I didn't sleep that night.
I lay on my bed, listening to the rain drum against the tin roof, and every drop sounded like footsteps. Every creak of the old wooden house felt like a cloak brushing against the wall. I kept seeing it behind my eyelids—that dark, shapeless silhouette, the emptiness beneath the hood, the feeling of a smile that wasn't really there.
It was just my imagination, I told myself. Just the dark, the rain, and a jumpy heart. But deep down, something in me knew better. Some things don't haunt you because you're afraid of them—they haunt you because they've already found you.
The next morning, I forced myself to go to school. I took the long way around, avoiding the alley entirely. The sun was bright, the air smelled of damp earth and jasmine, people walked by laughing and talking—everything looked normal. So why did I feel like an outsider in my own life? Like I was walking through a world that no longer fully belonged to me?
By afternoon, the strangeness began.
It started small. Objects I had just set down were no longer where I left them. My pen would vanish from my notebook, only to reappear minutes later right on top of the page where I was writing. The temperature around me would drop without reason—even under the heat of the afternoon sun, a cold breath would brush the back of my neck, as if someone had leaned in close and whispered my name without making a sound.
Then came the dreams.
Not the kind you forget by breakfast. These were vivid—burning into my mind the moment I closed my eyes. I saw endless fields of gray, dead grass stretching toward a sky the color of bruised flesh. And there, standing in the distance, was the cloaked figure. It didn't move. It just waited. And in every dream, I felt it—the pull. Like a rope tied around my chest, slowly reeling me in.
You belong to me now, Gerie.
The voice didn't come from outside. It echoed inside my own head, as if it had always been there, just waiting for me to hear it.
I woke up gasping, sweat soaking my shirt. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. And then I saw it—on my left wrist, right where the pulse beats strongest, a faint dark mark had appeared. It looked like a twisted black rose, its thorns wrapping around my skin as if growing from beneath it.
I scrambled for the light, rubbing at it hard, until my skin turned red and raw. But it didn't fade. It didn't even smudge. It simply sat there—quiet, permanent, undeniable.
A seal. A brand. A claim.
That was when I understood the truth I had been running from since the alley. The figure hadn't been chasing me that night. It hadn't needed to.
It had touched me. Left something behind. And now, no matter where I go, no matter how far I run… the Necromancer knows exactly where to find me.
The game wasn't over when I reached the light at the end of the alley. It had only just begun.