Max stared at the elegant, cursive script, his thumb brushing against the heavy texture of the paper. 16 Halland Street. The whispers. The answers. It felt like the opening scene of a horror movie, the kind where the protagonist does something stupid like investigate the noise in the basement.
"I should tear this up," he whispered to the empty room. "I should just throw it away."
He raised his hand to crumple the paper, but his eyes drifted downward, past the ominous message, and landed on the disaster zone of his desk. specifically, on the terrifyingly thick stack of worksheets titled Intermediate Algebra: Summer Remedial Module.
A different kind of cold sweat broke out on his neck.
"Oh, crap."
The mysterious shadow organization summoning him to a potentially dangerous location was terrifying, sure. But Mrs. Higgins, his math teacher, possessed a gaze that could curdle milk and a red pen that she wielded like a samurai sword. If he didn't finish this packet by tomorrow, the "apocalypse" wouldn't be fire and brimstone; it would be his mother taking away his PlayStation and grounding him until he was thirty.
"Priorities, Max. Priorities," he muttered.
He carefully tucked the mysterious note under his lamp, as if afraid it might bite him, and grabbed his pencil. For the next three hours, the only whispers Max listened to were the voices in his head screaming in frustration as he tried to figure out why Train A left the station at 60 mph and why anyone cared where it met Train B.
Every few minutes, his eyes would flick to the note. Shop No. 5. Then back to the paper. Find the value of Y.
"Y is equal to my sanity," he grumbled, erasing a hole through the paper. "Which is currently negative."
By the time the sun began to dip, casting long, orange shadows across his room that made him jumpiness spike, the homework was done. He shoved the worksheets into his bag with a sense of grim victory. But with the distraction of algebra gone, the weight of the note returned with a vengeance.
He spent the rest of the afternoon pacing his room. He picked up the note. Put it down. Googled "16 Halland Street" on his phone (no results found). He texted Ady: Hey, did you guys really not see anything today? He stared at the screen for five minutes before deleting the message. They already thought he was losing it.
"Max! Aunt Carol is here! Come down for dinner!"
Max jumped, nearly knocking over his chair. He took a deep breath, shoved the note into his pocket—he didn't dare leave it out—and forced a smile onto his face.
Dinner was an exercise in torture. The kitchen was filled with the rich, spicy aroma of the stuffed peppers he had bought the ingredients for, but Max felt like he was chewing on cardboard.
"My goodness, look at how tall he's gotten!" Aunt Carol exclaimed, pinching his cheek with enough force to bruise. "Maxwell, are you fighting off the girls with a stick yet?"
"He's fighting off his math homework, that's what he's doing," his mother said, spooning a massive pepper onto his plate. "Eat up, Max. You look pale."
"I'm fine," Max mumbled, stabbing a potato.
"So, tell me about school," Aunt Carol chirped. "Any exciting plans for the rest of the summer?"
Well, Aunt Carol, I'm being stalked by a shadow demon and receiving mail via teleportation, Max thought.
"Just... hanging out with friends," he said aloud. "Video games."
He sat there, nodding at the right times, listening to the clinking of silverware and the drone of mundane conversation about neighborhood gossip and grocery prices. It felt surreal. How could they just sit there eating peppers when the world felt like it was cracking at the seams? He felt isolated, trapped behind a glass wall where the monsters lived.
That night, sleep didn't come easily. He tossed and turned, the humid air of his room feeling heavy, like a blanket of lead. When he finally drifted off, the reprieve was short-lived.
The screech returned.
It was instant. No buildup. Just the shattering high-pitched noise tearing through his mind. The red sky. The falling debris. The heat was unbearable, searing his skin.
He couldn't move. He was back in the center of the inferno.
The silhouette was there again. The darkness that wasn't just an absence of light, but a living, hungry thing. It turned its head. The pressure built in Max's ears, a crescendo of agony.
"MAX!"
He woke up with a gasp that tore at his throat, sitting bolt upright.
Sunlight. Just sunlight.
He was panting, his sheets tangled around his legs, his heart doing jumping jacks against his ribs. He looked at the clock: 8:00 AM.
Max ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. "I can't do this," he whispered. "I can't keep doing this."
He looked at his jeans draped over the chair, the corner of the parchment peeking out of the pocket. The fear was still there, sharp and cold in his gut, but it was being overtaken by something else: exhaustion. He was tired of being scared. He was tired of not knowing.
He got out of bed, his movements mechanical. He showered, scrubbing off the cold sweat of the nightmare, and dressed quickly. He skipped breakfast, shouting a vague "I'm going for a walk!" to his mother before she could ask him to fix the toaster or clean the garage.
The morning air was already warm, but Max felt cold. He walked with a singular purpose, ignoring the familiar streets, the kids playing cricket in the alleyways, and the shopkeepers opening their shutters.
He marched straight out of his neighborhood and into the older, dustier part of town. The streets here were narrower, the buildings huddled together as if sharing secrets.
Finally, he stopped.
He looked up at the rusted street sign: Halland Street.
(It was it's old name now it is called zagger street.)
He walked down the block, counting the numbers. 12... 14...
He stopped in front of Number 16. It was a decrepit, old building made of red brick that had turned black with age. On the ground floor, a row of shops sat, most of them shuttered or abandoned.
But right at the end was Shop No. 5.
Unlike the others, this one didn't have a metal shutter. It had a dark wooden door with a brass handle shaped like a lion's head. There was no sign, no display window, just the number 5 painted in peeling gold leaf on the glass pane of the door.
Max swallowed hard. His hand trembled as he reached out.
" answers," he muttered to himself, repeating the note's promise.
He gripped the cold brass handle, turned it, and pushed the door open.