Morning didn't feel like the usual morning that was always calm
Kade was wide awake before they rang the bell, He lay on the bed wide awake staring at the ceiling, listening to the fan hum. For a while, he didn't move. His body felt heavy, like he hadn't rested at all,He just shut his eyes for a few hours and waited.
Something about the night still clung to him.
He sat up slowly. He put his bare feet on the cold floor. Mira's room was pin drop silent, except for the tapping of her laptop keys. She was wide awake, sitting at her desk, shoulders slightly hunched, eyes locked on the laptop screen.
"You haven't had any sleep" Kade said.
She didn't turn around. "I sleep when things stop going wrong."
He gave up a little smirk, but it wasn't obvious.
He rubbed his hands together. They felt cold. Too cold. He rubbed his palms against each other until they became warm.
Mira finally closed the laptop standing up. "You said something last night."
Kade looked up. "What did I say?"
She hesitated, like she was choosing what to leave out. "Not sentences. Just words."
"Which ones?"
"Fire, Running, And someone's name." She watched him closely. "You didn't say whose."
Kade looked away. The memory was just out of reach like a word at the tip of the tongue.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Don't be," she replied. "You weren't awake."
She walked to her bed knelt down, pulled out the box he'd noticed the night before. It made soft sound as it scraped against the floor.
"You asked about this yesterday," she said. "I didn't want to open it then."
She sat across the bed from kade
She set the box between them.
Inside were just ordinary students stuff. A couple of notebooks. Loose papers folded and unfolded too many times. A cracked phone wrapped in tissue. A USB drive hooked to a neck chain.
"They belong to my brother," she said. "Everything the school returned."
Kade didn't reach for anything. He waited.
Mira opened one of the notebooks and flipped through it without reading. Her flipped the pages faster, like she already knew what she was looking for.
"Evan was careful," she said. "He wrote everything like he wanted someone else to read this."
She handed the notebook to Kade.
He started from the front. The first pages were normal. Class notes. Complaint about teachers. Reminders about assignments.
Then the handwriting changed.
The West Wing isn't empty.
Kade paused, as the air around him changed
He turned the page.
I hear something moving when no one's there.
Another page.
Those walls aren't walls.
The way he gripped the book tightened
Mira sat across from him. She didn't rush him.
"Keep going," she said.
The more he flipped the handwriting became uneven
I saw someone tonight. Thought it was a student. It wasn't.
Kade swallowed hard.
"What did he see?" he asked.
Mira reached forward and flipped to the last page.
There was a drawing.
Not detailed. Just enough to recognize the shape. Long limbs. Bent posture. Something not fully human, not fully animal.
Kade felt his chest tighten as his breathing changed
"I've seen that," he said quietly.
Mira didn't react immediately. "Where?"
"Not like this," he said. "Not clearly tho, Just in pieces."
She studied his face. "In dreams?"
"And when I'm awake," he added.
She looked down at the drawing again. "Evan said it followed someone."
Kade stomach became hollow.
She turned the notebook around so he could see the sentence beneath the sketch.
The boy from the fire is here.
Neither of them spoke.
"That's you," Mira said.
Kade nodded once.
"He wrote this two days before he disappeared," she continued. "The school claims he left campus voluntarily."
"They're lying." kade said
"Yes."
She picked up the phone from the box and placed it on the desk.
"I couldn't unlock it," she said. "But this was the scratch I found on the screen.
Kade leaned closer.
RUN.
The word looked like it had been carved with something sharp.
His head started to ache.
"I wrote that once," he said.
Mira looked at him sharply. "Where?"
"In my old room," he said. "After the fire. I don't remember doing it. I just woke up and saw it there."
Silence filled the room.
"Kade," Mira said slowly, "what don't you remember about that night?"
He closed his eyes.
At first, nothing happened.
Then heat pressed against his skin. Not pain just pressure. The sound of wood breaking. The smell of smoke.
"I remember running," he said. "And hiding."
"What else?"
"Something moving behind me." His voice lowered. "Fast."
Mira leaned forward. "Did you see it?"
He shook his head. Then stopped.
"I saw it's eyes," he said. "it was above me."
His breathing sped up.
Mira reached across the desk and grabbed his wrist. Her grip was really firm.
"You're here," she said. "Look at me."
He opened his eyes.
"I don't think I survived that night by accident," he said.
She didn't let go. "You were a child."
"Children don't leave claw marks in the street," he said.
Her jaw tightened. "You don't know if that was you."
"But you don't know if it wasn't."
They sat there for a long moment.
Mira broke the silence first. "Evan thought the thing he saw wasn't hunting people randomly."
What do you mean?" Kade asked.
She met his eyes. "it was hunting you."
Kade leaned back in his chair.
"That explains the messages," he said. "And the whispers."
"And why it used your name," she added.
A bell rang outside.
Kade stood and walked to the window. Students walked across the courtyard, laughing, complaining, living like nothing was wrong.
"I don't feel like am dangerous," he said.
Mira stood beside him. "Most dangerous things don't."
He looked at her. "arent you afraid of me?"
"I am," she said honestly. "Just not in the way you think."
She picked up the USB drive. "Evan hid recordings on this. Sounds. Maybe video."
"From the West Wing?"
"Yes."
Kade nodded. "We shouldn't open it here."
"Agreed."
She put it back in the box and slid it under the bed.
"Classes will start soon," she said. " act normal."
He nodded.
As they left the room, Kade felt it again, that pressure under his skin. Like something shifting or adjusting.
And this time, when the voice whispered—
You're remembering—
he didn't fight it.
He just kept walking.