Page 14

The first sign that I had made a mistake was when I woke up looking like I had just clawed my way out of the afterlife.

I blinked blearily at the ceiling, feeling like a sentient corpse. My limbs refused to move. My brain was still buffering.

I was pretty sure I had a pulse.

Maybe.

What did a pulse feel like again?

Ethan snored from across the bed, sprawled out like a victorious warlord after raiding a village. I, on the other hand, was dying.

And I knew exactly why.

After our little midnight crime spree and illegal rooftop movie session, I should have gone to sleep like a normal, responsible human being.

But no.

No, I had commitments.

Specifically, freelancing commitments. Because some rich kid in another time zone desperately needed his philosophy paper ghostwritten, and I was too financially desperate to say no.

Which was why I had spent the rest of the night hunched over my laptop, chugging water like it was a life-sustaining elixir—this cursed hotel had no coffee vending machine, at least not where I could access it at 3 a.m.—typing up nonsense about the metaphysics of existence while my own existence was actively deteriorating.

Now, as I lay there, suffering the consequences of my actions, I could practically hear my own body cells screaming.

I groaned and sat up. Bad idea. My vision swam. I felt like a wilted lettuce leaf.

Dragging myself out of bed, I staggered into the bathroom, fully prepared to dunk my face in cold water and pray for a miracle.

That’s when I saw myself in the mirror.

"Oh. My. God."

A ghost.

I looked like a ghost.

Pale skin. Dark circles. Hair that could legally be classified as a bird’s nest. Eyes that held the lifeless stare of someone who had seen things.

I leaned closer, squinting at my reflection. "Is this how I die?"

Behind me, the door creaked open.

"Clark, why are you talking to yourself—" Ethan stopped mid-sentence. Then he burst out laughing.

I turned to glare at him, my eye twitching. "What."

"You look terrible," he wheezed, clutching his stomach. "Like—like a Victorian child who just escaped a haunted orphanage."

I threw a towel at him. "Get out."

Ethan dodged it effortlessly, still laughing. "Seriously, dude. Did you get any sleep?"

"Yeah," I grumbled. "Some."

Ethan raised an eyebrow. "Clark, blinking doesn’t count as sleep."

I waved him off, turning back to splash water on my face. "I don’t have time for your nonsense, I need to—"

Then I saw it.

The scar.

The one just below my belly.

I froze.

For a moment, I wasn’t in the bathroom anymore. I wasn’t even in the present.

I was a kid again.

A terrified little kid, curled up in a corner, hands over his head as blows rained down. As a distorted voice—inhuman, monstrous—roared something he didn’t understand.

Not once.

Not twice.

Many times.

A shiver ran down my spine. My throat felt tight.

I sucked in a breath, snapping back to reality. My reflection stared at me—pale, wide-eyed, trembling.

And then—

From the doorway—

Ethan.

A demon.

My chest squeezed.

For half a second, my exhausted, trauma-riddled brain forgot that Ethan was Ethan, the dumbass who had dragged me into a crime for chips and made fun of my sleep deprivation.

Instead, all I saw was a demon.

Something dark. Something dangerous. Something that had hurt me before.

Something that could—

No.

I shook my head hard, shoving those thoughts away.

Ethan frowned. "Clark?"

I plastered on the most unconvincing casual expression of my life, hiding the scar from his view. "Huh?"

He squinted at me. "Are you—"

I turned off the sink, grabbed my toothbrush, and shoved it in my mouth so I wouldn’t have to answer.

Ethan watched me for another second, then shrugged. "Okay, weirdo. Hurry up, breakfast is in ten."

With that, he strolled away, completely unaware that I had just had an entire psychological breakdown in the span of five seconds.

I exhaled, leaning against the sink.

That was fine.

I was fine.

Everything was—

My reflection blinked at me.

Still pale. Still looking vaguely ghostly.

And with a toothbrush hanging out of my mouth, I looked exactly like the sleep-deprived corpse Ethan accused me of being.

I sighed.

Yeah.

This was not going to be a good day.

Breakfast was a blur.

I vaguely remember shoving food into my mouth while Ethan made unnecessary commentary about my undead appearance. Something about me looking like a lost soul from the afterlife and how I should probably start haunting the school hallways full-time.

"You look terrible," Joy commented, jabbing her fork into a pancake. I said jabbing not eating.

This hotel only made food for creatures without tastebuds. "Like, worse than usual,” she added.

"Wow. Thanks." I chugged my coffee like my life depended on it. Trust me, I was surviving its taste just to make me seem better.

"Did you even sleep?" Shun asked, resting her chin on her palm.

"Define sleep."

Max, sitting beside her, snorted. "Bro, you look like the human embodiment of regret. And I would know—I see that look on Coach's face every time I open my mouth."

"Can confirm," Shun said.

I groaned, rubbing my face. "I tried to sleep, okay? I just… didn’t."

Ethan, smug as ever, leaned back in his chair. "Yeah, that tends to happen when you’re busy committing snack-related crimes at one in the morning."

Max blinked. "Wait. What?"

"We did not commit crimes," I corrected quickly. "Ethan committed a crime. I was just an innocent bystander."

Ethan popped a grape into his mouth. "Details, details."

Joy smirked. "Clark, you have a terrible track record of getting roped into bad decisions. You're like a magnet for chaos."

"You say that like I have a choice," I muttered.

Breakfast continued, filled with sarcasm, jock banter, and the occasional insult aimed at my zombie mode appearance. After eating, we dragged ourselves back to the bus.

I barely registered getting onto my seat, pulling out my tablet, and opening my research notes. I had some research to do—something about wildlife migration patterns. Not that my brain was actually processing it. My thoughts felt like mashed potatoes.

For the first hour, the bus was loud.

Obnoxiously loud.

Max and the other jocks were making noise in the back, throwing crumpled-up snack wrappers at each other like overgrown toddlers.

Joy and Mia were whispering about something I wasn’t nosy enough to care about.

Shun was liking memes on her phone, occasionally showing one to Max, who would snicker like a five-year-old.

I focused on my screen, scrolling through my research.

The bus was loud.

Until it wasn't.

Not like everyone was exhausted and shut up. No, this was something else.

It was the kind of silence that crawled in like a spider crawling up your back. I didn't notice at first—just kept swiping on my tablet, brain muddled and eyes blinking from too much screen use. But then I did notice…

No Max laughter. No Joy sarcasm. No Mia whispering. No Shun memes.

Just the growl of the bus engine and soft crunch of a snack bag being slowly crushed under someone's foot.

I looked up.

Nobody said anything. Not stopped, necessarily—but… suspended. Like a video stuttering on a bad connection. Heads leaned. Eyes open, but empty. Even Max had paused, laughing, a gummy worm still hanging in his mouth like it remembered not to fall.

My stomach formed knots.

Something was wrong.

Very seriously wrong.

And then—I felt it.

The back of my neck prickled with hair as if attempting to escape. The air grew cold, but not physically. It was the cold you feel in your bones when you realize you're not alone at night.

I turned around carefully.

And saw Ethan.

Sitting completely motionless.

Too motionless.

He was staring at me—no, through me. His eyes… didn't merely glow. They hummed, glowed softly like distant embers. Like a dying star. His skin was too pale, too smooth, too perfect, like it had been shaped from wax.

And then—he smiled.

But not like Ethan.

It was broader.

Too wide.

Wrong.

There was no smug jock behind that smile. Just teeth. And nothing.

"Uh," I gargled.

Ethan tilted his head.

And blinked.

But his eyelids slid horizontally.

Like a lizard.

Then—he stood.

No, moved.

Sudden. Precise. Like a frame was cropped out and he was teleported forward a step.

A blur.

Too fast.

Too quiet.

And then, he struck.