overhead light dimmed until the room felt half swallowed by shadow.
Samuel sighed and glanced up at the ceiling. "Really? Now?"
The buzzing grew sharper, like it was coming from inside the lamp itself. He reached for the switch, but before his fingers touched it, the light flared bright white too bright then cut out completely.
The laptop screen went black.
Samuel stared at it for a long moment, his coffee cooling in the mug. No raccoon, no clumsy elbow, no spilled drink. Just silence. The hum had stopped, too.
He got up and checked the breaker box in the hallway. Nothing had tripped. When he flipped the lights back on, the apartment returned to normal. Laptop still off, but the rest of the place felt almost… smug.
He tapped the laptop's power button and muttered under his breath, "Alright, Lord, I'm starting to think You've got a sense of humor I don't get."
The laptop whirred to life again, but when his document reopened, the last line was gone. Caleb's threat, the one he'd typed minutes before erased. Only Xirathul's quiet line about the dead man's boots remained.
Samuel sat back, drumming his fingers on the desk. For some reason, the missing words bothered him more than the lights. It felt almost like someone or something didn't want that part written.
He closed the file and reached for his coffee, telling himself it was just bad luck. After all, he had work tomorrow. He didn't have time to get paranoid over a flicker.
But that night, as he lay in bed, Samuel couldn't stop replaying the sound.
That faint, insect-like hum.
Buzzing.
Almost like a voice, trying to get in.