Neems was shaking before she knew she was dreaming.
Her room was dark. The ceiling fan spun lazily above her. A thin line of streetlight cut across her bedroom wall. Everything normal.
But her body wouldn't stay still.
Her fingers twitched against her blanket. Her breathing hitched. Her legs jerked like she was trying to run without moving.
Because in the dream—
She was running.
The woods were darker than they'd ever been. The trail that led to the cave twisted wrong, like it had been stretched. Trees leaned in too close. Branches scraped at her hoodie as she sprinted through them.
Behind her—
Footsteps.
Not slow.
Not patient.
Fast.
Too fast.
She didn't look back at first. She didn't want to see it. But the sound grew closer—branches snapping, leaves crushed under something heavy and determined.
She risked a glance over her shoulder.
It was sprinting.
Twelve feet of wrongness tearing through the trees like the forest didn't matter. Its limbs moved in sharp, unnatural bursts—too long, too quick, like frames were being skipped.
It wasn't watching.
It was hunting.
"No, no, no—" she gasped, tripping over exposed roots, barely catching herself.
She cut off the trail, diving between trees, lungs burning. The woods felt endless. No cave. No streetlights. No way out.
Just the sound of it closing in.
She ducked behind a thick oak, pressing her back against the bark, clamping her hand over her mouth to muffle her breathing.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence swallowed everything.
She counted in her head.
One.
Two.
Three—
A branch cracked beneath her sneaker.
She looked down.
Too late.
The forest exploded.
It reached her in less than a second.
One long, bone-thin arm shot around her torso and yanked her into the air like she weighed nothing. She screamed—really screamed this time—as her feet kicked uselessly above the ground.
Up close, its head tilted.
There was no real face. Just a stretched suggestion of one. A split where a mouth might be.
That split widened.
Opening.
Opening wider.
Like something remembering how to eat.
Neems thrashed, tears blurring her vision as its grip tightened—
And she woke up.
She shot upright in bed with a gasp so sharp it hurt her throat. Her hands were shaking violently. Sweat soaked the collar of her shirt. Her heart pounded so hard she could feel it in her teeth.
Her room was normal.
Still.
Silent.
She dragged a hand down her face and forced herself to breathe.
"It doesn't run," she whispered to herself.
That was the one comfort she clung to.
It doesn't chase.
It just watches.
Right?
⸻
We wanted a sort of break
We all went out around 5, then spent an extra 4 hours all just hanging out–forgetting about the time. But also forgetting the consequences of staying out too late again.
We were immediately reminded why we shouldn't have been out late.
Because that's when we saw it.. the creature we saw at the cave and it wasn't just me this time who witnessed it, it was all of us.
It stayed just a but away, maybe 40-50 yards away. It was hard for me to tell because i'm nearsighted. But there was no doubt in my mind that was the monster coming back to haunt us again.
Neems seemed the most shocked.
Instead of calm confusion, she freezes harder.
Sia tries to deny it. "Thats not what I think it is.. is it?" She shakily asks whilst gripping her smoothie in her hand so tight it nearly bursts.
"It is.. But why is it just standing there, other people should be able to see it right?" Samiya replied with her hands visibly shaking.
When Hashim says:
"Monsters run. That's like… their whole thing."
Neems doesn't joke.
She says, almost under her breath:
"You don't know that."
Her fear is sharper. More physical. She stands slightly behind the group without meaning to. She flinches when it shifts.
But importantly:
It does not chase.
It never sprints.
It retreats slowly.
Which makes her dream worse — because now she doesn't know which version is real.
———
None of us slept well after that.
We didn't say that part out loud the next day, but it showed.
Neems was quieter than usual. Not withdrawn — just alert. Like someone who'd been told the floor might collapse at any moment. She flinched at small noises. Her eyes tracked movement too quickly.
Hashim noticed it first.
"You good?" he asked her in the hallway between classes.
She nodded too fast. "Yeah."
He didn't push. But he didn't look convinced either.
I did something worse.
I analyzed it.
Because the version of that thing we saw in the trees didn't match fear. It matched patience.
And patience is harder to fight.
⸻
That afternoon we met again. Not at Sia's. Not anywhere official. Just outside, on the low concrete wall behind the school gym where nobody really cared what we talked about.
Wind scraped dry leaves across the pavement.
Nobody brought up the woods at first.
Sia did, eventually.
"It didn't cross the street," she said.
Hashim blinked. "What?"
"Last night," she continued. "It stayed near the trees. It didn't step under the streetlight."
That made everyone pause.
Samiya frowned. "So?"
"So maybe there's a boundary," Sia said. "Maybe it can't."
Neems shifted uncomfortably. "Or maybe it didn't want to."
Silence.
That possibility hung heavier.
I leaned forward. "There's something else."
They looked at me.
"It never appears when we're alone in public spaces," I said. "Only when it's quiet. Or dark. Or we're together."
"Together?" Hashim repeated.
"Yeah."
Neems' head lifted slightly. "You think it doesn't want to separate us?"
"I think it wants to observe us," I said carefully. "As a group."
Samiya scoffed lightly. "Great. So we're a science project now."
"No," I said. "Worse."
They waited.
"It's learning."
That word hit wrong.
Hashim rubbed his jaw. "Learning what?"
"How we react. Who panics. Who freezes. Who leads."
Neems looked away at that.
I noticed.
Sia crossed her arms. "Then what do we do?"
That was the first time she'd asked that question without sounding like she already had an answer.
I took a breath.
"We don't give it anything new."
Samiya frowned. "Meaning?"
"No dramatic moves. No sudden splits. No acting alone. If it's studying patterns, we don't change ours."
Hashim let out a quiet laugh. "So we… act boring?"
"If boring keeps us alive, yeah."
Neems swallowed. "What if it's not just watching?"
I turned to her. "What do you mean?"
She hesitated.
For a split second, I thought she might tell us about the dream.
She didn't.
"What if it's waiting for something?" she said instead.
That chilled me more than anything else she could've admitted.
"Waiting for what?" Hashim asked.
Neems didn't answer.
Because none of us knew.
⸻
That night, something shifted.
Not outside.
Inside.
I stood at my window again, because apparently I was incapable of learning lessons.
The streetlight hummed softly.
Midnight passed.
Twelve thirty.
Nothing.
Part of me felt relieved.
The other part felt insulted.
Because now I wasn't just afraid of seeing it.
I was afraid of not seeing it.
My phone buzzed softly.
Sia sent me a message.
I didn't know why she would send me a message so late at night.
I picked up my phone to check it.
Sia: Check your window. Is it there?
I stared at the message.
I was confused. I had already looked.
It wasn't at the end of the street this time.
It was closer.
Not directly in front of my house.
But closer than before.
Standing just beyond the reach of the light.
Not pacing.
Not retreating.
Just still.
Watching.
My chest tightened.
Jamal: It moved.
Three dots appeared instantly.
Sia: I know.
I froze.
Jamal: How?
Her reply came slower this time.
Sia: Because it's here too.
A pulse of cold ran through me.
I stepped back from the window.
This wasn't just pattern repetition.
It wasn't three nights anymore.
It wasn't location-specific.
It was adjusting.
Learning.
Adapting.
Across town, Neems lay awake, staring at her ceiling.
And for just a moment—
She thought she heard something running in the distance.
But when she held her breath and listened harder—
There was only silence.
⸻
The next morning, before any of us could even regroup—
Hashim sent a message none of us were ready for.
Hashim: It wasn't just near Jamal's street.
Hashim: It was outside mine too.
⸻
NEXT WEEK:
CHAPTER 7 – "Rules We Didn't Choose"