The rain came fast that morning, hammering against the police cruiser's windshield as it rolled through town. Cobi sat in the back seat, wrists cuffed loosely, trying to focus on the rhythmic wipers so he didn't hear the whispers. But they always found cracks.
"Don't fight it."
"They'll make you say what they need to hear."
He clenched his jaw and stared at the smeared reflection of his own face on the glass. His eyes looked wrong—paler somehow, threaded with faint silver veins. Every streetlight that passed seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat.
Detective Halpern's voice cut through the storm. "You say you were looking for your brother. But you end up at the same clearing, same time the paramedics call in your grandmother's death." She twisted in her seat to look at him. "That's a lot of coincidence, Cobi."
He didn't answer. He couldn't. Every time he thought of that spot, his pulse jumped and the whisper grew loud enough to drown out thought.
"Don't speak of the root," it warned. "They'll never understand."
A flash of lightning split the sky—and for an instant, Cobi saw faces in the raindrops on the window. Dozens of them. Blinking eyes, overlapping like ripples in water. And behind the hum of the storm, a deeper sound stirred—something vast moving beneath the surface of reality.
"Cobi," Halpern said sharply. "Look at me."
He turned, trembling, eyes wide. "It wasn't me."
"What wasn't you?"
"The thing that touched her. It's still out there."
Halpern exchanged a look with Meeks, who tightened his grip on the wheel. "We're just going to talk, son," Meeks said gently. "You just help us understand what happened."
At the station, the fluorescent lights hummed too loud. In the interrogation room, every object—every water bottle, pen, clock—seemed to vibrate faintly in sync with his nerves.
Halpern sat across from him, recorder turning. "You said last night you saw a glowing plant," she began. "And that after touching it, you heard voices?"
Cobi nodded slowly. "It talked to me. Still does."
"Cobi, you understand how that sounds, right? We found no plant, no evidence of anyone else in those woods. Just your tracks, twice."
Rain streaked down the one-way glass behind her. Cobi looked past her reflection and saw movement there—a second reflection, standing just behind him. The older version of himself, the same one from the mirror. The ghost gave a slight shake of his head.
Cobi's breath hitched.
Halpern frowned. "What are you looking at?"
He blinked. The reflection was gone.
"I think I need… air," he whispered.
"You'll have to stay seated," she said flatly.
And then the lights flickered.
At first, just a flicker. Then a full blackout. The bulbs hummed and exploded overhead, showering sparks across the room. Halpern yelped and backed away as the window darkened—not from nightfall, but from something crawling across the glass. Roots. Thin black vines spreading like veins, pulsing with silver light.
Cobi curled into the corner, clutching his head as the voice returned, deafening now.
"They'll see it! They'll see what you are!"
The door to the interrogation room burst open—Meeks shouting his name—but all Cobi could see was the wall blooming with vines, silver eyes blinking inside them like tiny stars. The scent of earth and ozone filled the room.
And just as suddenly as it started, it ended. The vines retracted like breath drawn back into a lung. The lights flickered on. Everything looked untouched—except for the faint mud-streaked footprints leading from where Cobi sat to the middle of the room.
Halpern stood frozen. "What the hell just—"
Cobi looked up at her through shaking hands.
"Now you believe me," he whispered. "Now it's real."
That night, every major local news station carried it: "Electrical anomaly forces evacuation of Willowridge Police Precinct."
But the reports never mentioned Cobi.
They couldn't.
He had vanished before the cameras arrived.
All that remained was a single cracked tile in the interrogation room floor—mud-stained, and faintly glowing from within.