I woke up screaming.
My throat burned, my chest heaved, and for one terrifying second, I didn't know where I was. The ceiling above me was familiar—cracked paint near the corner, the faint water stain shaped like a crooked heart. My bedroom. My apartment. Reality.
But my body didn't believe it.
My fingers were ice-cold, curled tightly around nothing. Yet I could still feel him. The echo of his hand brushing mine. The warmth that shouldn't exist. The way the world had bent around us like it recognized him.
I sat up abruptly, heart pounding.
"Get a grip," I whispered to myself. "You hallucinated. Stress. Lack of sleep. That's all."
I had been saying versions of that sentence my entire life.
The rain had stopped. Dawn crept weakly through the curtains, painting the room in pale gray. Ordinary. Safe. No mist. No lantern-lit streets. No ghost.
Except…
The air was still cold.
Not the normal kind. Not night-chill or rain-damp. This cold was sharp, deliberate—like something was standing too close.
Slowly, I turned my head.
He was sitting on the edge of my bed.
I froze.
He looked more solid now than he had the night before. Still translucent, like moonlight poured into the shape of a man, but clearer. Defined. Real enough that my heart slammed painfully against my ribs.
He wasn't smiling.
In fact, he looked… exhausted.
Dark shadows pooled beneath his eyes. His shoulders were slumped, hands clasped loosely together like he didn't know what to do with them. He stared at the floor, not at me, as if he were afraid I'd vanish if he looked too closely.
"You're awake," he said softly.
My mouth opened.
No sound came out.
I had faced ghosts before. Screaming ones. Weeping ones. Angry ones. But none of them had ever sat on my bed like they belonged there. None of them had ever looked at me like I was something precious and fragile and already halfway lost.
"You're… still here," I finally managed.
He nodded. "I told you I wouldn't leave."
A hysterical laugh bubbled up in my chest. "You disappeared."
His jaw tightened. "I didn't have a choice."
That did it. Fear snapped into anger, sharp and sudden.
"You dragged me into some… some place," I said, my voice shaking. "You told me I was in danger. You said I was next. And then you vanished. Do you have any idea what that does to a person?"
His head lifted slowly. When his eyes met mine, something in my chest cracked.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Not dramatically. Not defensively. Just… honestly.
"I ran out of strength," he continued. "Crossing over like that—it costs me. And there was something else there. Something I didn't expect."
My pulse spiked. "Something else?"
His gaze flicked to the corner of the room.
My blood turned to ice.
I followed his eyes.
At first, I saw nothing. Just shadow pooling unnaturally where the light should reach. Then the shadow moved.
Not stepped. Not drifted.
It peeled itself off the wall.
I sucked in a sharp breath as a shape emerged—thin, warped, barely human. Its face was wrong. Blurred. Like someone had tried to erase it and failed.
The thing tilted its head.
And smiled.
I screamed.
The ghost on my bed moved instantly, rising to his feet and placing himself between us. The temperature dropped so fast my breath fogged.
"You're not welcome here," he said, his voice no longer gentle.
The thing laughed—a wet, scraping sound that made my stomach churn.
"She can see us," it whispered. Its voice crawled under my skin. "Just like you could."
My knees trembled. "What is that?"
"A scavenger," he replied without taking his eyes off it. "It follows death. Especially deaths that were… unfinished."
The creature's head snapped toward me.
"Soon," it crooned. "Very soon."
"Get out," he snarled.
The air exploded outward like a shockwave. My lamp shattered. The curtains whipped violently. And then—
Silence.
The shadow was gone.
I collapsed back onto the mattress, shaking uncontrollably. My nails dug into the sheets as my breath came in short, panicked bursts.
The ghost turned back to me.
"I didn't want you to see that yet," he said quietly.
"Yet?" My laugh was brittle, broken. "You're telling me this gets worse?"
He hesitated.
That was answer enough.
"Sit," I snapped, gesturing to the bed. "If you're going to ruin my life, at least explain why."
A faint smile ghosted across his lips despite the tension. He sat.
"I didn't choose you," he said after a moment. "Not at first."
I swallowed. "That's comforting."
"I followed the mark," he continued. "People like you leave one. The living who can see the dead. You glow differently. To things like that."
My stomach twisted. "So I'm bait."
"No," he said firmly. "You're a target. There's a difference."
I hated how calm he was. How certain.
"Why are they after me?"
His fingers clenched. "Because someone is killing again."
The room felt suddenly too small.
"And last time," he added, voice low, "I was the final victim."
The words hit me like a punch.
"You were murdered."
"Yes."
"Because of…?"
"Because I knew too much," he said. "And because I got too close to the wrong person."
A chill slid down my spine.
"And now?" I whispered.
"Now," he said, finally looking directly into my eyes, "you're walking the same path I did."
My heart pounded painfully.
"And you?" I asked. "Why stay? Why protect me?"
For the first time since I'd seen him, he looked unsure.
"Because when I saw you," he said softly, "you looked at me like I was still human."
My breath caught.
"And because," he continued, his voice barely above a whisper, "I don't want to watch you die the way I did."
The room hummed with something unspoken.
Danger. Fate. Connection.
"I don't even know your name," I said.
A pause.
"Eli," he replied. "At least… that's who I was."
I repeated it silently. Eli.
It fit him.
Outside, a siren wailed in the distance.
"Eli," I said slowly, meeting his gaze, "if I'm really next—then we stop this. Together."
Something fierce ignited in his eyes.
"I was hoping you'd say that," he said.
And somewhere deep inside me, beneath the fear and the disbelief, a terrible, thrilling realization took root—
I trusted him.
End of Chapter – Cliffhanger
That night, someone slipped a note under my door.
Three words, written in shaky red ink:
STOP DIGGING — OR YOU'LL JOIN HIM