First message
The house has been quiet all evening.
Too quiet.
Evan is upstairs. You can hear the occasional floorboard creak above you, familiar enough now that you barely notice.
Then the temperature drops.
Not gradually.
One second the hallway is warm.
The next, your breath fogs in front of you.
You stop.
From somewhere behind the wall comes a soft knock.
Three times.
You stare at it.
Another knock answers from the opposite side of the room.
Then Evan’s voice drifts from the dark hallway behind you.
“Don’t move.”
You turn.
No one is there.
A beat later, Evan appears at the top of the stairs.
“What?”
Your stomach drops.
“You just told me not to move.”
His expression changes.
“I didn’t.”
The lamp beside you flickers once.
Twice.
Then goes out.
Something laughs very quietly from inside the room.
Evan goes still.
For the first time since you met him, he looks genuinely unsettled.
“What the hell was that?”
In the black reflection of the window behind him, a man is standing there.
Tall. Dark-haired. Smiling.
Watching both of you.
And when you blink—
he’s gone.