The missing scrunchie. It sat in my head. A blue hole where an answer should be.
I told Rinos. "We need to tell Rowan."
Rinos kicked a pebble. It skittered into the gutter. "Tell him what? That a hair tie you saw yesterday is gone? He'll laugh. Or sigh. The tired sigh."
He was probably right. But the feeling was itchy. Someone had been there. After. Cleaning up.
We didn't go to the police. We went to the hotel instead. The Shree Krishna Hotel. The sign was still half broken. The 'i' in Krishna was dark.
Inside smelled the same. Stale air. Fried oil. Old wood.
The same man was behind the counter. Not the man from before. The owner. Balding. Watching a small TV with cricket.
"Two sodas," I said.
He didn't look up. "Fridge."
We got cold bottles. Condensation wet our hands. We sat at the same sticky table. The fly was gone. A new stain. Brown. Like sauce.
"You think that guy comes here a lot?" Rinos whispered. "The story guy?"
"I don't know." I scanned the room. Two old men playing cards in the corner. A truck driver shoveling rice into his mouth. No one with a loose thread on his collar.
"He was a ghost," Rinos said. "A story-ghost. He appeared to give you a lesson and poof. Gone."
Maybe. But his story felt real. The son. The rope. The blame.
I finished my soda. The fizz hurt my nose. "Let's go."
We walked. The streetlights were starting to buzz on. One by one. Pop. Hiss. Glow.
My phone vibrated. A number I didn't know.
I answered. "Hello?"
Silence. Then breathing. Slow. Deliberate.
"Who is this?"
A voice. Distorted. Like through a fan. Robotic. "You're looking in the wrong places."
My blood went cold. "What?"
"The blue is gone. The thread is cut. Stop pulling or the whole sweater will unravel."
Click.
I stood frozen. Phone to my ear. The dial tone buzzed.
"Who was it?" Rinos asked.
I showed him the number. "Blocked."
"What did they say?"
I told him. The words felt silly saying them out loud. The whole sweater will unravel. Like a bad poem.
"A threat?" Rinos's face was serious.
"A warning. To stop looking."
"But you're not really looking. You're just… stumbling around."
"Maybe that's worse. Maybe I'm getting close by accident."
To what? I had no idea.
We got to my street. Rinos left. "Call me if the sweater unravels," he said, trying to joke. It fell flat.
My house was dark. Mom was working late. The silence was a living thing. I turned on every light. The hall. The kitchen. The living room. The couch ghost glowed in the brightness.
I made instant noodles. The kettle screamed. I ate standing up. Tasted like salty nothing.
I went to my room. Closed the door. Sat on the bed.
The call replayed in my head. The robotic voice. Was it a man? A woman? Couldn't tell.
The blue is gone. The scrunchie.
The thread is cut. What thread? The loose thread on the man's collar? Or a… thread of an idea?
Stop pulling.
Pulling what? The thread? The memory?
I was tired. My brain was soup.
I lay down. Stared at the lightning crack. I imagined it spreading. Splitting the ceiling. The roof. The sky. Letting in the cold dark of space.
Sleep took me. Not a dream sleep. A black, heavy sleep.
I woke up with a jolt. My room was dark. I'd forgotten to turn on my bedside lamp. The red numbers said 2:34 AM.
Something was wrong.
A sound. Not in the house. Outside. A scraping. Like something being dragged over concrete.
I got up. Went to the window. Peeked through the blinds.
The alley. The flickering light. The shadows jumping.
A figure. Dark clothes. A hoodie. Kneeling by the big trash bins. Doing something. I couldn't see what.
My heart hammered. A burglar? A stray person?
The figure stood up. Turned. Looked right at my window.
I ducked. Too slow? Did they see me?
I stayed low. Counted to thirty. My knees hurt on the hard floor.
I peeked again.
Gone.
Just the trash bins. The flickering light. The jumping shadows.
Maybe it was nothing. A homeless person looking for food. Or a cat.
But it felt like something. A presence. Connected to the phone call? Paranoid. I was getting paranoid.
I couldn't sleep after that. I sat with my back against the bed. Watched the door. Listened.
The house creaked. Normal house sounds. But now they were monsters. Footsteps. Breathing.
At 5 AM, the sky started to lighten. Gray then pink. The world coming back.
I got up. Stiff. Went to the kitchen. Made tea. My hands shook. The spoon clinked against the cup.
Mom came home at 6. She looked exhausted. "You're up early."
"Couldn't sleep."
She nodded. Didn't ask why. She was too tired for my problems.
I went to school. Not because I wanted to. Because I needed to move. To be around normal noise.
The school noise was like a wall. Kids shouting. Lockers slamming. A ball bouncing in the corridor. I walked through it. A ghost. They parted around me. Whispering. That's him. The bridge guy.
I ignored them. Went to class. Sat in my usual spot. The desk had new carvings. A heart. Initials. Not mine.
The teacher came in. Started talking about history. Wars. Kings dying. People killing for ideas. Nothing changes.
I looked out the window. The sky was clear blue. A perfect, empty blue.
My mind went back to the figure in the alley. The hoodie. Had it been tall? Short? Male? Female? No details. Just a dark shape.
Maybe it was my own shadow. My fear made solid.
The bell rang for lunch. I didn't go to the cafeteria. I went to the library. The school library. Smaller than the public one. Smelled like old glue and paper dust.
I sat at a table in the back. Hid between tall shelves.
I took out my notebook. The one I was using as a log. I wrote:
Night. Figure in alley. Watching? Phone call warning. Scrunchie gone. All connected? Or is my brain connecting random dots? Making a picture out of static.
I closed the notebook. Put my head down on the cool wood.
"Mind if I sit?"
A voice. A girl's voice. Quiet.
I looked up. It was Riya. The girl from bio. Who gave Rinos the doodle.
She had glasses. Brown hair in a braid. She looked nervous.
"Sure," I said.
She sat opposite me. Put her lunch box on the table. A pink box with flowers.
"I heard you went to see Krivya's aunt," she said, not looking at me. Opening her box. Rice. Lentils. A boiled egg.
"News travels."
"Small school." She peeled the egg. The shell came off in little pieces. "Krivya… she was different. I tried to be her friend. But it was hard. Like talking to a… very smart wall."
"I know the feeling," I mumbled.
"She talked about you. After the accident thing. She said you were a fascinating case study."
"Case study?" That hurt. Like I was a bug under glass.
"She didn't mean it bad. She was just… analytical. She said most people are predictable. Like wind-up toys. But you… you were a broken toy. And broken toys are more interesting. You could do anything. Or nothing."
Great. A broken toy.
"Did she ever seem… scared? Or worried? Before she died?"
Riya thought. Chewed a bite of rice. "Not scared. More… focused. The last week. She was extra quiet. Taking notes in a small black notebook. Not class notes. Her own notes. She'd write, then stare into space, then write again. Like she was solving a big math problem."
The journal. She must have been writing in the journal.
"Did she ever mention a blue scrunchie?"
Riya blinked. "Yeah. Actually. She wore it once. I said it looked nice. She touched it. Said 'It's a marker. A point of color in a gray world.' Then she took it off and put it in her bag. Never saw it again."
A marker. For what?
"Thanks," I said.
Riya packed her lunch box. "Be careful, Eryx."
"Of what?"
"She's gone. But the things she was thinking about… they're not. Some thoughts are like viruses. They can jump from one person to another." She gave me a look. A serious, old look in her young face. Then she left.
I sat there. The library clock ticked.
Viruses of thought. Jumping hosts.
Krivya's thoughts were in her journal. Now they were in my head. The hollow. The sleeper. The thin places.
Had I caught her virus? Was I getting sick with her ideas?
The final bell rang. I was the last to leave class. I dragged my feet. Didn't want to go home to the empty, watching house.
I walked a different route. Past the market. Smells of fish and ripe fruit. Loud voices bargaining.
I saw a flash of white hair in the crowd. My heart stopped.
I pushed through. "Krivya?"
I grabbed a shoulder. The person turned. An old man. Completely bald. Not her.
"Sorry," I muttered.
He scowled. Moved on.
I was seeing ghosts now. Great.
I kept walking. Ended up at the river. Not the bridge. Further down. Where the water was slower. Muddy banks.
Kids were playing there. Flying kites. Colorful paper diamonds against the blue sky. Their shouts were happy. Pure.
I sat on a rock. Watched the kites. They danced on the wind. Tugging at strings. Wanting to be free. But held down.
Like us. Held down by bodies. By school. By expectations. By gravity.
Maybe death was just cutting the string.
A shadow fell over me. I looked up.
A man. Standing too close. I scrambled up. The rock was slippery.
It was him.
The man from the hotel. The one with the story.
He looked older in the daylight. Deeper lines around his eyes. The loose thread was still there, on his collar. Dancing in the breeze.
"You," I said.
He nodded. "Me."
"You're real."
A small, sad smile. "Unfortunately."
"Why did you disappear? The police are looking for you. To verify my story."
"I know. I don't talk to police. Bad experiences." He looked at the kites. "My son loved kites. He could make them from newspaper and bamboo. They always flew the highest."
The son. The rope.
"What are you doing here?" I asked. "Are you following me?"
"Not following. Observing. You're stuck. Spinning your wheels in the mud. I thought maybe you needed a push."
"A push toward what?"
"Toward the truth. Or away from it. Depending."
"Depending on what?"
"On whether you want to live with it." He looked at me. His eyes were deep. Tired. "The girl on the bridge. She was like my son. A see-er. They see the cracks in the world. And they can't unsee them. Most people, they walk over the cracks. Pretend they're not there. See-ers… they stop. They stare. Sometimes they fall in."
"Did she fall? Or was she pushed?"
He shrugged. "Does it matter? The result is the same. She's in the crack now."
"Who are you?" I asked, frustration boiling over. "Really? Why do you care?"
"My name is Arjun. And I care because no one cared for my son. Until it was too late." He took a step closer. Lowered his voice. "You asked about the blue thing. The hair tie."
My breath caught. "How do you know about that?"
"I was there. That night. After. I saw you find it. And I saw you leave it. I went back later. It was gone. Someone else took it."
My skin crawled. "You were watching me?"
"Watching over you. There's a difference."
"Why?"
"Because you're next," he said simply. "You're the next see-er on the bridge. And someone is cutting the strings."