The next morning felt wrong before I even opened my eyes.
Not the usual wrong — not the silence, not the heaviness, not the feeling of being in a house that forgot how to feel warm — no.
This was different.
It was the unmistakable sensation that something had stood beside me while I slept…
and waited for me to wake up.
I opened my eyes slowly, afraid of what I might see.
The room greeted me in its usual pale morning light. The ceiling. The dresser. The empty chair by the door.
Normal.
But the window — the one I had locked twice last night — was open.
Wide open.
The curtains breathed in and out with the cold morning wind, moving like the slow, careful inhaling of a creature pretending to sleep.
A single black leaf lay on my pillow.
Curled.
Glossy.
Watching me.
My spine stiffened, and I sat up — quiet, deliberate — like prey trying not to alert a predator.
Then I heard them.
Footsteps.
Soft, careful, barefoot.
Not sneaking.
Drifting.
Annabelle.
She appeared in the doorway without a sound, wearing the same white dress from the woods — the one torn at the shoulder, the one stained with dried earth and something darker that the light tried not to touch.
"Good morning," she whispered.
Her voice was soft, too soft… like someone who remembered how humans speak but not why.
Still, instinct — love, guilt, habit — made the words slip from me automatically.
"Morning, sweetheart."
She blinked up at me.
And for just a second — a fraction, a heartbeat — something broke through the emptiness in her eyes.
Fear.
Panic.
A plea.
Help me.
Then it vanished, swallowed by that hollow stillness inside her, the same stillness that had followed her out of the forest.
"I made breakfast," she said. "You should eat."
My stomach tightened.
Annabelle never cooked.
Not growing up.
Not ever.
She used to joke she'd rather burn a kitchen down than make scrambled eggs.
But I followed her anyway — slow, cautious.
The kitchen lights flickered as I stepped in.
Three bowls sat neatly on the table.
One in front of my chair.
One in front of hers.
And one more.
Placed at the head of the table.
An empty seat.
A bowl waiting.
My voice cracked a little when I spoke.
"Who is this one for?"
Annabelle didn't answer at first.
She tilted her head — slightly, subtly — as if listening to something behind her, something just out of sight.
A faint shiver ran through her shoulders.
"He's coming," she murmured. "He's already close."
My heart lurched.
"Who?"
She lifted her face toward me, eyes blank, voice flat and distant:
"The one I left behind."
Somewhere deep in the house — a place air wasn't supposed to reach — a floorboard creaked.
Slow.
Heavy.
Deliberate.
We were not alone.
And whoever — or whatever — Annabelle had left behind…
had finally come to collect.