I don’t remember walking home, but I know I’m inside my apartment again, drenched in rain and shaking with something that isn’t fear. This feeling is heavier. Like knowing a tornado is coming and there’s no time to get out of the way.
I drop my keys and lock the door behind me. The sketchbook’s waiting, still open on the couch like it knew I’d be back. I sit down, and for a long moment, I don’t move. I just stare at the eyes I drew days ago, the ones that match him exactly.
That’s not a coincidence.
That’s not imagination.
That’s a fucking problem.
I flip to the next page and find myself already sketching again, even though I don’t remember picking up the pencil. My hand moves without thought. Curves. Edges. That strange spiral. Again, and again. I draw the symbol until the page is full.
At the center, that downward blade. Inked harder than the rest. Pressed so deep the paper warps. I don’t know what it means. I feel it. It hums in my chest. Like a memory I haven’t lived yet. I toss the sketchbook onto the counter like it burned me. My hands won’t stop shaking.
I move to the window. Streetlights buzz below, slick pavement glinting under rain. A few drunk idiots yell across the street, their shenanigans waking the whole neighborhood.
Just another night in a city that’s too far gone to notice something’s wrong. I notice, I always have.
I reach for my phone. Type “Vescari” into the search bar. Nothing that seems to matter, go figure. A few hits about real estate and news stories about a supposed mafia or drug ring. Nothing real. So, I’ll dig even deeper. Reverse image search one of the drawings from my sketchbook. Still nothing. I’m about to give up as my phone glitches. There are streaks of color appearing across the screen. It flickers static as my heart pounds.
“What the fuck!” I scream as the whole screen goes black. I'm ready to toss my phone across the room whenit suddenly returns to normal, leaving me staring at my lock screen in confusion. Every instinct in my body is screaming at me, trying to tell me that something is wrong. Then I hear it...a soft thump behind me.'
Not outside…inside…in my goddamn apartment.
I spin, fear slamming into my chest. The window is still shut. The door is locked. But on the floor, lying just behind the coffee table, is a black envelope. It has no stamp, no markings, just a crimson thread wrapped around its center. The only other noticeable feature is the deeply pressed wax seal with that symbol I’ve been sketching…the spiral, and the blade at its core. I don’t remember letting anyone in. Someone WAS here. Someone got close enough to leave this inside my apartment…and without me realizing it.
The seal pulses under the hallway light. The crimson thread looks wet. And for the first time in years…I hesitate to touch something.
3
Uninvited Ink
The clock on my microwave blinks 3:17 AM, but I haven’t trusted that fucker since the last power surge fried its brain. Still, I know it’s late. It’s so fucking quiet. The kind of quiet that makes your ears ring. The kind of night where everything feels…suspended.
I haven’t slept for two days.
Not really. I drift for a few minutes here and there…head slumped against the back of the couch or folded over this shitty little sketchpad I keep mangling with charcoal. But real sleep? That thing people seem to sink into like warm water?
Not for me. Not when the silence talks back.
My fingers are strained, the tips gray-black from dragging lines across paper that doesn’t want to take the pressure. I’ve gone through twelve sheets tonight alone, each one scratched with fire. Not realistic flames. These are distorted, frenzied. Sharp edges where there should becurves. Smoke without origin. Heat that feels like it’s bleeding through the page and into my skin.
Somewhere around page five, I stopped looking at what I was drawing. My hand just keeps moving, like there’s something inside me trying to claw its way out. Something ancient and burning and very, very tired of being ignored.
My neck cracks when I shift. My spine feels like rusted metal. I should get up. Drink water. Take a breath. Instead, I flip to another blank page.
The lines start before I can think.
Wide curves. Jagged streaks. A shape I don’t remember learning, something inhuman, mouth wide open like it’s screaming, but there’s no sound. Just smoke curling around its jaw like a crown.
I stop.
And that’s when I smell it.
Smoke.
Not just the faint, someone-left-the-oven-on kind. This is thick. Bitter. Sharp enough to cut the inside of your nose. The scent of insulation and scorched wood and something that should neverburn…but does.
I freeze, every muscle locked. The pad slips from my lap, lands face-down on the floor with a soft thwack. I don’t look at it.
