The mark glowed faintly under the moonlight—*a perfect circle with a slash through it*, as if seared into Vivian's skin. She gasped and leaned closer to the mirror.
*"What… is this?"*
She gently ran her fingers over it. It didn't hurt. It didn't itch.
But it felt *wrong.*
Her heart raced.
*Where did I get this? When? How?!*
"Did this thing really marked me?"
She racked her brain. No memories of injuries. No scratches. Nothing.
*Maybe… I scratched too hard behind my ear and didn't notice.*
But the mark didn't look accidental. It looked *deliberate*.
With a terrified expression, She rubbed at it, trying to erase it, but the more she looked, the more it seemed to glow brighter.
*Meanwhile…*
Max was breaking.
It started with whispers. Then flickers of black in the corners of his eyes.
Now… *blackouts.*
One moment he was in his room—lights off, staring at the ceiling.
The next?
He found himself *barefoot*, in the middle of a road, under the open sky.
He didn't know how he got there. Or why.
Headlights blazed toward him.
A horn blared. Tires screeched.
Then—*yanked!*—someone dragged him out of the way.
"Are you crazy?!" a girl's voice screamed. "What the hell is wrong with you?! Do you want to die?!"
Max stared at her, expression blank. Hollow. Eyes distant.
"I'm talking to you! Answer me!" She grabbed his wrist.
But Max slowly turned away and began walking down the road like she wasn't even there.
"Hey—HEY!" she called after him, watching in stunned silence as he disappeared into the night.
"Something wasn't right with him" she wondered, then she came to a realization
"could he be sleep walking?" oh no.
"Hey! Hey!" the girl called after him, but Max didn't stop. He moved like he was in a trance—eyes hollow, body stiff, like a puppet on invisible strings.
**
When Max came to himself , he found himself in a cold metal chair, surrounded by uniformed officers. The bright lights of the police station stabbed at his eyes. He blinked rapidly, disoriented, as curious stares fixed on him like he was some escaped lunatic—or worse, *a ghost*.
He sat up slowly, glancing around in confusion.
*"Why... am I here?"* he asked, voice groggy.
"You don't remember?" one of the officers said, eyeing him cautiously.
Max pressed his fingers to his temples, trying to summon a single coherent memory. But his mind was a void.
*Nothing.* Not even what he'd eaten the night before.
It was like someone had erased chunks of him.
The only flicker of memory… was him holding his phone, reading a message.
As if summoned by his thoughts, his phone vibrated in his pocket.
He looked down. A message from Starr and Vivian lit up the screen:
*"Come to Mercy General Hospital. It's Liam. Please hurry."*
When Max arrived at the hospital, he staggered into the ward like his legs no longer belonged to him. His breath caught. Time slowed.
There, on the bed... lay Liam.
But it wasn't the Liam he knew.
His body was swollen, bruised, unrecognizable—*as if he had been mauled* or run over repeatedly by something that shouldn't exist. Machines beeped steadily, barely keeping him tethered to life.
Max gripped the metal railing of the bed, his fingers trembling.
"What happened?" he asked, shaking with panic.
Starr, Vivian, and Liam's parents were in tears.
Apparently, Liam had been seen standing in the middle of the road, smiling—like something was calling to him from the darkness.
That's when a truck sped up and crushed him, leaving his body limp and lifeless… before vanishing into the night.
Upon hearing this, fragments of Max's memories began to return—slowly, piece by piece.
He remembered now.
It was a distress message from Liam that had drawn him out of the house. But after taking barely five steps, it felt like something else took over—as though he was no longer in control of his own body.
Everything after that went black.
He couldn't even remember what happened next.