The train groaned as it pulled into the station, a long sigh of rusted metal and tired wheels. Elira sat with her bag hugged to her chest, staring out the window at the unfamiliar town swallowed in gray mist and falling night. The sign above the station flickered weakly—Greystone—as if unsure it even wanted to be seen.
She hadn't meant to come here.
But when your past haunts you like a shadow that never loosens its grip, sometimes the only choice is to outrun it even if it means running into the dark.
Elira stepped off the train and into the cold. The air smelled like rain-soaked earth and something metallic. Her fingers trembled as she tightened her coat around her. A driver was supposed to meet her, sent by the landlord who barely responded to her emails. Instead, the station was deserted. No taxis, no footsteps just silence, broken only by the hum of streetlights and the ticking of a town that felt paused in time.
She walked.
The streets of Greystone were old and narrow, lined with crumbling brick buildings and shuttered windows. Every corner she turned whispered like it knew her name. She didn't believe in haunted places, but something about this town clung to her skin like a warning.
The apartment was a cramped attic loft above a dusty bookstore, the kind that smelled of yellowed pages and things left behind. It was small, with creaky wooden floors and a single window facing the forest.
Perfect.
It wasn't home. But it was far from where she came from and that was enough.
She unpacked in silence. Clothes, a cracked mirror, a notebook filled with poetry and pain, and a photo one she turned face-down the moment it landed on the shelf.
She spent the rest of the evening in her new solitude, sipping bitter tea from a chipped mug and watching the rain streak down the window. Her eyes drifted to the alley below, where the bookstore's back door swung gently in the wind.
Then she saw him.
A man standing in the rain.
He was still. Watching.
She blinked and he was gone.
Her heart stammered in her chest. Maybe it was her imagination. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe
A knock echoed from downstairs.
Soft. Rhythmic. Like a heartbeat.
Elira held her breath, not moving. It was past midnight. No one knew she was here. No one should be knocking.
Another knock. A little louder.
And then, silence.
She crept toward the stairs, every wooden step creaking like it screamed her presence. At the front door, she paused, her hand hovering over the doorknob.
When she finally opened it, the porch was empty.
But there, on the welcome mat, lay a single red rose. Its petals were soaked in rain and something darker.
Something that looked an awful lot like blood.