Niah's POV
Sleep refused to come.
It hovered somewhere beyond reach, a dim shape at the edge of Niah's awareness, always about to settle before slipping away again.
Niah lay tangled in her sheets, one arm draped over her eyes as if she could press the thoughts back into silence. The other clutched her pillow with the desperation of someone bracing for an unseen impact. But her mind churned on—restless, bright with fragments. The chapel's hollow hush. Those brittle records with their foreign murmurs. Dr. Thorne's sideways glances, like she knew more than she let on. The scent of old stone that seemed to cling to her long after she'd left.
And that strange prickle at the back of her neck, the sense of being watched by someone or something.
She rolled onto her side and stared at the open window. The curtain breathed in and out with the night breeze, pale fabric lifting like a sigh before falling still again.
Finally, with a frustrated exhale, she sat upright. Pretending was pointless, she thought in her mind.
Her hoodie slouched over the back of a chair, rumpled in a way that made it look almost sympathetic. She pulled it on, the fabric warm from earlier, and padded barefoot down the hall. The apartment was dark except for the faint glow from the streetlight outside, slicing a single bar of light across the kitchen floor.
The kettle hissed to life under her hand. She always found something steadying in this quiet ritual, the muted rustle of tea leaves, the familiar clink of the spoon, the kettle's soft complaint as it heated. A small ceremony of normalcy.
But even those sounds couldn't drown out the afternoon's unease.
Later, curled into the corner of the couch with her mug radiating warmth into her palms, she kept circling back to those ancient records. Pages that felt ready to crumble. Lines of script that teased meaning but refused to give it. Names she half-recognized from Maria's offhand comments, ghosts tied to Eldermere's chapel long before anyone called it historic.
And then, one name which was faintly circled, as if whoever marked it had hesitated, or feared they were saying too much.
Rain.
Her throat tightened around a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. The name felt like it had roots, like it had been waiting for her to notice.
A sudden knock startled the mug in her hands.
She froze.
It was already Midnight, no one civilized knocked at midnight.
The second knock was almost courteous. Like whoever stood on the other side respected boundaries, just not enough to stay away.
She set her mug down with deliberate calm and stepped toward the door. The peephole showed nothing but an empty hallway, washed in dim light.
She was about to turn away when something slid under the door with a clean whisper.
It was an envelope that was aged parchment, folded crisply, unmarked.
Her fingers hovered, then snatched it up as though someone might change their mind and take it back.
Inside, there was a single line in looping handwriting.
'You are seen.'
Her breath snagged.
She yanked the door open to see who was at her door, but the hallway remained silent. Just the persistent coil of wind spiraling up the stairwell.
After a long moment, she closed the door with firm finality, the letter trembling a little in her grip.
Whatever this was, it wasn't paranoia. And she was already in the thick of it, maybe had been for longer than she realized.
* * *
The letter lay crumpled beside her pillow when she woke, creased where she must have held it even in sleep.
You are seen.
She hadn't meant to sleep at all, not with the lights still burning overhead, her hoodie half-zipped, her bones buzzing with unease. But exhaustion had a way of catching her unaware, slipping its arm around her shoulders and pulling her under.
And the dreams had come with it.
They weren't sharp. More like gauze drifting over half-remembered moments. Her childhood home. The porch swing her father built before winter took his patience. Her mother humming a lullaby that never had a name. And beneath all of it, something else—thick, heavy, the way the air felt right before a storm split the sky open.
She was six again, curled against her mother by the fire. Fingers threaded gently through her hair while the logs popped as though in conversation.
"Tell me the sky won't fall," she whispered, her words she didn't remember saying but somehow knew she had.
Her mother paused. Then came that fragile smile, the one that said she wished she believed more of her own reassurances."The sky doesn't fall," she murmured. "It just… opens. When you're ready."
Niah frowned. That wasn't the line. Not the one she remembered from childhood. Before she could question it, her father's voice drifted from the kitchen.
"She's still too young."
"But she knows," her mother replied softly. "Even if she doesn't understand yet."
A gust of wind slammed against the house, which was too loud and too sudden. The firelight leapt wild across the walls, stretching shadows into strange shapes.
Niah turned to the window.
A figure stood outside watching them.
On seeing it, her mother did not startle.
"She hears it too," she whispered, but her eyes were locked on Niah now, as if waiting for an answer.
"Rain," her father called, not to her mother, but to the figure outside watching them.
And for one disorienting heartbeat, Niah wasn't Niah at all.
The fire erupted, wind screamed, and glass shattered inward in a burst of cold and noise.
She lurched awake, gasping. Her pillow was damp, her skin clammy, her throat aching as though she'd been calling out.
The letter remained beside her. Folded now, silent and small.
Her hands shook uncontrollably. She pressed a palm to her sternum, forcing her lungs to obey. What the hell was that?
She hadn't thought of that night in years. Not since her parents had—
No.
She shut the thought down, slamming the door hard on the memory before it could finish forming.
But the dream lingered anyway. Smoke clinging to her skin. The fire. The voice. That faceless watcher. Rain, spoken like it belonged to her. Like it always had.
She stood on unsteady feet, the floorboards cool beneath her toes.
Niah did not believe in omens. She did not believe in signs or visions or whatever this was trying to be.
But something in her memory was pulling her forward, drawing her toward a truth she'd spent her life skirting around.
And a small, buried part of her, the one that frightened her most, already knew exactly where it was leading.
* * *