Chapter 18
Suddenly, a slow, drawn-out creak drifts through the ceiling directly above us, and my head tilts back on instinct, eyes fluttering open.
It sounds like footsteps testing weak floorboards.
“What… what was that?” Mattie whispers sharply, her wide eyes flicking upward too.
My own breath stalls completely, staring and unblinking as a thin trail of dust drifts down, catching in the faint sliver of grey light like falling ash.
Then… the noise stops, and silence swallows the room again, heavier than before.
I’m not sure how long we’ve been huddled in here now, and I don’t know if I slept at all or if the dark simply took pieces of me while my eyes were closed.
All I know is that my body feels like one big bruise and my face throbs with deep, infected pain, the stitches pulling cruelly at the tender flesh of my lips every time in inhale.
I lift my head from Mattie’s shoulder and turn to look at her, but her blue eyes are still glued to the ceiling, as if she’s seeing something moving up there that the rest of us can’t.
After a long moment she finally meets my gaze, and the horror between us feels electric.
I raise a shaky hand and press my fingertips softly against the swollen, puckered skin where the stitches hold my mouth shut, and the discomfort flares hot and sharp.
Mattie’s gaze drops to my ruined lips, and she swallows hard, throat clicking.
“Maybe there’s an old shop or something somewhere,” she says quietly. “Somewhere we can cut those. And possibly find some weapons. God knows we’re going to fucking need them.”
She shifts first, stiff and reluctant, and I follow with a low groan in my throat.
We creep toward the boarded-up window, then press close to the narrow crack where two warped planks don’t quite meet.
The sky has lightened to a bruised grey, where dawn is trying and failing to break through. The rain hasn’t stopped, and it keeps falling in steady, indifferent sheets, drumming against the cracked buildings outside.
Mine and Mattie’s eyes scan the abandoned street below, but nothing moves. No shadow gliding between towers, and no warped ice cream truck driving through the weeds.
“Shops,” Mattie whispers, pointing with a shaky finger. “A few blocks down. It looks like a convenience store, and maybe a hardware place.”
I lean in closer, peering through beside her, and spot the stores sitting there in the distance, dark and silent, their windows splintered.
Yeah, there’s supplies, and hopefully safety, yet I can’t help but think the idea feels like bait.
Lena starts breathing too fast again behind us.
“No,” she gasps, tone breaking into panic. “No, no, we can’t go out there, not in the open. Not with that thing still moving between the buildings. It’s waiting. The music… the lights… it’ll fucking find us the second we step outside.”
Her friend Lotty tries to hush her, but Lena’s eyes are wild, darting between us.
“And what if it’s just people messing with us?” Mattie asks quietly, her voice low and edged with desperate hope.
I side-eye her sharply because the suggestion lands like a slap.
“What if they know exactly who we are?” she continues. “What we fear. Where we came from. What if they’ve been watching us this whole time, feeding us exactly what will break us?”
“Mattie is right, Lena,” Lotty murmurs, crouched beside her friend, one hand rubbing circles on her back. “What if this is all a sick game? Maybe we were supposed to be here the entire time. Maybe someone planned this.”
My gut drops into a cold, sickening plunge that leaves me hollow.
Because I don’t know what’s worse—the idea that this is some orchestrated hell crafted by traffickers who get off on watching broken girls unravel, who studied our pasts, our traumas, and our worst memories just to weaponize them…
…or that there’s something far more sinister and unnatural out there. Something that simply reaches into us and pulls our nightmares out like wet organs, wearing them as skin.
My mind is too fractured to tell the difference anymore. Both possibilities feel true at once, overlapping in nauseating layers.
Lena shakes her head forcefully, still curled against the wall.
“It’s not people,” she whispers, terror lacing every word. “People don’t move like that first shadow did.”
No one has the answer because the truth is, whether it’s men dressed up or something made from pure horror, we’re already caught, and we’re already being played with.
I press my forehead against the cold, filthy wall and close my eyes for a second, the dark behind my lids feeling too familiar, too welcoming.
After silently debating, the answer settles over me like a death sentence. There’s only one way forward, and we have to keep moving. Whether we like it or not, whether we’re ready or not, this place isn’t going to let us hide in here forever.
This room feels safe now, but it’s the kind of safety that only exists because something hasn’t found you yet. It’s just a fragile illusion held together by four walls and a door. One that could shatter the second something decides to test it.
I lift my head and glance at the others, and I can see they’re exhausted and terrified, because so am I.
But fear doesn’t stop time from passing. Sooner or later we’ll need food and water. And then what? We don’t move and fucking die in here? Let this room become our tomb?
The thought settles like lead in my chest.
Whatever this island is, whatever horrors are lurking beyond these walls, we aren’t getting off it by hiding. We need to find a way out, and if that means stepping back into the rain, then that’s what we’ll have to do.
I stride over to Lena and offer her my hands. She stares at them for a long moment, eyes shiny with tears and distant, like she’s seeing every bad thing those hands have ever touched.
Then her gaze lifts to mine, and I stare at her, really stare into her, so she can see that we’re in this together, no matter how broken we are.
After a few hesitating seconds, she finally slides her cold, trembling hands into mine, and I pull her up. Her legs shake at first, but she stands, and for a moment our eyes stay locked, two survivors silently agreeing not to let the dark take the other first.
Mattie watches us, then nods once, and we all start moving down the crumbling hallway toward the stairs.
◆◆◆
When we step out of the building and into the rain, we move cautiously, staying low as we weave in and out of cover. Behind open doorways, piles of rubble, and clusters of thick wildflowers.
Lena stays glued to my side, her hand still gripping mine, and Mattie leads, signalling us to stop and crouch every few moments. But the streets feel too open and exposed.
“Down!” Mattie suddenly hisses, and we scramble into a narrow alley, pressing our backs against a disintegrating brick wall.
My heart is pounding so hard it hurts, but I carefully lean forward and glimpse around the corner with one wide eye, and my stomach drops like a stone.
A seven-foot brute is lumbering down the middle of the street. It wears a rotting pig’s head, snout split in a foul grin, black eyes shiny and empty. Its body is fat and pale, rolls of flesh hanging over a bloodied butcher’s apron.
In one massive hand it drags a huge meat cleaver, the blade scraping loudly against the cracked pavement. Its other arm is twisted into a thick, coiled appendage like a sharp pig’s tail.
It moves slowly, swinging its head low from side to side, sniffing the air. Searching for something… searching for me.
I yank back behind the wall, pressing hard against the bricks, while the static in my head explodes. For a second I’m not here anymore, I’m a little girl again in my childhood bed.
The smell of blood, the heavy sound of a similar cleaver in the kitchen, his bloodied apron, and that grin while he told me to stay quiet and take it.
That thing looks like an even crueler and warped version of the abuser who made my younger years a living hell. Like every nightmare I ever had about him has slithered out of my head, taken form, and then been tugged over a monster’s body.
The others stare at me, eyes broad, waiting for me to hint at what I just saw. I place an unsteady finger to my sewn mouth and shake my head, trying to warn them without words.
We’re not just being hunted. This island knows exactly who the fuck we are.
I hear a loud oink followed by a high-pitched, unhinged squeal that ricochets off the buildings, and my body stiffens.
The sound is sickening and distorted, like a pig has learned how to scream through it's hunger.
But thankfully, it keeps moving further away, the scrape of the cleaver fading with it.
Mattie leans forward gently and peeps around the corner instead of me. My entire frame trembles violently, unable to stop the shaking, even as my scarred hands dig into my upper arms, nails biting skin, the terror just won’t let go of me.
“It’s gone,” Mattie murmurs after a moment, voice tight. “Only a few more steps and we can make it to that store just there.”
But I no longer want to move. I’m fucking stuck, just like Lena was a few hours ago. Petrified and frozen in place while the past claws its way out of the dark and stares back at me with my father’s eyes.
The pig-headed thing isn’t just some monster on this island. It’s him, and it knows what he did to me. It knows how small I felt under that same blood-spattered apron.
I can’t take another step toward that store knowing something wearing my father’s shape is still out here, dragging that cleaver and trying to find me.
Mattie stares at me, worry cutting through her fear, and the others are watching too. But all I can do is shake my head, eyes bulging, trapped inside the memory that just grew seven feet tall and learned how to fucking stalk.
They let me take a moment to calm my racing heart, and in the meantime, I try to convince myself this isn’t possible, that it’s just some fevered nightmare my mind has dragged up from its darkest depths.
But nightmares aren’t supposed to leave bruises on your soul like this.