୨୧

in a town where nothing important ever happens, people learn not to ask too many questions when it finally does.

it's a survival instinct, the kind that gets passed down through generations of small-town silence, a quiet agreement that the less you know, the safer you are.

but something has shifted quietly, deliberately, like a hand closing around a throat no one saw coming. and the worst part is, no one saw it coming.

the first one was a boy named jason marlowe. seventeen, good student, worked part-time at the hardware store on main street.

he disappeared on a tuesday night in late october, after closing up shop and telling his boss he'd see him in the morning.

his car was found three days later in the parking lot of the old church on cedar road, doors unlocked, keys in the ignition, a half-empty cup of coffee still in the cupholder.

the police called it a runaway case. jason had been stressed about college applications, they said. kids run away all the time. they always come back.

jason never came back.

the second one was a woman named colleen wright. thirty-nine, newly divorced, moved back to town to take care of her aging mother. she vanished on a saturday afternoon while walking her dog along the river trail.

the dog came back alone, still leashed, whining at the front door until her mother let it in.

the police called it a possible animal attack. there was blood on the trail, they said, but not enough to suggest a fatality.

maybe she got spooked and ran. maybe she got lost. maybe she'd show up in a day or two, embarrassed and apologetic.

colleen never showed up.

the third one was a man named daniel ochoa. forty-two, married, two kids, owned the diner on the corner of elm and third.

he disappeared after locking up for the night, leaving a pot of coffee still warm on the burner and a note in his own handwriting that said "be back in an hour."

the note was found on the counter, weighted down by a salt shaker, as if he'd intended to return.

the police called it suspicious. they opened an official investigation.

they interviewed his wife, his employees, the regulars who'd been in that night. no one saw anything. no one heard anything. no one knew anything.

daniel's body was found six weeks later in a drainage ditch on the outskirts of town. he'd been posed, hands folded over his chest, eyes closed, mouth slightly open as if in the middle of a word he'd never get to finish.

the autopsy report listed cause of death as exsanguination, but the coroner noted something else in the margins, something that didn't make it into the official record.

the body had been cleaned. washed, carefully, almost tenderly, before being arranged.

there were no signs of struggle, no defensive wounds, no evidence that daniel ochoa had fought for his life. he had simply been drained and laid to rest like a child being tucked into bed.

the town began to whisper. but whispers don't stop a predator. they just make them more careful.

ellie is not a rumor. she is not a warning. she is not a story meant to scare children into coming home before dark.

she is real in the way consequences are real. inevitable, patient, and already in motion long before anyone notices the pattern.

she has been doing this for a long time, longer than anyone in this town has been alive, and she has perfected her craft to the point where it no longer feels like murder.

it feels like ritual. it feels like prayer.

she chooses her targets the way a priest chooses scripture: with intention, with reverence, with the quiet certainty that the words have already been written and she is simply reading them aloud.

she watches from a distance, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months, learning the rhythms of a life before she decides whether it's worth taking.

she learns what time you wake up and what you eat for breakfast and whether you take your coffee black or with cream.

she learns the sound of your laugh and the way you bite your lip when you're nervous and the name you whisper when you think no one is listening.

she learns everything there is to know about you, and then she learns more.

and then, when the moment is right, she takes you.

the town's official count is seven missing, three confirmed dead, but the real number is higher. much higher.

there are bodies buried in places no one will ever think to look, bones scattered across state lines, names that were never reported because there was no one left to report them.

ellie is not a monster. monsters are chaotic, driven by hunger or rage or madness. ellie is none of those things.

she is deliberate. she is methodical. she is the slow, steady erosion of everything you thought you knew about safety.

and once she notices you, there is no version of the story where you remain untouched.

you were never chosen by accident. you were chosen the way a prayer is chosen: repeated, rehearsed, and answered.

you first saw her on a thursday.

it was raining, the kind of cold november rain that seeps into your bones and makes you question every decision that led you to this particular street corner at this particular hour.

you were walking home from work, umbrella in one hand, phone in the other, scrolling through emails you didn't care about.

you almost didn't notice her standing there, half-hidden in the doorway of the abandoned pharmacy on the corner.

she was wearing a hooded jacket, hands shoved in her pockets, head tilted slightly as if she was listening to something only she could hear.

you might have walked right past her if she hadn't spoken.

"you dropped something."

her voice was soft, almost gentle and raspy, the kind of voice that belonged to a librarian or a kindergarten teacher.

you stopped and turned, and she was holding out a glove you hadn't realized you'd lost. your glove.

the one your grandmother knitted for you three christmases ago, the one with the tiny hole in the thumb that you'd been meaning to fix.

you took it from her and thanked her, and she smiled, and you noticed that her eyes were the color of moss, dark and wet and ancient.

you noticed that her smile didn't quite reach them.

"be careful walking home," she said. "it's getting dark earlier now."

you said you would. you said thank you again.

you walked away, and you didn't look back, and you told yourself that nothing about that interaction was strange.

she was just a stranger being kind. she was just a person who noticed a lost glove and returned it. that's what people do. that's what normal people do.

you were wrong.

the second time you saw her, she was sitting in your kitchen.

it was three weeks later, a saturday night, and you had come home late from a friend's birthday party, a little tipsy, a lot tired, ready to collapse into bed and forget the world existed.

you unlocked the door and kicked off your shoes and padded into the kitchen for a glass of water, and there she was.

sitting at your table. drinking from a mug that you recognized as the one you'd left in the sink that morning.

she had made herself at home. she had put on music, something classical, something you didn't recognize.

she had lit a candle, the vanilla one you kept on the windowsill for emergencies.

"you're late," she said, and her voice was still soft, still gentle, but now there was something else beneath it, something that made your blood run cold. "i was starting to think you weren't coming home."

you couldn't move. you couldn't speak.

your body had frozen in the doorway, every instinct screaming at you to run, but your legs wouldn't listen.

she set down the mug and stood up, and you saw that she was taller than you remembered, or maybe you were smaller, shrinking under the weight of her attention.

she walked toward you slowly, deliberately, the way you might approach a frightened animal.

when she was close enough to touch, she reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, her fingers lingering on your skin just long enough to make you shiver.

"i've been watching you," she said. "for a long time. you're very careful. you lock your doors. you check your windows. you look over your shoulder when you walk home at night. but you never looked up."

she smiled, and this time it reached her eyes, and that was somehow worse.

"you never checked the crawlspace."

the crawlspace.

you had a crawlspace. a small one, accessible through a trapdoor in the hall closet. you had never thought much of it.

it was just a space, dark and dusty, full of old boxes and forgotten things. you had never thought to check it because why would you? why would anyone?

ellie had been living there for two weeks.

she showed you the nest she'd made, the sleeping bag and the pillow and the stack of books, the flashlight and the water bottles and the granola bars.

she showed you the notebook where she'd written down everything she'd learned about you, your schedule, your habits, the names of your friends and your coworkers and the barista who always wrote your name wrong on your coffee cup.

she showed you the photographs she'd taken through your windows, candid shots of you sleeping, of you cooking, of you crying on the bathroom floor after a bad phone call with your mother.

"i know you better than anyone," she said, and there was no arrogance in her voice, no boasting. just a simple statement of fact. "i know you better than you know yourself."

you should have screamed. you should have fought.

you should have done something, anything, but instead you just stood there, trembling, as she took your hand and led you to the living room and sat you down on the couch.

she sat beside you, close enough that you could smell her, something clean and floral, like soap and rain.

she took your face in her hands and made you look at her.

"i'm not going to hurt you," she said. "not yet. not unless you make me."

and that was the first time you understood that you were already dead. you just hadn't stopped breathing yet.

the days that followed were a blur of small horrors.

ellie didn't tie you up. she didn't lock you in a room. she didn't have to.

she had already taken something from you that was far more valuable than your freedom: she had taken your certainty.

you no longer trusted your own eyes, your own ears, your own sense of what was real.

she was everywhere and nowhere, always present even when she wasn't in the room.

you would turn a corner and find a note in her handwriting on the counter. you would open a drawer and find a lock of your own hair, neatly braided, tied with a ribbon.

you would wake up in the middle of the night and find her sitting in the chair by your bed, watching you, her moss colored eyes reflecting the moonlight.

"sleep," she would whisper. "i'll be here when you wake up."

and you would sleep, because there was nothing else you could do.

you would sleep, and you would dream of her, and when you woke up she would be there, always there, a constant in a world that had become unrecognizable.

she cooked for you. she cleaned. she did your laundry and folded your clothes and put them away in the right drawers.

she watered your plants and paid your bills and called your boss to say you were sick, that you needed time off, that you wouldn't be coming in for a while.

she answered your phone and texted your friends and maintained the careful illusion that everything was normal, that you were fine, that nothing was wrong.

"you're sick," she told you, and her voice was so kind, so concerned, that you almost believed her. "you need rest. you need someone to take care of you. that's what i'm here for."

and you let her. god help you, you let her. because the alternative was too terrible to consider.

the alternative was admitting that you were a prisoner in your own home, that you were being held captive by a woman who had already killed three people that you knew of and god knows how many more.

the alternative was fighting back, and you had seen what happened to people who fought back.

you had seen the photographs she kept in her notebook, the ones she showed you when you asked too many questions, the ones that made you sick to your stomach and left you shaking on the bathroom floor.

"don't ask about the others," she said, and her voice was soft but her eyes were hard. "they don't matter anymore. you're the only one who matters."

the first time she cut you, it was almost tender.

she had been cooking dinner, something with garlic and tomatoes, and you had been sitting at the kitchen table, watching her, trying to find the right moment to run.

you had been planning it for days, waiting for her to slip up, to leave a door unlocked or a window unlatched.

you had been patient. you had been careful. but she was always more careful.

"you're thinking about leaving," she said, without turning around. "i can see it in your face. you get this little crease between your eyebrows when you're planning something."

you didn't answer. you couldn't. your throat had closed up, the way it always did when she caught you.

she was still holding it, the blade glinting in the kitchen light, and you watched as she walked toward you, slow and steady, the way she did everything.

she stopped in front of you and knelt down, bringing herself to eye level, and she reached out and took your hand.

"i told you," she said, "i'm not going to hurt you. not unless you make me."

she pressed the blade against your palm, just hard enough to break the skin, and you felt the sharp sting of it, the warmth of blood welling up in the cut.

she held your hand steady and watched the blood pool in your palm, and then she lifted your hand to her lips and kissed it, tasting you, her tongue flicking out to catch the blood before it could drip onto the floor.

"but i need you to understand," she whispered, "that you belong to me now. every part of you. your blood. your bones. your breath. you are mine, and i will not let you go."

she bandaged your hand with careful precision, wrapping the gauze tight but not too tight, securing it with medical tape.

she kissed your forehead and went back to cooking dinner, and you sat there, bleeding into the bandage, and you realized that you had never felt more owned in your entire life.

the first time she made you pray, you were on your knees.

it was late, or early, you couldn't tell anymore. the days had blurred together, marked only by her presence and her absence, by the meals she made and the baths she drew and the stories she told you in the dark.

she had led you to the bedroom and pushed you down onto the floor, and you had gone willingly because fighting was pointless, because resistance only made things worse.

"pray," she said.

"i don't know how."

"everyone knows how. just talk to god."

"i don't believe in god."

she laughed, a soft, sad sound. "that doesn't matter. god believes in you."

and so you prayed. you prayed for deliverance. you prayed for death.

you prayed for someone to find you, to save you, to end this nightmare.

you prayed with your hands clasped and your eyes closed and your voice shaking, and she stood behind you with her hand on your head, like a priest giving a blessing, like a mother comforting a child.

"good," she said when you finished. "that's good. you're learning."

she taught you other prayers, too. prayers she had written herself, prayers that were really confessions, really admissions of guilt.

you prayed for forgiveness for the sins you hadn't committed, for the crimes you hadn't committed, for the blood that wasn't on your hands.

you prayed for the souls of the dead, for jason and colleen and daniel and all the others whose names you didn't know.

you prayed for their families, for the mothers and fathers and children who would never see them again.

you prayed until your voice was hoarse and your knees ached and your eyes were raw from crying.

and every time you finished, she would kiss your forehead and tell you that you were doing so well, that you were making progress, that soon you would be ready.

ready for what, she never said.

the first time she made you watch, you thought you might die.

she had brought someone home. a man, young, maybe early twenties, with a kind face and nervous hands.

she had found him somewhere, or he had found her, it didn't matter.

what mattered was that he was here, in your home, sitting on your couch, drinking from your glasses, laughing at her jokes.

he had no idea what she was. he had no idea what was coming.

"this is my friend," she said, introducing you. "she's been staying with me for a while. she's shy."

you nodded. you smiled. you played your part, because that's what she had taught you to do.

you played your part and you waited, and when the moment came, you watched.

she did it quickly, efficiently, the way she did everything. there was no cruelty in it, no malice. just purpose. just intention.

she held him down and she cut his throat and she let him bleed out on the floor of your living room, and she did it all while humming a lullaby, something soft and sweet, something your mother used to sing to you when you were small.

"help me," she said when it was over.

and you did. you helped her wrap the body in plastic. you helped her clean the blood from the floor.

you helped her carry him out to the car, helped her drive to the place she had already prepared, helped her dig the hole and lower him in and cover him with dirt.

you did it all with your own hands, your own trembling, bloodstained hands, and when it was done, she held you and told you that you had done well, that she was proud of you, that you were finally starting to understand.

"this is what love looks like," she said. "this is what it means to be chosen."

and you believed her. because the alternative was too terrible to consider. the alternative was admitting that you had become a monster, too.

the first time you tried to run, she caught you before you made it to the door.

you had been planning it for weeks, waiting for the right moment, the right distraction. she had been distracted lately, preoccupied with something you couldn't name.

she spent hours on the phone, speaking in a language you didn't recognize, or staring at maps spread across the kitchen table, tracing routes with her finger.

she was planning something, you could tell, and her distraction was your opportunity.

you waited until she was in the shower.

you crept to the front door, your heart pounding so loud you were sure she could hear it. you turned the lock.

you opened the door. you stepped out into the cold night air, and you ran.

you made it three blocks before she caught you.

she didn't chase you. she didn't have to.

she was already there, waiting for you at the corner, leaning against a lamppost with her arms crossed and her head tilted, the same way she had been standing in the doorway of the abandoned pharmacy the first time you saw her.

"going somewhere?" she asked.

you tried to run again, but your legs wouldn't move. you tried to scream, but your voice wouldn't come.

she walked toward you, slow and steady, and when she reached you, she took your hand and led you back home, the same way you might lead a lost child back to their parents.

"it's okay," she said. "you're just confused. you don't know what's good for you yet. but you'll learn. i'll teach you."

she locked the door behind you. she removed the phone from the wall.

she took your shoes and your coat and your keys, and she sat you down on the couch and she held your face in her hands and she made you look at her.

"if you run again," she said, "i will have to hurt you. and i don't want to hurt you. i love you."

she said it so simply, so matter-of-factly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. she loved you.

of course she loved you. why else would she have chosen you? why else would she have gone to all this trouble?

"say it back," she said.

you couldn't. you wouldn't. you shook your head, tears streaming down your face, and she sighed, a sound of infinite patience, infinite disappointment.

"that's okay," she said. "you don't have to mean it yet. just say the words."

and you did. you said the words.

you told her you loved her, and she smiled, and she kissed you, and you tasted blood on her lips, and you realized it was your own.

the first time you prayed without being told, you were alone.

she had left you for the first time in weeks, gone to do something she wouldn't explain, something that required her to be away for a few hours.

she had locked you in the bedroom, chained you to the bed frame, left you with a bottle of water and a bucket and a promise that she would be back soon.

you were alone. truly alone. and in that solitude, you found yourself on your knees, hands clasped, eyes closed, mouth moving in words you hadn't been taught.

"god," you whispered, "if you're real, if you're listening, please. please let me die. please let this end. i can't do this anymore. i can't be what she wants me to be. i can't—"

the door opened.

she was standing there, silhouetted against the hallway light, and she was smiling.

not the gentle smile she used when she was being kind, but something else, something hungry and triumphant and terrible.

"there you are," she said. "i've been waiting for you to find your faith."

she crossed the room and knelt beside you, taking your hands in hers.

she pressed her forehead to yours, and you could feel her breath on your face, warm and steady and alive.

"now you're ready," she said. "now we can begin."

and you understood, with a clarity that felt like a blade sliding between your ribs, that you had never been the one praying. you had been the answer.

you had been the prayer she had been repeating, rehearsing, waiting to be answered.

and now that she had you, now that you were finally hers, body and soul and everything in between, she was going to use you.

for what, you still didn't know.

but you were about to find out.

the last thing you remember before the darkness took you was her voice, soft and sweet, singing that lullaby as she pressed a cloth to your face and the world went hazy and warm and far away.

"baby's first blood," she whispered, "baby's first prayer. don't worry. i'll take care of everything."

and she did. she always did.

─── 🏹 CONFIDENTIAL ENDING MEMORANDUM: hello my angels. i hope you enjoyed this attempt at a dddne fanfiction of ellie williams. if you would like to see more like this, turn on your notifications and join the taglist. stay safe and get more gay. xoxo, the sacrificial lamb.