I didn’t touch it after I took it out of the freezer, just stared at it, heart jackhammering in my chest. I don’t know how it got in my apartment or who left it just know one minute it wasn’t there… and the next it was.
By the time I finally pass out, it’s almost dawn. My alarm screams two hours later, and I drag myself through a shower, a cup of gas station coffee, and walk to work like a half-dead raccoon wearing lipstick.
Dragana eyes me the second I walk in. “You look like you lost a knife fight and then had a conversation with God.”
“I won the fight,” I mutter. “God was less helpful.”
She tosses me a clean rag and points toward the bar. “Wipe down and stock the garnishes. A delivery’s coming at noon.”
I nod. It’s easier to fall into a routine than admit I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that I’m being watched since the moment I woke up. Everything feels off. Like the lighting in the bar is too bright. Like the music is skipping even when it’s not. Like the shadows don’t quite stay where they should.
The regulars don’t notice. Marv’s already slurring about cryptids in the Appalachians, and Tara is rolling her eyes so hard she might sprain something. Everything looks normal, but it’s not. I can feel it. Like the world is apuzzle someone solved wrong, and now the corners are peeling.
I grip the bar tighter, forcing my focus back to the bottles and the sound of a knife slicing through lime. I can pretend a little longer, but I can’t outrun what’s in my apartment. And I sure as hell can’t outrun what’s inside my head.
The next two days are hell. I go to work. I fake smiles. I pour drinks and pretend the edges of reality aren’t folding in on themselves…even though I know they are. Dragana doesn’t ask questions. But she watches me. Quiet, sharp. She knows something’s off.
I catch myself staring at the VIP booth again and again, like I expect him to be there.Do I want him to be there?
He isn’t.
Another day, another shift. The sketchbook's call is as persistent as ever, even before I'm home. My hands are itching to draw and create. I just hope that once I reach my sketchbook it isn’t one of the men that I’ve been drawing. I want to sketch freely. I unlock the door and see it staring at me—the envelope I had hoped would vanish as suddenly as it appeared. It’s on the counter...whereit’s been since I took it out of the freezer. I stopped trying to hide it. The wax seal stares at me like it’s daring me to try to open it, but I don’t open it. Not yet.
I tell myself I’m waiting for something like a sign or a reason. But I know better. I’m waiting because the moment I open it, everything changes. This is about me. The symbols. The dreams. The drawings I don’t remember making. Whatever this is, I’m not just in it…I’m the fucking target.
I pace. I clean. I open the fridge, close it. Open it again. Nothing inside has changed. The envelope sits front and center, sprawled across the counter like it owns the place. I can’t stop staring at it. I tell myself I’m being dramatic. That this is nothing, that whoever left it is just trying to rattle me, and I’m too stubborn to break. But that’s a lie, because I am rattled. I am breaking. Whoever sent that envelope knew exactly what they were doing.
I’ve spent years building my walls, brick by brick, sarcasm layered over trauma, sharp eyeliner over panic. And now? One touch. One wax seal. One whispered name, and those walls are crumbling.
I grip the edge of the sink so hard my knuckles go white. The shadows in my apartment feel thicker now. Like the air’s congealing. Like I’m not alone, even when I’m the only one breathing. I check the locks again. All three deadbolts. Still sealed. Still not enough. I glance at the clock, and my reflection in the microwave is pale and furious. I look like someone on the edge of a decision that’ll wreck everything. And maybe I am, but I’m also tired of pretending like I don’t want to know.
I finally grab the fucking envelope and then drop it as if it’s made of lead. It lands with a sound that’s louder than it should be. I don’t know what I’m expecting. A trap. A curse. A note that says “I see you” in bleeding ink? “Get a fucking grip,” I whisper to myself as I pick up the envelope and break the seal.
Inside is a single card. Black. Heavier than paper should be. Stamped with that spiral again, the blade gleaming like polished bone. And across the center in dark red, glistening ink…an address. No name. No time. Just a place. I don’t recognize the street, but I know the area. Old money territory. The kind of place where people pay extra not to be found. The card hums against my skin like a live wire. I should call someone. I should say something. What would I even say?
“Hi, Officer, a possibly telepathic stalker broke into my apartment and invited me to a death palace. No, I don’t have any real evidence other than a random envelope. No, you can’t find it online. No, I haven’t been sleeping much. Why do you ask?”
4
What If I Go
The envelope sits on my counter like it’s waiting to see who will break first. The wax seal catches the dim kitchen light in a dull, bloody sheen, the edges of the paper soft and unbroken. I tell myself it’s just paper. Ink. A scrap of nothing. And yet every time I walk past it, I swear the air feels different, like it carries the faint pull of a low, magnetic hum I can’t hear but can somehow feel in my teeth.
I pour a glass of wine and take it to the couch, curling one leg beneath me while the other taps restlessly against the rug. The laptop sits on the coffee table, black screen reflecting the uneven light from the lamp beside me. I sip. I stare at the envelope. I set the wine down and reach for the laptop, the faint click of the lid opening too loud in the quiet.
The address is written in precise, almost mechanical script. Clean. Sharp. No name attached. Just a place.My fingers hover over the keys, the irrational part of me half-expecting something to flicker across the screen before I can type. Still, I start the search.
The first hit is a map, the location a half-hour from here, on the edge of the city where the streetlights start to thin and the houses get older. I zoom in. The satellite view blurs, as if the resolution breaks down the closer I try to look, until I’m left with a dark smudge where the roofline should be. I try Street View. Nothing but a warped stretch of road under a gray sky, flanked by trees leaning inward like they’re conspiring.
I dig deeper. Old real estate listings. Newspaper archives. The property’s name surfaces once, almost an afterthought, in an article dated nearly forty years ago. The Vescari Estate. The piece is about zoning disputes and historical preservation, but between the lines, there are mentions of ‘unresolved matters” and “private holdings,” words that taste like smoke when I read them.
More searching brings up less. Fragments. Online forums speculating about hauntings. One claims it used to be a hospital during the war. Another says it’s been in the same family for centuries, though no one can agree onwhich one. There’s even a thread on a local conspiracy board, complete with blurry night photos of iron gates and something…someone…standing just inside.
I sit back, fingers idle on the keyboard. My pulse is in my throat, heavy enough to feel. This should be the part where I tell myself it’s a bad idea. Where I close the laptop, rip the envelope in half, and pretend none of this ever touched me.
I can’t stop thinking about his eyes. Cold and impossible, the kind that don’t just see…they mark. That one look burned itself into my skin and has been there ever since, buried just under the surface. I hate that I want answers almost as much as I hate that the thought of seeing him again makes my stomach twist in something that isn’t quite fear.
The glass is empty before I realize it, the last trace of wine warm in my mouth. I stand up from the couch and start pacing, running both hands through my hair until it falls back into my eyes. “Don’t be fucking stupid,” I mutter, half to the empty room, half to the version of myself already reaching for her keys.
