They let me go. "Don't leave town," Rowan said. Like I was in a cowboy movie. What town? This stupid place with the dirty river and the broken bridge. Where would I go?
Home was wrong. The couch ghost was there. The white dusty shape on the floor. I walked around it. Like it was a trap. My mom was at work. The house smelled like old frying oil and the lemony cleaner she uses. Two smells fighting.
I sat at the table. The wobbly leg. I rocked it. Creak. Creak. It made a rhythm. My head was full of bees. Not thoughts. Just buzz.
Krivya.
Her name was a shape in my mouth. Kriv-ya. Two syllables. Hard K. Soft ya. Who named her? Did they know she'd end up a journal and a police file?
I got up. Paced. Three steps to the fridge. Two steps to the sink. The sink had a drip. Plink. Every seven seconds. I counted. The clock on the wall was wrong. It said 2:15. It was really 4:30. The battery was dying. The second hand jerked. Moved. Stopped. Moved. Like it was scared to go.
I needed air. Real air. Not the thick house air. I put on my shoes. One lace was shorter. I tied them anyway. Went outside.
The street was quiet. Afternoon sun. Long shadows. Made everything look stretched. Like a funhouse. My shadow was a giant with a tiny head. I walked. No place to go. Just walk.
My feet took me to the bridge. Of course. Stupid feet.
I stood there. Not where she stood. On the other side. The railing was cold iron. Flaky red paint came off on my hands. Like dried blood. I wiped it on my pants.
Looked down at the water. Brown. Slow. A plastic bag floated. It looked like a dead jellyfish. Further down, a shopping cart was stuck in the mud. Just the top part showing. Like a metal skeleton.
This is where she did it. Or where it was done to her. The air embolism. They explained it. A needle. A syringe full of nothing. Of air. Push it in the right vein. The air goes to the heart. Makes a bubble. The heart can't pump bubble. It stops. Just stops.
Clean. No blood. No scream maybe. Did she feel it? A coldness climbing up her arm? Did she get dizzy? Did she look at the water and think goodbye?
Why here? Why the bridge? For the view? It was a bad view. The rusty river. The old factory on the other side with broken windows. Maybe she liked it. Maybe ugly things felt true.
A car went over the bridge. WHOOSH. The whole bridge shook. A tiny tremor in the iron. I felt it in my teeth.
I turned to go. My eye caught something. Down where the bridge met the land. In the weeds. A flash of color. Not green. Blue.
I walked over. Kneeled. The weeds were itchy. Stickers on my pants. It was a hair tie. A scrunchie. Blue with little white dots. Like a mini night sky. It was dirty. But not old dirty. Not rotten. Just dusty from the road.
Krivya had white hair. Silver-white. Would she wear a blue scrunchie? Maybe. For contrast.
I didn't touch it. Just looked. Evidence. Should I call Rowan? Hey I found a hair thing. He'd sigh. He sighs a lot.
I left it there. Got up. Brushed my pants. The stickers stuck.
Walking home, my brain started its movie. The bad kind.
Scene: Night. Bridge. Krivya standing there. She has the blue scrunchie in her hair. It's holding a ponytail. The wind blows little bits of white hair around her face. She's waiting. For me?
I come. The me from the photo. Hands in pockets. Smiling my small smile.
What do we talk about? The weather? The meaning of life? Do I have a syringe in my pocket? Is it cold? Do I take it out? Does she see it? Does she turn her head? Offer her neck? Like a trust fall?
Or is it faster? A grab. A struggle? But they said no struggle. No marks.
Maybe she had the syringe. Maybe she gave it to me. "Do it," she says. "I'm tired." And I, the smiler, I take it. And I do it. Because I'm curious. What happens next?
My stomach twisted. I felt sick. I stopped walking. Leaned against a brick wall. The bricks were rough. Warm from the sun.
I wasn't there. I wasn't. I was home. In my room. Watching TV. I think. What was on TV? I couldn't remember. A show? A commercial? Blank.
The blank was the worst. The blank was a hole I could fall into.
I got home. My mom was back. She was cutting vegetables. Chop chop chop on the wooden board. She didn't look at me. "Where were you?"
"Walking."
"Hmm." Chop. A carrot. Orange coins. "The police called. The detective. He was polite." Chop. A potato. "He asked about your… habits. If you sleepwalk. If you ever talked about… hurting things."
The knife stopped. Silence. Then chop again. Louder.
"What did you say?" My voice was funny. Tight.
"I said no. Of course no. My son is a good boy." She said it to the potato. Not to me. "He is confused. He is a dreamer. Not a… not a hurt-er."
Hurt-er. A made-up word. It sounded small. Like a kid word.
"Thanks, Mama."
She finally looked at me. Her eyes were wet. Not crying. Just wet. Like she'd been cutting onions. But she wasn't. "Eryx. What is happening? Tell me true."
"I don't know," I said. And it was the truest thing I'd said all week.
Night came. I lay in bed. The ceiling had a crack. It looked like a lightning bolt. I stared at it. Tried to make my mind go blank. But it wouldn't. It was like a bad radio. Switching channels.
Static. A laugh. Whose laugh? A truck horn. The crunch. A girl's voice: "Hey, are you alive?" The smell of the hotel. Cheap booze and sweat. The man's story. The rope. The plink of the sink drip. The blue scrunchie in the weeds.
Pictures. Sounds. Smells. All mixed up. A soup.
I got up. Went to the window. My room faces the back alley. A streetlight was flickering. On. Off. On. Off. It made the shadows jump. A cat ran across. A black flash.
I thought about the man in the hotel. His son. The one who saved a life and got blamed. He found a rope. One month later.
What did the rope feel like? Rough? Smooth? Did he tie the knot himself? Did he practice? Did he stand on a chair? Did the chair wobble? Did he kick it away? Or did he just step off into the air?
I shivered. My own neck felt… aware. Like skin was too thin.
Why did I think of that now? Because of the bridge? Because Krivya chose a different way out? A medical way. A clean way. The rope is messy. The bridge is… fall-y. The syringe is clinical.
Maybe she was a clinical person. A scientist of her own death.
I went back to bed. Pulled the covers up. They smelled like me. Not good. Not bad. Just me-scent.
Sleep didn't come. It danced around the bed. Teasing.
Then. A sound. Not in the room. In my head.
Click.
Like a lock turning. Or a camera shutter.
And then a… feeling. Not a thought. A knowing. It came from the hollow place. The place where I usually put my daydreams.
The knowing was: You were not alone on the bridge.
It wasn't a voice. It was just… information. Appearing. Like a text popping up on a screen.
You were not alone.
Who else? Krivya. And me. That's two. That's alone together.
No. Another. Watching.
The hairs on my arms stood up. Goosebumps. My room was dark. The flickering light from outside made the shapes move. The chair was a crouching thing. The jacket on the hook was a headless man.
This was stupid. I was scaring myself. My own brain was telling ghost stories.
But the feeling was strong. Solid. A rock in my gut.
Someone else was there. Behind the camera? The camera was on a pole. High up. To see the bridge for security. Someone else was on the bridge. In the shadows. Under the bridge? On the other side? Watching me watch her. Watching her die.
Did Rowan see that? Did he look at the whole video? Or just the snapshot of me smiling?
I had to ask him.
But tomorrow. Now was night. The time for scary things.
I closed my eyes tight. Made pictures of nice things. Mountains. Clouds. My angel from the dream. But her face turned into Krivya's face. Pale. Eyes open. Staring at nothing.
I opened my eyes.
The clock glowed red. 3:07 AM.
The witching hour. That's what they call it. When ghosts are strongest. When the wall between worlds is thin.
My wall was always thin. That was the problem.
I must have slept. Because I had the dream again. But different.
No mountain. A room. A white room. No windows. A table. Two chairs. I was in one chair. Krivya was in the other. She was wearing a hospital gown. Pale blue. Her hair was down. It was so white it glowed.
On the table between us: a syringe. It was full of clear nothing. And a blue scrunchie.
We didn't talk. We just looked at each other. Her eyes were deep. Like tunnels.
Then she pushed the syringe toward me. It slid on the table. Smooth. Stopped in front of me.
She nodded.
I picked it up. It was cold. Heavy for its size.
I stood up. Walked behind her chair. She tilted her head to the side. Exposed her neck. A blue vein pulsed there. Gently. Like a tiny creature sleeping under her skin.
My hand was steady. I brought the needle tip to her skin. I was going to do it. I wanted to see what happened.
Just before the point touched, she spoke. But her mouth didn't move.
"This is how you wake up," the room said.
I jerked awake. Sun was coming in. Weak yellow light. My heart was hammering. Bam bam bam against my ribs. My hand was curled into a fist. Like I was holding something.
I uncurled it. My palm had four little red marks from my fingernails.
I took a deep breath. It hitched. Wheezed. Asthma. I grabbed my inhaler from the side table. Shook it. Puff. The medicine taste. Chemical mint.
Lying back, I stared at the lightning-bolt crack.
The dream felt more real than this room. The cold syringe. The trust in her tilted neck.
"I didn't do it," I said to the crack. "It was a dream."
But dreams come from somewhere. They come from the factory in your head. And my factory was making scary products.
At breakfast, my mom was quiet. She made toast. The toast got a little burnt. Black edges. She scraped it with a knife. Scritch scritch. The sound went into my teeth.
"I need to see the detective today," I said.
She looked up. "Why? More trouble?"
"No. I… remembered something. Maybe."
"What thing?"
"A feeling." That sounded dumb.
She sighed. A tired mom sigh. "Okay. Be careful. Their minds are made of traps. They want to close the box. Even if the wrong thing is inside."
That was almost poetic. My mom doesn't talk like that. It surprised me.
I nodded. "I know."
I didn't go to school. I just walked to the police station. It was a squat, ugly building. Beige bricks. A flag hung limp.
Inside smelled like coffee and old carpet. A fan whirred in the corner, pushing hot air around.
I asked for Detective Rowan. The lady at the desk chewed gum. Pop. Pop. She made a call. "Wait there," she said, pointing to plastic chairs. They were bolted to the floor.
I waited. A man in handcuffs was led past. He smelled like pee and anger. He glared at me. I looked at my shoes.
Rowan came out. He looked like he slept in his clothes. Wrinkled shirt. A different stain on the tie. Maybe egg.
"Eryx. Didn't expect you."
"I have a question," I said. "About the video."
"What video?"
"The security video. The one my picture came from. Did you watch all of it? The whole… scene?"
He crossed his arms. Leaned against the wall. "Why?"
"I just… I had a feeling. That someone else was there. Watching. Maybe… under the bridge? Or something."
He studied me. His eyes were tired but sharp. Like an old knife. "The camera angle is fixed. It points at the middle of the bridge. Where you two were. The edges, the ends… they're cut off. You can't see who's approaching. Who's leaving. You only see the middle spot."
"So… there could have been someone? Coming or going? Out of the shot?"
"Could be." He shrugged. "But why? You think someone else did it? And just let you stand there and smile?"
"I don't know." My idea was crumbling. "Maybe they… left before… it happened."
"Maybe." He didn't sound convinced. "Look, kid. This case… it's got no prints, no weapon, no witness except a camera that shows you. My boss wants it simple. The strange boy with the blank spots. It's neat."
"I'm not neat," I said, and immediately felt stupid.
A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. "No. You're not. You're messy. And messy cases stay open. They itch." He pushed off the wall. "I'll look at the full tape again. The whole hour. See if anyone else steps into the frame. Even a shadow. Okay?"
"Okay." It was something. A maybe.
"Go home. Go to school. Try to be… normal. It helps."
Normal. What was that? Eating toast. Doing homework. Not thinking about syringes and blue scrunchies and boys with ropes.
I left. The sun was higher now. Hot. My shadow was small at my feet. A puddle of dark.
I walked past the school. I could hear the noise. Kids yelling. A ball bouncing. Normal sounds. They felt far away. Like sounds from TV in another room.
I kept walking. My feet had a mind. They took me to the library. The old public library. Stone steps worn down in the middle. Like a smile.
Inside was cool. Quiet. Smell of books. Dust and paper. A good smell.
I didn't know what I was looking for. I went to the computer. Typed in "air embolism."
A lot of medical stuff. Cold words. Vascular occlusion. Pulmonary barotrauma. I read about how it happens sometimes by accident in hospitals. A bubble in the IV line. A mistake.
But to do it on purpose. You'd need knowledge. You'd need to find a vein. A big one. Neck or arm. You'd need a syringe. Needle. Where does a 17-year-old girl get that? Or a 17-year-old boy?
The internet didn't answer.
I leaned back in the chair. It squeaked. The library ceiling was high. With those old fancy tiles. Squares with bumps in them.
A thought crawled into my head. A slow, ugly thought.
What if it wasn't premeditated? What if it was… an experiment that went wrong? What if she had the syringe for something else? Drugs? Medicine? And she showed it to me. And we were talking. And I, the smiler, curious… said "What happens if…?" And she, tired of life, said "Let's find out."
An agreement. A mutual curiosity.
That felt… possible. It felt like something the two hollow people in my head would do. Two scientists in a lab of their own misery.
But then why didn't I remember?
Because the experiment went too far. And my mind ran away. Hid the memory in a hole.
The hole where I put all the things I don't want to be.
I put my head in my hands. The computer screen glowed blue against my eyelids.
I was going in circles. Like a rat in a maze with no cheese. Just more maze.