I trailed behind him as we made our way deeper into the woods. The silence was almost unnatural—thick, heavy—broken only by the caw of a distant crow or the occasional snap of a twig underfoot. The sun hung low, its dying light staining the treetops orange, threatening to slip beneath the horizon at any moment.

As we walked, I found myself studying him. The twitching jolts that rippled through his body every so often, accompanied by that strange clicking sound at the back of his throat. His hands were never still—tugging at the frayed hem of his hoodie, drumming out random rhythms on his thigh, or tearing absently at the skin of his thumb until it was raw and red. His hands looked rough, almost painful, but he didn’t seem to notice or care.

Then he tromped straight through a patch of pricklebushes, the thorns scratching against his clothes and skin like they were nothing. I stopped short at the edge of the path, eyeing the spiky branches that stood in my way. My legs would be shredded if I tried to push through.

When he noticed the absence of my footsteps, he turned back. His one eye blinked at me, then followed my gaze down to the bushes. Realization softened his posture. “Oh—sorry. Probably should’ve taken a different way for you,” he admitted, voice awkward, almost sheepish.

Before I could respond, he unslung the hatchet at his side. The sight of it made me flinch, my body stiffening with that old fear again. But he didn’t move toward me. Instead, he bent down, hacking away at the thorns until the path opened up. Then, with bare hands, he scooped up the thorny twigs and tossed them aside, ignoring how they bit into his skin.

I winced as I watched tiny beads of blood surface on his fingers. “Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked, my voice soft but tinged with disbelief.

He looked up at me, almost confused, then down at his bleeding hand like he hadn’t even realized. “Oh… uh… no. Not to me, at least.” He shrugged, as though pain were something that only happened to other people.

He wiped the blood off casually on his pant leg, the dark streak smearing into the fabric like it was nothing, then turned and kept walking as though we hadn’t stopped at all.

“You can’t feel that?” I pressed, stepping carefully over the path he’d cleared for me. The idea of not feeling pain didn’t sit right in my head—it almost didn’t seem human.

“Nah.” His tone was matter-of-fact, like he was answering a question about the weather. His head tilted this way and that, scanning the trees, the ground, anything that might give away another hidden page. “Don’t really feel much of anything, really.”

The words slipped from me before I had time to stop them. “You’re… strange.”

I sucked in a sharp breath the second I realized what I’d said. My chest tightened, bracing for offense, for anger, for something.

But all I got was a quiet chuckle. He shrugged, shoulders rising and falling beneath his hoodie, like the comment rolled right off him. “Yeah, aren’t I?” he said, almost lightly, almost like he’d heard it so many times the sting was gone.

Guilt pinched in my chest. “I’m sorry,” I rushed out. “I didn’t mean for it to sound rude.”

“It’s fine.” His voice was calm, steady. He still didn’t look back at me, his one eye fixed on the shadows between the trees. “It’s most people’s reaction when they meet me.”

Something about the way he said it—so flat, so rehearsed—made my stomach twist. Like he wasn’t just used to it. Like he expected it.

Before I could string another apology together, his hand suddenly shot up, finger pointing toward the tree line. My eyes followed, and there it was—a sagging old cabin, its roof half-collapsed, boards leaning inward like the whole thing might crumble if you breathed too hard near it.

“I bet you one is hiding in there,” he said, glancing back at me with that crooked half-tilt of his head before pressing forward again.

I hesitated, my eyes flicking to the sky. The light was bleeding out of it fast, the horizon burning faint orange while the woods around us were already thick with shadow. A lump settled in my throat, and without realizing it, I quickened my pace until I was right behind him.

“These woods are scary at night,” I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper.

He slowed for half a second, looking around like he was trying to see through my eyes. “Really?” he asked, his tone more curious than mocking.

I nodded, hugging myself as I walked. “Yeah.”

“I find it kinda comforting,” he said, almost to himself. His gaze lingered on the trees, as though the dark pressed against him like an old friend.

“Why is that?” I asked carefully.

He gave a lazy shrug, the corners of his hoodie lifting just slightly. “No one out here to judge me.” His voice was low, nearly lost in the sound of the crows overhead, but there was a sharp honesty in it.

The weight of his words hung between us. For a moment, the woods felt quieter.

Then his eye flicked back at me, a small glance. “Why do you think it’s scary?”

I swallowed, my throat tight. “Because… you don’t know what’s out here.” My steps slowed as the shadows deepened, pressing close like walls. “The mystery—that’s the scary part.”

"But isn’t that what makes it fun?” he asked, his lone eye narrowing, a playful glint in it—as if the mask beneath carried a grin I couldn’t see.

“Fun?” I echoed, my brow furrowing. I didn’t understand how someone could call this—all of this—fun.

“Yeah,” he said with a careless shrug, “exploring to find out what’s out here.” His voice had a strange ease to it, like stepping into the unknown was second nature to him.

By the time his words sank in, we were standing in front of the abandoned cabin. Up close, it looked even worse—the wood groaning under its own weight, shingles scattered like broken teeth across the ground. The smell of damp rot and mildew hung heavy in the air.

He didn’t hesitate. Without so much as a pause, he stepped over the threshold, the old boards creaking loudly under his boots.

I froze at the doorway, staring inside. Shadows swallowed the corners of the cabin, stretching long and dark across the floor. The only light that dared creep in came from the last weak spill of sun through shattered windows, barely enough to outline the jagged remains of furniture.

My heart thudded in my chest. I gripped the doorframe like it might anchor me. Every part of me screamed don’t go in there.

But he was already inside, his figure moving casually through the dimness like it was just another stroll.

“You coming?” his voice floated back to me, casual—almost teasing—like the whole place wasn’t dripping with dread.

I finally forced myself to step inside, wincing when the floorboard beneath me groaned under my weight. “Is this even safe?” I called out, my eyes darting nervously around the shadows.

He was already wandering deeper into the cabin, peeking around corners and poking his head into half-collapsed rooms. When he glanced back at me, I caught the amused tilt in his posture. “What? You scared?” His low chuckle echoed faintly off the rotting walls.

“I am very much so,” I snapped, hugging my arms close. “I’m in the middle of the woods with a stranger I thought was out to kill me—looking for stupid pages some tall faceless man decided to scatter around. So, yes. I am scared.” My defensive tone only made his laughter ring louder.

“Well, lucky for you,” he said, lifting one hand dramatically like he was taking an oath, “this stranger knows these woods like the back of his hand.” He paused mid-gesture, squinting at his palm. “Huh. When did that get there?”

His teasing tone cracked the tension, and despite myself, I let out a small, nervous giggle. I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. “Yeah, exactly. Let’s just grab these pages and get out of here.”

He pointed toward a side room and gestured for me to check it while he searched the one next door. I hesitated — didn’t want to be alone — but he said he’d only be right next door, so I nodded and pushed the door open slowly.

The room looked like it had once been an office. A desk sagged under a blanket of moss, books lay scattered with pages swollen and blackened by damp, and a chair had been toppled as if someone had stood up in a hurry. I sifted through the ruined papers, hunting for anything that looked like the pages he’d shown me, but mostly I found water-stained documents and brittle receipts that crumbled at a touch.

I reached for the handle of a drawer and yanked it open. A small mouse shot out like a bullet. I screamed and stumbled backward, ass-first onto the rotten floorboards. The mouse skittered toward me again and I scrambled to my feet — only to run straight into the goggled boy.

His hands came up to steady my shoulders; for the first time since I’d met him, I could see real concern in the way his single eye creased. “What happened?” he asked.

“There was a mouse,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself like I could squeeze the panic away. He laughed, soft and surprised, and I socked him in the chest. “Not funny!” I snapped.

He hopped back a little, rubbing his chest like I’d actually hurt him, then grinned, the expression strange and oddly endearing beneath the mask. “Okay, okay — drama queen,” he teased, but the concern didn’t leave his gaze.

"You don’t like getting your hands dirty, do you?” he chuckled, clearly enjoying himself as he teased me further.

“I’m just not used to this kind of thing,” I shot back, switching from hugging myself to folding my arms across my chest in annoyance.

“Did you find anything?” I asked, lifting my gaze to him.

He gave another laugh. “Nothing as exciting as you,” he teased.

I opened my mouth to protest again, but a sudden ringing in my pocket cut me off. My heart jumped — my phone. I fumbled it out quickly, flipping it open to answer.

“Hey, girl,” I said, trying to sound casual. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the boy roll his one visible eye and wander off, crouching to peer under a table.

“Are you okay??” my friend’s voice rushed through the speaker, high and panicked. “You seemed so unresponsive after the news. Are you safe? You said something about pages?”

“Yeah, um… I’m out looking for two more,” I admitted, my eyes flicking toward the goggled boy as he crouched deeper, half-hidden in the dim light.

“Two more?? Why are you even looking for these pages? Didn’t that weird guy leave them there??” she demanded, her confusion matching the one that had been nagging me too.

“Well, yeah… um, about him…” I hesitated, lowering my voice. “He’s not a killer.”

She went quiet, like she was trying to wrap her head around what I just said. I didn’t give her the chance. “Listen, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you when I can, but right now I really need to find these other pages. So I’ll talk to you later, okay? I love you, bye.” And I hung up before she could fire another round of worried questions.

When I slipped the phone back into my pocket, I found him standing again, brushing dust from his hoodie. His head tilted slightly as he looked at me.

“Was that a friend?” he asked.

“Um… yeah,” I answered awkwardly, still trying to shake the tension from my friend’s call.

To my surprise, he pulled a sheet of paper from behind him and held it out for me to see.

“Just one more left,” he said.

I snatched it from his hand, a rush of relief spilling out of me. “Thank goodness. This is almost over and I can just pretend none of this ever happened.” My tone was sharp with exhaustion and relief, but when I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, I caught it—his expression faltered. For the briefest second, he looked… sad. As if my words weren’t about the pages at all, but about him.

My heart sank. “Oh, I didn’t mean you—I meant the pages—”

Before I could finish, his demeanor shifted in an instant. His hand shot out, covering my mouth as he dragged me into one of the rooms.

That’s when I heard it.

The piercing, high-pitched ringing. Not from my phone this time, but the same shrill, electric sound from my dream. The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight, and my vision wavered as static danced at the corners of my sight.

My trembling hand gripped his arm, needing something solid to hold onto. His chest pressed against me, and I could feel his heart pounding—not from fear, but from focus. He peeked around the corner, keeping his palm firm over my mouth to silence me.

After a moment, he let go, replacing his grip with a finger pressed to his lips. Shh.

I nodded quickly, not trusting my voice.

His hand slid down, wrapping around my wrist instead. Without another word, he tugged me down the narrow, collapsing hallway. We stopped every few feet, his head jerking left and right, listening for something I couldn’t hear through the ringing.

Then, without warning, he yanked the door open and bolted. I stumbled after him, my lungs burning as we sprinted out into the darkening woods. We didn’t stop running until the cabin was swallowed up by the trees behind us.

Finally, we escaped. Our breaths came out in ragged bursts, steam clouding the cool night air. He leaned against a tree to keep himself upright while I collapsed onto the hard forest floor, my knees stinging from the impact. My chest felt tight, my heart racing so hard it hurt. For a moment, the only sound between us was our sharp, uneven breathing.

I tilted my head up at him, panic cracking through my voice. “What the hell was that?” I yelled, my throat raw.

Immediately, he shushed me, pressing a finger against his mask and scanning the woods like the thing was still stalking nearby.

“Was that the faceless creature people warned about with these stupid pages?” I spat, my fear spilling out as anger. His face gave nothing away, but the silence was enough—it told me he knew.

The realization hit me like ice water. My chest tightened, and my voice broke into a panicked whisper. “I’m gonna die. Oh my god, I’m gonna die.” Tears blurred my vision as dread took full control of me.

He crouched down beside me, his hand resting firmly on my shoulder. The touch was grounding, even with the twitchy jerk of his movements betraying his nerves. He sighed heavily, then finally spoke. “Listen… those pages are his eyes.”

My breath hitched. “I thought you said you didn’t believe in it.” I looked up at him, my face wet with tears.

“I just said that so you wouldn’t be scared.” His other hand rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, guilt seeping into his voice. “We need to find the last page. Stay quiet, stay alert. If you hear that ringing, it means he’s close—and whatever you do, don’t look him in the face.” He paused, his lone eye locking with mine. “Stick with me, okay?”

I wanted nothing more than to run home, to shut my door, to pretend none of this was real. But I knew if I didn’t follow him, I’d be trapped in this nightmare. Swallowing hard, I gave a shaky nod.

He started to rise to his feet, but instinctively I grabbed his sleeve, stopping him. He glanced down at me, brows pinched with concern.

“What’s your name?” The words tumbled out before I could stop them. I wasn’t sure why I asked—only that I needed to know. I couldn’t face this horror with a stranger.

After I finally snapped myself out of the shock I picked up my phone, that I let slip out of my hands, and I told myself that I'll let her go and to call me back when she was on break. Then after a few shaky breaths, I called work and said I was sick. My coworker gave me crap about it, but I didn’t care — one call-off wouldn’t get me fired, and right then the only thing I wanted was to stay inside where it felt even vaguely safe. If I stepped back out there, who knew what might happen?

The news rattled on with updates about the case: the victim was a man in his forties; his daughter—about six years old—was found unharmed but too shaken to talk. Detectives still had no solid leads on a suspect. The anchor’s voice felt flat and distant, like it belonged to someone reporting on a different life.

I kept the TV on anyway, half-hoping and half-praying that in the next segment they’d announce an arrest. For a few hours, I let myself stare at the screen, waiting for the story to end with someone in handcuffs and the town breathing easier.

But the longer I sat there, the heavier my eyelids became. The adrenaline that had been thrashing in my veins since last night finally burned itself out, leaving nothing but exhaustion in its place. My body felt drained, like every nerve had been wrung dry.

I fought it at first, shifting in my seat, telling myself to stay awake, to keep watching the news, to be alert in case something happened. But my head grew heavier with each blink. The muffled drone of the anchor’s voice blurred into the background, like static humming through the air.

Eventually, my body gave in. My head slumped to the side, eyes fluttering, and the world slipped into a fog.

I was back in the woods again—the air so thick it felt like walking through wool. The path under my feet was a narrow, stubborn strip of dirt that wound between trees whose trunks rose like silent columns. The branches loomed overhead, knitting together until the sky was nothing but a slit of grey. Crows watched from the limbs, black heads cocked, beady eyes tracking me as if I were something small and edible. Their calls rattled like loose coins, and every time one shifted I felt my skin prickle.

My bare feet crunched through the carpet of dead leaves with each step, the sound swallowed almost immediately by the fog. I kept my eyes open—wide, searching—because I knew he was there. I knew. The memory of his orange goggles burned at the edges of my mind like a brand. I walked slower, listening for the telltale snap of a twig, the small betrayal of a stride in the brush.

Then the twig snapped. It was close enough to be personal, a sharp little report that made my chest hitch. I turned, and there he was, standing where shadow met shadow. He didn’t move at first; he just watched me, the hatchet slack in his hand. The goggles glinted faintly, two tiny embers in the grey.

“What do you want?” I called, my voice smaller than I meant it to be. It swallowed itself in the fog.

No answer.

“Why are you following me?” I asked again, harder this time, because the nothing between us felt like an answer I couldn’t accept.

Still nothing. He raised his hand slowly. His fingers twitched with the same jerks I’d seen—like someone outside their own skin. Only this time he wasn’t reaching toward me. He turned his head, and his arm extended, pointing past my shoulder. My breath stalled; instinct told me not to look, but curiosity and terror have a way of forcing my body to betray me.

When I turned, my vision dissolved into static. The world shredded into snow and hissed until every edge blurred into noise. A high, piercing ring filled my skull, drowning out my thoughts until all that remained was pressure behind my eyes. As the ringing swelled, the fog thinned—revealing something so wrong it made my mouth go dry.

There, stretching up and out between the trees, was a shape as tall as the trunks themselves. It was not one thing—its back was a tangle of long, branch-like limbs that writhed and braided into the overhead canopy, so seamlessly that for a second I thought the forest had simply taken a new growth. A dark suit clung to its form, oddly clean and untouched by the rot and damp that coated everything else. The contrast made it look ceremonial, wrong in a way I couldn’t name.

Its head was smooth and pale, like bone sanded to porcelain. There were no features—no mouth, no nose—only a flat, blank plane where a face should be. But I felt it looking at me, as if that blankness hid a hundred hungry eyes. For a beat that lasted an eternity, it leaned down, and I was sure it could see me even through the static. My heart hammered against my ribs so loud it felt obscene.

Then—bang. Bang. Bang. The noise ripped through the dream like an axe through cloth. I jerked upright, gasping, the aftertaste of fear bitter in my mouth. The room snapped into focus in jagged pieces: the couch, the lamp, all placed where I left them.

Then the sound came again — softer this time, more measured. A knock at the door.

I sat frozen for a second, the dream’s residue still clinging to my skin, then forced myself up. My legs felt heavy, like I was moving through syrup, but I padded across the room and peered through the peephole. Relief hit me like cold air when I saw him — the goggles boy — standing on my porch.

He looked smaller up close, somehow less monstrous in the weak porch light. He kept picking at his fingers, eyes flicking over the siding and the windows as if cataloguing every detail while he waited. When he lifted his hand toward the door to knock again, I called out; the sound of my voice made him flinch.

“What do you want?” I asked, low and steady.

He stammered for a beat, like he was searching for the right thing to say. “Uh—hey. I was wondering if you’d seen any pages lying around anywhere?” His words tumbled out quickly and awkwardly, the sort of nervousness that didn’t fit the man I’d imagined from the road.

“Pages?” I repeated, quieter, my mind snapping back to the crumpled scrap under my doormat. “I knew it was you. Why are you here? You're going to kill me like you did that guy?” The accusation came out harder than I intended, an edge of dare in my voice.

He froze. For a moment he simply stared at my door, then tilted his head like he didn’t understand. “Say who? What now?” he asked, genuinely confused.

“Listen. If you haven’t seen any pages, then fine — leave,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck as if embarrassed. He turned to step off the porch.

“You were the one who killed him, weren’t you?” I called after him, louder now, not ready to let him go.

He stopped. His hand twitched at his side; he turned back slowly, the hood of his jacket shadowing his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady,” he said, the words flat and placid. Then, as if he’d decided it was a conversation not worth having, he started to walk away. “I’ll leave now. Uh—have a nice night.”

As his silhouette receded, I moved like a woman possessed: I unlocked the deadbolt but left the chain latched, so when I cracked the door it would open only a sliver — enough to show my face and keep him out. The small movement caught his attention; he stopped and turned back, but kept his distance from the porch edge.

“You said something about pages, right?” I called through the crack. My voice sounded smaller than before but steadier. “What did they look like?”

One of his hands slipped into his hoodie pocket while the other picked nervously at the back of his head, nails scratching skin raw between his twitchy jolts. “Uh… well, they’re all different,” he finally managed, voice uneven. “They kinda just look like a child’s drawing.”

My fingers tightened against the chain lock as I pressed the door slightly closer shut. “So you didn’t leave one under my doormat?” I asked, my voice sharper now.

He blinked, staring at me through the crack with a strange, blank pause before his hand shot up to point at me. “Aren’t you the lady from last night?” he asked, wagging a finger like he was trying to place me. “And, uh… no. What kind of creep do you think I am???”

“The kind that kills people.” The words slipped out harsher, louder than I intended. His body jerked at the sound, a visible flinch, like I had just shoved him. “Why were you out so late?”

“Um. I was walking home??” he said, the tone awkward, defensive even, like he didn’t understand why he was suddenly on trial. His hand returned to its nervous ritual of skin-picking at his fingers.

“Why are you dressed like that?” I pressed again, suspicion curling in my gut like a coil.

He looked down at himself, tugging at his hoodie as though to see through my eyes. “What’s wrong with the way I dress?”

“I mean your mask and goggles,” I snapped. “You’re hiding your identity or something. And that axe—is that your weapon?”

He stopped dead at that, his shoulders tightening. Then, after a pause, he tugged his hood back. Underneath was messy, wavy hair, matted slightly at the ends like he hadn’t brushed it in days. Slowly, he lifted his goggles, pulling them away to reveal one eye—the left one, wide and startled like a cornered animal. His right side… I only caught the barest glimpse before he turned his head away, shielding it, but it was enough. His eyebrow was split through by an old scar, and where his eye should’ve been was only an empty socket.

My breath caught.

The mask stayed firmly over his nose and mouth, muffling his next words. “This ‘axe’ is a hatchet, by the way,” he muttered. “And I use it for what it’s intended—for cutting wood.” He shifted his weight, his voice thick with irritation as though he was tired of explaining himself. “The goggles are to keep my one eye safe from dust and debris when I’m chopping said wood.”

He finally stepped back onto the porch, the boards creaking under his boots, though he still kept a cautious distance. “And it’s cold out. I need something to cover my nose and ears.”

I froze behind the narrow crack of the door, guilt tugging faintly at me for accusing him so harshly. But then the memory of what I’d seen—dark red smeared across his hatchet—flashed in my mind. My voice came out softer this time, though edged with unease. “And the blood?”

For a second he just stared at me, his lone eye blinking blankly as if the words didn’t register. Then suddenly he snapped his fingers like a lightbulb flicked on. “Oh yeah, the blood! Yeah, I totally killed a guy.”

My stomach dropped.

I didn’t hesitate—I slammed the door shut with both hands and twisted the locks tight, my breath catching in my chest. “I’m calling the cops!” I shouted through the wood, panic bubbling in my throat.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!!!” His voice pitched high, frantic from the other side. “It was a joke!”

My hand hovered over my phone, shaking.

“I was sharpening my hatchet and it slipped, cut me in the leg—see?”

I hesitated, my heart hammering. Slowly, against my better judgment, I undid the deadbolt again, keeping the chain secured as I cracked the door open just enough to peek.

He immediately tugged up his pant leg, revealing a gnarly gash stitched clumsily but clean. The skin around it was still a little raw, the kind of wound that would bleed a lot at first. “Thankfully I knew someone who could stitch me up. Before that, I used my mask to wrap it tightly until I got to their place.” He let the fabric drop back down, giving his leg a small kick to shake the pant leg back into place before glancing at me again.

His voice softened, muffled by the mask. “I thought it’d be funny if I… you know, actually admitted to the murder. But turns out you didn’t find it that funny.” He stuffed his hands back into his hoodie pocket, shoulders sinking slightly as he shrugged. “Sorry for, uh… scaring you.” His gaze dropped to the porch, where he absently kicked at a loose pebble, sending it skittering off.

I let out a long breath that felt almost ridiculous — part relief, part embarrassment — when I realized the man I’d pegged for a monster wasn’t going to follow me home and kill me. I slid the chain off the door, opened it all the way, and stood there with the frame between us like a last small barrier.

He looked up at me and for a second his visible eye narrowed, as if he were smiling under that mask. The expression was awkward but somehow friendly. I kept my gaze low, ashamed at how quickly I’d been to judge. “Sorry for… accusing you,” I said, voice small and careful.

“Eh, whatever,” he chuckled, tossing a hand in a shrug. “I’ve been called worse than ‘murderer.’” He laughed it off like the label didn’t stick.

After an awkward silence, it hit me — the paper. I fumbled into my pocket, pulled the crumpled sheet free, and smoothed it out with trembling fingers. My throat felt tight as I forced the question out. “I looked these up. They say whoever touches one of these pages goes missing… is that true?” I met his eye, searching for anything that would steady me.

For a beat he just blinked, then his face lit up like a lightbulb had switched on. “Oh.” He stepped closer and reached for the page, his hand twitching in that same jerky way. I flinched, which made him pause and sigh, a small, embarrassed sound. He took the paper from me gently, then—surprising me—pulled several other sheets from his pocket and stacked them with mine.

“If you find all eight, you’re safe,” he said, as if it were the most ordinary truth in the world. He set them down in the palm of my hand; the sixth I’d given him he placed on top. "That’s why I’m looking for them. I found the first five” He handed the small stack back to me for a closer look.

I flipped through them slowly. Each page was more frantic than the last: crude drawings, odd symbols, words scratched as if by a shaking hand. One in particular stopped me cold — a tall, thin figure, roughly sketched, a blank head with no features, the torso dressed in a ragged triangle that suggested a suit. Around it, someone had scrawled the same word over and over: no. I knew it in my bones — the figure from my dream.

“You only need two more, like me now,” he murmured, tugging at his hoodie and rocking on his heels like a kid on the verge of a dare. Clearing his throat, he tried to sound cocky. “You’re welcome.”

“You sure know a lot about these pages,” I said, handing them back. “Who hides them?”

He folded the papers and slid them into his pocket, thinking for a second. “Don’t know,” he admitted, then leaned in conspiratorially and covered his already-muffled mouth with a hand. “Some say it’s a tall figure with no face.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Scary, huh? I don’t buy that. I think it’s some creep who likes the theatrics — leaves these around to mess with people before he does whatever he does.” He shrugged, then glanced up and caught me staring off into nothingness.“If you want, you can come with me to look for the other two. Three eyes are better than one.” He gave a half-grin, nodding toward his single good eye like it was a selling point.

The fog was thick enough to taste—cold and metallic against my tongue—making each breath a small, sharp effort. My bare feet sank into the damp carpet of leaves with every step, the brittle undergrowth crunching and collapsing beneath me. Trees pressed in on all sides, trunks like silent sentries, their branches knitting a ceiling of limbs that left the world feeling small and inescapable. I hugged my arms around myself, trying to trap what little heat I had, and wandered deeper into the hush.

Where was I? Why was I here? Was I alone? A thousand questions shoved at once through my head, each one louder than the last. I tried to force a voice into the fog. “Hello?” I called, the sound swallowed almost as soon as it left me.

Then something snapped nearby.

I froze. The idea of someone else being out here felt somehow worse than being alone. My head turned on a slow, reluctant hinge, and there he was.

The same orange goggles caught the dim light, twin coals in the gray. The hatchet that had hung at his thigh was now drawn, its blade a distant, dull promise. He stood perfectly still, watching me as if he’d been waiting for this moment.

I opened my mouth to scream, but the sound wouldn’t come. It bubbled uselessly in my throat and died. I tried to move—one step, two—but the leaves and muck seemed to grab at my ankles, dragging me down as if the forest itself wanted to keep me. The more I struggled, the deeper it pulled me, my limbs sinking until panic braided tight and hot in my chest.

He stepped forward. Each thud of his boots hit the air like a deliberate drumbeat, loud in the fog-heavy silence. My heartbeat tried to match it, hammering so loud I could taste it. His gloved hand lifted, slow and inevitable—

—and then my eyes snapped open. I was back in my friend's living room. The blanket was tangled between my legs.

My friend’s face was the first thing I saw when I jolted awake—her hovering over me, brows drawn tight with concern. “Are you okay?” she asked quickly, her voice cutting through the lingering haze of the nightmare.

I pushed myself upright, rubbing my eyes until the blur of the room sharpened. “Mm… yeah,” I mumbled, though my voice sounded rough, half-asleep.

“You were thrashing around like crazy,” she said, her lips quirking into a teasing smile despite the worry still lingering in her eyes. “For a second I thought I was gonna have to perform an exorcism or something.”

A weak laugh slipped out of me. “Just… a bad dream, that’s all.”

I swung my legs over the side of the couch, pressing my feet to the cold hardwood floor. The chill shot up through my legs, oddly grounding, almost comforting compared to the smothering heat of the dream.

“Bad dream, huh?” she said, stretching as she moved around the couch. “Well, you look like you need something stronger than wine to chase it off.” She headed toward the kitchen, bare feet padding softly against the floor. “I’ll make coffee.”

The ordinary sound of cupboard doors and clinking mugs followed, filling the space with a domestic normalcy that almost made me believe the night before—and the figure in the woods of my dream—were just tricks of my imagination.

Minutes later, my friend returned and pressed a mug into my hands. “Careful, it’s hot,” she murmured. The warmth seeped into my palms instantly, grounding me. The rich smell of butter coffee curled through the air, soothing the last of my frayed nerves. I took a tentative sip—the heat burned down my throat, but the warmth that spread through me was comforting, almost like it was pushing the nightmare further away.

“Do you have work today?” I asked, glancing up at her over the rim of the mug.

“Pft, yeah,” she groaned, flopping into the chair beside me like a sulking teenager. “And I’m stuck working with fucking Nancy.”

Her dramatic eye-roll made me chuckle already, but then she leaned in, lowering her voice with mock disgust. “I swear, that woman only acts like she’s got a stick up her ass because she can’t get someone to stick anything else up there.”

I burst out laughing so hard I nearly spilled my coffee. “God, you’re terrible.”

“That’s why you love me,” she shot back, grinning before taking a sip from her own mug.

“How about you—do you work today?” she asked, tilting her head at me.

I leaned back in my seat, staring down at the dark surface of my coffee until I caught my own reflection. “Yeah, but not till later, thankfully.”

“Girl, you and those late shifts,” she groaned, rolling her eyes with full dramatic flair. “That’s why you attract weird men—they’re nocturnal, I’m telling you!” She took another sip, her voice dropping into a whine. “And we never get to go out to the clubs because you’re always working late.”

I smirked, raising an eyebrow. “If creeps are nocturnal, wouldn’t the clubs be crawling with them? Using your logic.”

She grinned, pointing her mug at me like I’d just proved her case. “Yeah, but at least there’s a fifty-fifty chance some of them are hot.” A giggle slipped out of her as she settled back in the chair.

I nearly choked on my coffee. “Girl, if Jason from Friday the 13th was hot, you’d still fall under his knife without a second thought.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Maybe not Jason—but the guy from Scream? He’d be fun. Or Michael Myers—he’s definitely built.”

I grabbed the pillow beside me and smacked her lightly with it. “You are so full of yourself.”

We both broke into laughter, the sound filling the cozy space until my ribs ached.

After a while of talking and soaking up the comfort of each other’s company, it was time to go. I didn’t want to overstay and intrude on the few quiet hours she had before work, so I gathered my things, hugged her quickly, and headed out.

I decided to take the same road I’d driven the night before — the bend where everything had happened — hoping to find something, anything, that would prove I hadn’t just imagined the whole thing. The drive felt oddly deliberate; my headlights cut through the low mist and the scattered leaves skittered across the pavement, but when I reached that curve there was nothing. No figure, no hatchet, no flashing goggles — just the trees and the hush of the road.

Relief eased through me like warm water. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and felt the tension fall from my shoulders. But beneath that relief was a strange, nagging disappointment — a small, unsettling itch of curiosity. Part of me wanted confirmation that the encounter had been real; another part wished I’d never seen him at all. The road ahead looked the same as it always had, but I felt like I was driving away from something I couldn’t forget.

What would have happened if I’d seen him again? The question looped through my head as I drove, spinning a web of what-ifs and maybes. Was he dangerous? Why was he out there at night? Each possibility seemed equally plausible and impossible, and my thoughts ricocheted until I was tired of the noise in my own mind.

At last, I pulled into my driveway. I stepped out, inhaled the sharp, cold air, and padded up the porch, fingers fumbling for the house key. That’s when I noticed it — a corner of paper sticking out from under the doormat, the edge like a pale fingernail pointing at me.

I bent to pull it free, and my stomach dropped. The paper was old and creased, its edges yellowed as if it had been folded away for years. The handwriting was frantic, the ink scratched across the page in a hurry as though the writer had been shaking.

“No eyes, always watching,” it read, scrawled with the kind of slanted urgency that makes your skin crawl. Between the words someone had drawn a rough circle, and inside it two tiny X’s marked where eyes might be — crossed out, erased.

I froze, the note crumpling slightly between my fingers. For a stupid, stubborn second I wanted to turn around and look — to see if the thing the paper warned about was standing there, waiting. But the fear of what I might find made my feet refuse to move. Instead, I stood there, heart thudding, the little scrap of paper warming against my palm while everything around me held its breath.

I stumbled inside and bolted the door behind me and went straight for my laptop. My hands were shaking as I booted it up, fingers fumbling with the trackpad until the screen bloomed to life. I started searching—articles, forums, random blogs—anything about the weird note. The more I read, the colder I felt. It wasn’t just one strange post or a creepy urban myth: there were multiple accounts, scattered and half-believable, warning the same thing.

Never touch the paper, one headline said.

Someone else wrote about a friend of a friend who found one of those pages and vanished the next day.

Another person swore their neighbor had found a note like mine taped to the mailbox; three nights later the whole town was on edge.

My skin went ice-white. My heart hammered as if it wanted out of my chest. Every hair on my arms lifted like little warning flags. I kept scrolling even though each new story made the room spin.

Then my phone rang. It was her—my friend—and I answered before she even finished the first breath. “Hey, you won’t believe what I—” I started, words tumbling out in a rush, “—there was this page, it looked so old, I looked it up and—” I didn’t let her get a word in. My voice was high, panicked.

“(Y/n), turn on the TV right now,” she cut me off. Her voice was suddenly firm and small at the same time—commanding and terrified.

I stumbled out to the living room and turned the television on. The news was already on, the anchor’s face lit by the studio glow. The report came in flat, clinical tones that felt wrong against the knot in my stomach:

“This is WZTR News at the top of the hour. Police are investigating a grisly homicide late last night on the outskirts of town. Authorities say a man in his forties was found dead inside his home, the victim of an apparent violent attack. His young daughter was discovered unharmed in a back bedroom, physically well but visibly shaken. Neighbors reported seeing a figure leaving the property shortly before police arrived. Detectives have not released suspect details; the motive remains unclear. The child is now in protective custody. Police urge anyone with information to come forward. We’ll continue to follow this developing story.”

The room tilted. I couldn’t breathe. My vision tunneled and went black at the edges, and the phone slipped from my fingers and clattered to the floor. I heard my friend’s voice—distant, urgent—calling my name, but it sounded like it was coming from underwater. I felt the world fold in, every sound and color draining away.

There was no way this was happening. Not here. Not connected to me. Not now.

As the weather grew colder, nearing the birth of winter, the earth itself seemed to fall into a hush. The once vibrant forests stood stripped and skeletal, their branches stretched outward like dark veins against the darkening sky. The trees were bare, leaving behind only heaps of brittle, lifeless leaves that gathered at the roots, curling in on themselves like forgotten pages. Even the roots, usually dark and strong, had taken on a dull grey, drained of warmth and color by the creeping shift of the season.

The birds had already fled, traveling south to escape the frigid air that was beginning to claim the land piece by piece. Their songs, once scattered freely through the mornings, had vanished, leaving behind an aching stillness. Each breath drawn into my lungs lingered in the air as a thin mist, a ghost of warmth in a world now ruled by frost. The ground crackled underfoot, a thin sheen of ice clinging to the grass and dirt, and though the season spoke of snow, it had not yet arrived. There was only the cold—a waiting, heavy kind of cold, like the world was holding its breath.

That evening, the sun bled itself across the horizon, retreating slowly but inevitably. The sky, always a canvas, shifted through its familiar spectrum of colors: soft blue giving way to tender pinks, then to the blaze of orange, before dissolving into rich purples. Finally, darkness swallowed it all, painting the heavens black, and in that darkness the world felt lonelier—quieter than it had during the day, as though the night consumed not just light, but sound, leaving only a whisper of wind to fill the emptiness.

The silence pressed in even harder as I drove. My headlights carved a narrow path through the gloom, illuminating the road ahead in stark slices of white. Fallen leaves stirred in my wake, dancing erratically in the drafts of my car as they were pulled and pushed along the cracked pavement. Their faint rustle was swallowed almost instantly by the hum of my engine. The radio murmured in the background, a song I wasn’t listening to, the kind you leave on not because you care for it, but because it’s better than sitting alone with silence.

My mind drifted, as it always did on drives home. Little fragments of the day replayed themselves without invitation—snippets of conversations, awkward exchanges, moments that could have gone differently. My thoughts spun out into what-ifs and possibilities, the endless rewinding and rewriting of choices I could never change. The world outside my windshield blurred as I got lost in my own head.

Then came the turn. A sharp bend in the road pulled me back into the present, and for a fleeting second I realized how far my thoughts had carried me. It was then that I saw it.

A figure.

At first it was only a shape against the dark, a tall shadow breaking the line of the trees. Instinct seized me, and I slammed the brakes, tires screeching as my heart kicked against my ribs. My headlights flared wide, and that was when I saw the eyes.

They glowed.

A strange, muted orange, not like the natural shine of an animal caught in artificial light, but deeper, as though lit from within. They stared directly into mine, fixed and unblinking, piercing the distance between us. its form human like, its movements unnerving in their strangeness.

As the beams of my headlights bathed it fully, the shadows peeled back, and I realized with a slow, rising unease that I wasn’t looking at anything I recognized. The way it moved—it wasn’t right. Its limbs shifted with an unnatural grace, too fluid, too deliberate, as though its joints bent in ways they shouldn’t. It was like watching something that wore the shape of a man but didn’t quite belong to that shape, like an imitation that failed just enough to be horrifying.

And still, it stood there. Watching.

“What the hell…” I muttered under my breath, the words barely louder than the hum of my engine. My grip tightened on the steering wheel as I leaned forward, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. The figure hadn’t moved. It just stood there, those strange orange-tinged eyes locked onto me like it had been waiting.

With a flick of hesitation, I rolled down my window just enough to poke my head out into the sharp night air. The cold stung my cheeks instantly, but I didn’t care—I was too focused, too unnerved. My face twisted into a scowl, more out of irritation than fear, though my chest was tight with unease.

“Hey!” I called out, my voice louder than I expected in the silence. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get the fuck off the road!”

The sound of my voice seemed to ripple through the still night, bouncing off the trees and disappearing into the darkness. For a long, breathless moment, the figure didn’t answer. It didn’t even flinch.

And then—it moved.

Slowly, deliberately, one step forward. Its foot crunched against the frost-hardened leaves on the pavement. Another step followed. The way it moved made my skin crawl: too steady, too controlled, like each motion was chosen with unsettling precision rather than the natural flow of someone simply walking.

As it came closer, the glare of my headlights began to reveal more. It was a man—or at least, it looked like one. His frame was tall, his shoulders broad beneath a ragged, hooded coat that looked worn and heavy with age. The stripes on the sleeves caught my eye, strange and unnatural in the pale light, and a mask—something striped and wrapped around his mouth and nose—concealed the lower half of his face. The orange hue I’d mistaken for glowing eyes was clearer now: a set of goggles, reflective, catching my headlights in a way that made them burn like embers in the dark.

He kept walking, unhurried, as if the road belonged to him.

My pulse quickened. Instinct told me to throw the car into reverse, to leave him behind on that desolate stretch of road. But something about him rooted me in place—something that felt more dangerous in the not knowing than in confronting him head-on.

He didn’t say a word. Just kept stepping closer.

When he drew close enough, the movements of his body became clearer under the sweep of my headlights. His head jerked sharply to the side in a sudden twitch, followed by another that rippled down through his shoulders. One of his hands dangled loose at his side, fingers twitching as though they weren’t entirely under his control. That was when I noticed what hung from his thigh.

Strapped against him, catching the glare of my headlights, was something sharp. The light glinted across the metal in a quick flash that made my stomach drop.

An axe.

No—smaller. A hatchet.

Its blade was dark, edges worn from use, and as I stared I realized it was stained. Red. I couldn’t tell if it was rust eating away at the steel or something else—something fresher. My throat tightened at the thought, and I knew I didn’t want to wait long enough to find out.

He twitched again, head snapping faintly as though he were fighting against himself. Then, at last, he spoke.

“What are you doing out at a time like this?” His voice was low, uneven—deep but gravelly, carrying a strange roughness that made every word scrape like stone. There was something wrong in the rhythm of it, too, almost stuttering, as though his words were broken up by the same violent jerks that ran through his body.

“It’s not safe to be out at night.”

The way he said it didn’t sound like a warning. It sounded like a promise.

I drew in a steadying breath, trying to push down the shakiness in my throat before I spoke. “I could say the same thing about you.” My words came sharp, deliberate, like a blade meant to cut short any further conversation. I wanted him to hear it in my tone—I didn’t want to stay, didn’t want to talk.

I reached for the window switch, ready to seal myself back inside the fragile safety of my car. But before the glass could rise, his hand shot out. Fingers curled tightly around the edge, halting it mid-motion. The suddenness of it made my chest clench, my breath catch.

He bent down slowly, his tall frame folding just enough to bring his gaze level with mine. Those burning, orange-tinted lenses hovered inches away, reflecting my headlights back at me like fire trapped behind glass.

“Watch yourself.”

The words rasped out unevenly, the same gravel-rough tone, breaking around the twitches that wracked him. It wasn’t loud, but it carried weight, heavy and deliberate, sinking into the silence of the night.

As his fingers slipped from the glass, I dared a closer look. For the briefest moment, I could have sworn I saw it—the same dark red that stained the blade of his hatchet smeared faintly across the mask covering his face.

It wasn’t rust.

I didn’t think twice — I slammed the car into drive and punched the gas. The tires spun for a heartbeat before the car caught, screaming against the pavement as I tore away from him.

I kept one eye on the rearview, staring until the figure was a blur. He stayed where he stood, watching as my taillights threw a sickly red wash over him, turning his silhouette into something almost theatrical. For a long stretch of road he remained rooted, and then, as if swallowed by the night itself, he vanished into the dark horizon.

Home was only a few minutes away, but the drive felt endless. When I pulled into the driveway I moved on autopilot — door, lock, double-check the deadbolt, slide the chain across. I walked the perimeter of the house like I’d forgotten how to be inside it: windows latched, back door bolted, porch light the only small island of safety. I checked everything once, twice, three times before I finally let myself collapse on the couch and fumble for my phone.

I called the first person who would pick up. “Girl, you won’t believe the interaction I just had — I think I spoke with a murderer.” I didn’t even let her say hello.

There was a beat of silence on the line, then a sharp snort of laughter. “A murderer? Babe, slow down. Did he have a cape or something?” Her voice tried to make light of it; she knew how quickly I could spiral.

“No, not funny. He had —” I told her about the hatchet, the mask, the goggles that glowed like embers. I could feel my hands tremble as I talked.

“Huh.” She hummed thoughtfully, a little too casual. “Okay, that is creepy. But you said he was just standing there? Like… not coming after you?”

“He didn’t follow. He watched me drive off. And I swear, his hatchet was stained.”

“Mmm.” She made that distracted noise people make when they’re imagining something gross but don’t want to fully picture it. “Look, that’s weird as hell, but people are… weird. Maybe he’s drunk, or a weirdo looking for attention. Or he’s some guy who’s lost and thinks hatchets are aesthetic. You always end up in the strangest situations.”

I felt my shoulders loosen a fraction. Her tone was meant to calm. “You’re not helping,” I muttered, but it was true — her downplaying pulled me out of the worst of my panic.

“Okay, okay,” she said. “Promise me you locked everything?”

“Three times.”

“Good. Don’t sit there and stew. Come over to my place in twenty? I’ve got wine, and I’m not letting you watch true crime alone after that story.” Her voice was firm now, the friend-me-upholstering kind of firm I’d needed.

“I—” I pictured my couch, the safety of my own living room, and then her living room with its ridiculous throw pillows and the stupid show we both binged when we wanted to forget the world. “Fine. I’ll come. But you’re buying the wine.”

“Of course. Text me when you head out. And no dramatic drives — take a different route, slow and steady.”

“Okay,” I said, louder than necessary. “Texting now.”

I hung up with a small, shaky laugh. The rational part of my brain kept insisting he was probably nothing more than a lonely, messed-up stranger. But the image of those orange lenses and the red-stained blade stuck behind my eyes. I grabbed my keys, double-checked the locks once more, and forced myself out into the cold night toward my car — toward something that would feel normal again: a friend’s couch, cheap wine, and the hum of a television I didn’t have to watch closely.

I changed out of my work clothes and threw together a small night bag for the crash pad: a soft sweater, a pair of shorts, toothpaste and a toothbrush, deodorant, perfume, a hairbrush — nothing fancy, just the bare essentials for the next morning.

I swung the strap over my shoulder, took a long, steadying breath, and stepped back out the door, closing it and sliding the deadbolt into place behind me. The house felt too quiet, like a held note.

My car was still warm from the earlier drive when I crossed the porch. Before I climbed in I paused and looked toward the woods, as if whatever had been out there might still be watching from the shadowed trees. I listened — really listened — to the hush that had settled over everything. The wind moved through the branches, a thin, low song that threaded through the night. Now and then a brittle stick snapped somewhere in the dark; I told myself it was an animal, just a deer or a raccoon, anything but a person.

Finally I slid into the driver’s seat, doors locking with a small, reassuring click. I chose a different route this time, deliberately turning away from the road I'd come down, heading instead toward my friend's house. If nothing else, being somewhere with other people felt like a small safeguard against the image of those orange lenses and the hatchet that wouldn't leave my mind.

I finally pulled into her driveway, relief washing over me at the sight of a warm porch light. She was already at the door when I walked up, greeting me with a glass of wine in hand like she’d known exactly what I needed.

“Perfect timing,” she grinned.

I took the glass with a grateful nod and set my overnight bag on a chair in the living room as she locked the door behind me. The first sip loosened some of the tension in my chest.

“Hungry?” she asked, swirling her own glass before taking a sip.

“Very,” I admitted with a tired smile that said everything.

“You really need to stop attracting weird men,” she teased, her laugh light as she padded toward the kitchen.

“Yeah? How about you tell them to leave me alone?” I shot back, smirking.

That earned me a giggle, and she peeked around the kitchen wall, spatula in hand, to give me a look. “Why didn’t you just drive off sooner?”

“I didn’t wanna hit the guy!” I said defensively, throwing up a hand.

“Pfft. I would’ve.” She disappeared back into the kitchen, sarcasm thick in her voice.

“No, you wouldn’t have,” I replied with a laugh, rolling my eyes. But as the words left me, the image of him flashed again in my mind—the twitching, the mask, the stains on the hatchet. Against my better judgment, guilt crept in. “You think maybe he… needed help?”

“What??” Her head popped back around the corner, brow arched. “You literally said the man had blood on him.”

“Maybe it was his own.” I shrugged, curling my knees up against my chest on the couch. “Maybe he was drunk, just trying to get home? Could’ve been a bar fight or something.” I was half-defending him without even realizing it.

She gave me a sharp look, wagging her spatula at me. “Don’t go getting sentimental over a creep like that. Drunk or not, bloodstained hatchets aren’t exactly a cry for help.”

I huffed a small, defeated laugh. “Yeah, you’re right.” I leaned back, letting the couch swallow me, and took another sip of wine.

The room filled with the soft clatter of her cooking and the low hum of a tune she didn’t know she was singing. I let the warmth of the drink blur the edges of the night.

Then, out of nowhere, her voice floated from the kitchen: “Was he at least hot?”

I choked, nearly spitting out my wine. “Pft—what??” My laughter spilled out, surprised and uncontrollable. I turned more toward the kitchen, glass still in hand.

She poked her head out again, spatula waving as her other hand rested sassily on her hip. “Like, was he at least hot? Because it would really suck if he was ugly and creepy.”

“If he was hot, would you just flirt your way out of getting murdered?” I teased, raising a brow over my glass.

She lifted the spatula to her chin thoughtfully, her other hand tucking under her chest like she was genuinely weighing the option. “Hmm…” she hummed dramatically.

“You’re so full of bullshit!” I laughed, grabbing a pillow from the couch and tossing it at her. She yelped, swatting it away with the spatula, and we both broke out in laughter.

But when the laughter settled, I actually thought about it. “Hot?” I repeated, half to myself. “I mean… his face was covered, so I wouldn’t really know. But—” I smirked, shaking my head at how ridiculous it sounded even as I said it—“I do think he was hiding some decent muscle under that baggy hoodie.”

The admission made me laugh at my own stupidity, and she joined me, shaking her head.

By the time dinner was ready, the air between us felt lighter, normal again. She set a plate in front of me, and we curled up on the couch with our food, the show we always watched flickering on the screen. Wine in hand, the earlier tension melted into background noise, replaced by easy conversation, cheap jokes, and the comfort of simply not being alone.

As the night stretched on, the warmth of the wine and the steady hum of the television pulled us both down. Somewhere between the middle of the episode and the movie that followed, our laughter faded into soft silence. The couch, too comfortable to leave, held us until our eyelids drooped. By the time the credits rolled, we were both asleep, the glasses half-empty on the table, the glow of the TV washing over us in the quiet safety of her living room.