PART 4
☾
The fluorescent lights of the police station buzzed at exactly 60 hertz—a steady, mechanical drone that made everything feel slightly wrong. I tracked the scene before me with practiced precision: I watched Theo's mother hesitate, her hand hovering uncertainly before reaching for Austin. The probability of her refusing was low—statistically speaking, she'd never turned down anyone in need. My analysis proved correct as she nodded, pulling Austin closer with that maternal instinct I'd observed countless times before, but never quite understood.
"Could Austin stay with you tonight?" Paul's question hung in the air, his usual authoritative tone softened just enough to be noticeable. "This might take a while."
Austin limped toward them, falling into Theo's support like it was the most natural thing in the world. I watched Austin lean into Theo's support, calculating the strain on his injured leg, the probability of infection. The numbers were easier to focus on than the growing distance between us.
My mother's fingers dug into my shoulder—one, two, three, four, five points of increasing pressure. I didn't need to look up to know her expression. The familiar weight of her expectations settled over me like a physical equation I could never quite solve.
Through the rain-streaked windows, I watched Theo and Austin disappear into the storm, their silhouettes merging like a mathematical equation resolving itself: two variables becoming one, leaving me as the remainder. Always the remainder. The rain's rhythm offered a pattern—tap-tap-tap—and I clung to it, the way I always clung to numbers when emotions threatened to overwhelm my carefully ordered world. But tonight, even mathematics couldn't fill the space between me and my friends, couldn't solve for the hollow feeling of being the one left behind. Again.
The station's clock ticked forward: 6:47 PM. In exactly thirteen minutes, the dinner rush at The Lotus Temple would begin. My mother's grip tightened fractionally, anticipating the calculations I'd already made. Time lost serving customers.
Paul, ever steady, grabbed a rain jacket from the hook near the door, fastening it with a practiced ease. “Joey,” he called over to his deputy, “let’s get going.”
“Y-Yes, sir!” Joey stammered, fumbling with his police belt, which immediately slipped from his hands and clattered to the floor with a loud metallic thud. “Oh, shoot!” he mumbled, crouching down to retrieve it, but not before knocking over the umbrella stand beside the door. The clatter of metal and wood reverberated through the small station.
My mother let out a sharp exhale, the kind that could cut glass. I stared down at Joey, a wave of secondhand embarrassment washing over me. His awkward fumbling—though frustrating to watch—struck a familiar chord. I saw myself in his clumsiness, always tripping over things, always failing to meet expectations. I turned away, my face heating up.
“Joey,” Paul said with a heavy sigh, folding his arms as he waited. “You good?”
Joey managed to pick up the belt and fumble it back into place, giving Paul a sheepish grin. “I’m all set!” he announced, though his raincoat was inside out, and I could see him patting down his chest like he was trying to find something he misplaced.
Paul’s eyebrow twitched, but he let it slide. “Alright, let’s move.” He turned to my mother, his voice softening. “Mrs. Wang, would you like to stay here until the storm lets up? It’s getting rough out there.”
My mother forced a tight, polite smile, the kind that looked painfully rehearsed, like she’d been doing it her whole life. “That’s very kind of you, Officer Mayer, but we’ll head home now. We live close by.”
Without another word, she tightened her grip on my arm and led me toward the door. I followed, my shoes squelching as we stepped into the rain-soaked street. The door to the police station swung shut behind us with a soft click, and I knew the inevitable lecture was looming like the dark clouds overhead.
We hurried to our car, a VW Touran parked just outside—right where she always wanted it, close enough to avoid the rain but far enough to give the impression that we weren’t like everyone else. A larger vehicle, bought in anticipation of a sibling I never got. Another reminder. Another disappointment.
She opened the door with a sharp yank, and I slid into the back seat without protest, the smell of damp leather filling the air. I heard the click of the door locking behind me as my mother climbed into the driver’s seat, wiping her hands on a pristine napkin before turning to me, her eyes narrowed with barely contained frustration.
"Nǐ zài xiǎng shénme?" she snapped, her words biting into me like ice-cold rain. What were you thinking—a question that always came in Chinese, always carried the weight of generations of expectations.
"You'd rather run around in the woods, chasing dead bodies, than focus on your homework?" she continued, her voice rising. "Nǐ zhīdào wǒmen méiyǒu shíjiān zhèyàng làngfèi!" You know we don't have time for this—her favorite reminder that every second of my life needed to count toward success.
I opened my mouth to answer but quickly clamped it shut. What was the point? She never listened anyway. I’d learned long ago that talking back was like throwing pebbles into a hurricane—it only made things worse.
I pressed my fingers together, rubbing the tips in an unconscious pattern to distract myself. I started counting again. One raindrop. Two raindrops. Three. My thoughts drifted toward statistical probabilities—the likelihood of finding a body in the woods, the chances of rain washing away any evidence—but they were just numbers, meaningless in the face of her anger.
“Look at you!” she spat, gesturing toward my mud-splattered clothes. “Filthy from head to toe. Now I’ll have to clean the car tomorrow, all because of your carelessness.”
Her words stung, but they weren’t new. I was used to this—her anger, my silence, the endless cycle of disappointment. I dropped my head further, retreating into myself, feeling smaller with every passing second.
Then, a knock on the window startled us both. It was Paul, crouching down in the rain, waving awkwardly, his raincoat now soaked through. My mother’s angry expression softened instantly, replaced by that same fake smile she’d worn earlier.
“Just wanted to make sure you get home safe,” Paul said, giving us a friendly nod. “The storm’s getting pretty bad.”
“Thank you, Mr. Mayer,” my mother said smoothly, as if she hadn’t just been tearing into me moments ago. She rolled the window back up without another word and started the engine. The car hummed to life, and the windshield wipers thumped back and forth, a steady rhythm that did nothing to ease the tension hanging in the air.
I stared at my reflection in the rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of my mother’s sharp features—lips pressed into a thin line, black hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. The makeup she’d applied that morning had held up, despite the rain, but it only made her look angrier, more severe. If I didn’t know her, I’d be scared of her. But I did know her, and somehow, that was worse.
The drive home was short, though it felt much longer. Our house loomed ahead, connected to the restaurant below—The Lotus Temple, the pride of our family, the place where every detail screamed success in my parents’ eyes. To me, it was just another stage, another carefully crafted performance where every move was controlled and every mistake magnified.
As we pulled into the alley behind the restaurant, my mother’s sharp voice cut through the rain once again. “Pull yourself together,” she hissed. “We have guests.”
“Who goes to a restaurant in this weather?” I muttered under my breath, but loud enough for her to hear.
The instant regret washed over me. I should have known better.
“Thanks to the people who go to the restaurant in this weather, you have a roof over your head,” she shot back, her tone cutting like a knife. She slammed the door and hurried toward the entrance, leaving me trailing behind her like an afterthought.
The Lotus Temple's red lanterns cast fractured shadows across my face as we entered, their glow transforming me into something that didn't quite belong—not quite American, not quite Chinese, just like the restaurant itself. I'd once calculated that only 12% of the decorations had any connection to authentic Chinese culture, the rest carefully curated to match what customers expected to see. Sometimes I wondered if I was like those paper dragons on the walls: performing an identity that existed only in other people's minds, my true self lost somewhere in the mathematics of assimilation.
The dining area was a chaotic reflection of my parents' idea of "authentic" Chinese culture—an overwhelming jumble of oversized Buddha figurines, dragon statues, and maneki-neko waving their plastic paws endlessly. Red lanterns dangled from the ceiling, casting a dim, suffocating glow over the wooden tables below. It always felt like too much, like my parents had crammed every stereotypical element they could find into one space, creating a funhouse version of what they thought the customers wanted.
I glanced around, already feeling the weight of the night pressing down on me. Two tables were occupied. An elderly couple sat quietly over plates of Peking duck and bowls of miso soup, talking in hushed tones. At the other table, a boy and a girl sat sipping beers, probably waiting for their food to arrive. I glanced again and felt my stomach drop.
Damien. And his girlfriend, Charlotte.
I instinctively tried to duck behind my mother, hoping—praying—they wouldn’t notice me. The last thing I needed was for Damien to see me like this, still soaked from the rain and feeling the residual weight of what we’d found in the woods.
“What are you doing?” my mother hissed, glaring down at me as she shoved me aside and strode toward the kitchen. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
I trailed behind her, keeping my head low, calculating the odds of slipping by unnoticed. It was like trying to avoid a predator. If I moved just right, maybe he’d miss me. Maybe.
No such luck.
“Hey, Wei!” Damien’s voice rang out across the restaurant, sharp and taunting. “Come over here!”
I winced. There was no escaping now. I glanced over, reluctantly meeting Damien’s smirk. He lounged casually in his seat, leaning back with his arm draped around Charlotte, who looked embarrassed. She didn’t meet my eyes, her curls falling forward as she stared down at her beer. Damien was trouble—always had been, ever since he caught me, Theo, and Austin playing in the woods last year. Since then, he’d made it his mission to make school miserable, his insults always cutting, his jabs relentless. And because he was friends with Theo’s older brother, our complaints to anyone else were dismissed as “kids being kids.”
Charlotte, on the other hand, didn’t seem to fit with him. She was nice—too nice for someone like Damien. Pretty too, with her brown curls and petite frame. There’d been a big scene at school a few weeks ago when Theo’s brother called her a slut in front of everyone. It had blown up, leading to Theo’s brother getting suspended, and Damien comforting her afterward. No one knew the full story. It was a statistical anomaly in Charlotte’s usually drama-free life, but something about it still felt... off.
Before I could respond to Damien’s call, my mother spoke sharply over her shoulder. “Wei can’t right now,” she snapped, not even looking back at him. Her voice cut through the restaurant like a whip. “He’s helping me.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Damien replied loudly, his voice dripping with mockery. “We were just dying to hang out with you.”
“Stop it,” I heard Charlotte whisper to him, her tone pleading.
I kept my head down, feeling both a sense of relief and humiliation.
“Aren’t they a bit old to be your friends?” my mother asked, her eyes narrowing as she glanced at them and then back at me, suspicion flickering across her face. She never trusted anyone outside of the family.
“They’re not my friends,” I muttered, the words thick with shame, but true.
My mother grabbed me by the arm, her fingers digging in as she led me toward the kitchen with purpose, each step sharp with frustration. It was always like this—her touch more command than comfort. The kitchen, usually my father’s domain, where the calm scent of home clung to everything, felt suffocating tonight. The familiar aromas of sizzling garlic, ginger, and soy sauce that usually made me feel anchored now swirled around me like a fog I couldn’t escape.
My father stood at the stove, tossing noodles in a wide wok with practiced ease, the rhythmic clanging of metal on metal echoing through the kitchen. His black hair, always kept long as a quiet rebellion against tradition, was tied back under his apron, which bore the faded logo of the restaurant they’d opened when I was born. When we entered, he turned with a smile, the deep lines around his eyes softening with warmth despite the tension that thickened the air.
“Xiao chūshī,” he greeted me in Mandarin, using the term he'd called me since I was little—his “little chef.” His voice was light, trying to lift the heaviness hanging between me and my mother. “Everything okay?” He gave the noodles one final toss, but I could see the worry tightening his brow, the unspoken question in his eyes.
"Wei gāng cóng jǐngchájú huílái," my mother interjected, switching to Chinese, her tone clipped and precise. Wei was just picked up by the police—the words chosen deliberately to make it sound worse than it was, to ensure my father understood the gravity of my transgression.
"I wasn't picked up," I mumbled, barely louder than the hiss of the wok. It didn't matter. She wasn't listening.
My father froze mid-stir, his eyes widening in shock. "Jǐngchá? What happened? Why were you with the police?" His words, though calm, carried the weight of years of careful parenting unraveling all at once.
“He found a body,” my mother cut in sharply, as if I’d committed a minor offense, like breaking a bowl or misplacing my schoolwork. Her lips tightened, each word laced with disapproval, as though I had gone out of my way to inconvenience her, dragging this mess into our home.
My father turned fully, his face a mask of concern, and crouched down to look me in the eye. "Xiao-Wei," he said softly, using my childhood name, his hands resting gently on my shoulders. "Zhēn de ma? Is it true? You found... someone?" The gentleness in his voice made the Chinese sound like a different language entirely from my mother's sharp syllables.
I nodded, my throat too tight to form words. How could I possibly explain? The scene we’d stumbled upon in the woods, the statistical improbability of being the ones to find a murder in a town like ours. It still felt unreal, like a dream I couldn’t shake off.
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“Mrs. Gabrowski,” my mother added, this time in a lower voice, the name spoken as if it carried a curse. She wouldn’t say it any louder with customers just outside. Any disruption, any hint of scandal, would be bad for business. For the family’s reputation.
My father’s face softened, and without hesitation, he pulled me into a firm hug. The scent of ginger and garlic on his clothes wrapped around me, familiar and grounding, cutting through the chaos swirling in my mind. "Nǐ qu zǎo yī diǎn lěng shuǐ xǐ liǎn," he murmured, gently rubbing my back in soothing circles. Go wash your face with cold water—his way of telling me to clear my head, a ritual from my childhood that always meant things would somehow be okay. "You're soaked. Go take a warm shower. I’ll make some soup for you. It'll help."
I nodded into his chest, feeling the weight of everything begin to lift, just slightly. “Thanks, Ba,” I whispered. He ruffled my damp hair, and I managed a small, fleeting smile. He always had a way of making things feel manageable, even when they weren’t.
But as soon as my mother’s sharp gaze fell on me again, I knew this moment wouldn’t last.
“We’ll talk later,” she said sternly, her tone making it clear that this was far from over. The warmth from my father’s hug evaporated in an instant under the cold pressure of her expectations.
“Vivien,” my father said softly, giving her a gentle look of caution. But she rolled her eyes and huffed, clearly uninterested in his peacekeeping efforts tonight. "Wǒmen yǒu kèrén," he reminded her, a hint of quiet reproach in his voice. We have customers—the phrase that ruled our lives, that kept our family's conflicts carefully contained behind closed doors.
She grabbed an apron with a sharp tug, tying it around her waist in quick, frustrated movements. “I know,” she muttered under her breath, disappearing back into the restaurant with the same rigid precision she brought to everything she did. Her footsteps, usually elegant, were heavy tonight.
I stood there for a moment, staring at the door after her. My father sighed, the tension lingering but easing just enough to breathe again. He squeezed my shoulder gently before returning to the stove, his movements slower now, weighed down by the words left unsaid.
I stood in the hallway, key in hand, unlocking the door to our apartment above the restaurant. The heavy door groaned in protest before finally giving way, swinging inward with a low creak and slamming shut behind me with a thud that echoed through the quiet space.
Our apartment was the polar opposite of the gaudy, over-decorated restaurant below. While The Lotus Temple embraced every cliché of "Chinese" decor in a desperate attempt to satisfy customers’ expectations, our home was cold, clinical, its silence interrupted only by the hum of the refrigerator. White walls and neat furniture arranged with precision made it feel more like a showroom than a home. Nothing ever felt out of place. Except me.
I paused for a moment in the entryway, glancing around. Our apartment was pristine as always, each surface polished to a mathematical perfection that made me feel like a variable that didn't belong.
I kicked off my shoes and made my way down the hall toward my room, the laminate flooring cool beneath my feet.
As soon as I entered my bedroom, the image of Mrs. Gabrowski’s body flooded my mind. I froze, standing in the middle of the room, my breath catching in my throat. It hit me like a wave—her mutilated body, the blood, the vacant, unseeing eyes. No matter how hard I tried to push the memory away, it clung to me like a second skin.
I sat gingerly on the edge of my bed, careful not to disturb the clean covers with my still-damp pants. Closing my eyes, I focused on my breathing—inhale, exhale—trying to apply the statistical method of random sampling to clear the image from my head. I visualized each thought, assigning a probability of recurrence to each one. I’d calculate which ones would drift away, which ones would stick. Inhale. Exhale. Probability of success: unknown.
After a few moments, I opened my eyes. The memory remained, stubborn as ever, lodged in the back of my mind like an unwelcome guest. I needed a distraction, something to anchor myself in the present.
A shower. Yes, a shower would help.
When I entered the bathroom, I navigated the maze of crystals my mother had arranged with what she called "precise feng shui alignment." Rose quartz clustered near the sink—for love and harmony, she'd explained, though the statistical evidence for crystals improving one's love life was nonexistent. A large piece of black obsidian guarded the doorway, supposedly protecting against negative energy. Green jade, handed down from my grandmother in China, occupied the highest shelf—too precious to risk falling, too important to leave out of her crystal arrangement.
The bathroom counter had become an altar of sorts: amethyst for spiritual growth (approximate value: $45.99 from the New Age shop downtown), clear quartz for cleansing (another $32.50), and a small Buddha statue that made me cringe every time I saw it. The statue was made in Thailand—I'd checked the label—and had nothing to do with our family's traditional beliefs. But this was what Americans expected to see in Chinese homes, so my mother had added it to her collection.
Mother had started buying crystals three years ago, after Mrs. Chen from the rival Chinese restaurant claimed they'd doubled her business. Now our bathroom looked like a geological museum, each new crystal carrying the weight of my mother's desperate grasp at both American New Age trends and traditional Chinese superstitions. To me, they were simply trip hazards—objects that increased the likelihood of a domestic accident by at least 15%. I'd calculated this after stubbing my toe on the rose quartz cluster for the third time.
I made my way carefully between a chunk of citrine (for success in business) and a cluster of red agate beads (for protection—though they'd failed to protect my thumb when I'd knocked them off the shelf last week). My mother's endless pursuit of luck through these stones was just another reminder of how we straddled two worlds: the practical Chinese traditions of my grandmother's feng shui, filtered through the commodified lens of American spirituality. Each crystal represented another attempt to bring good fortune to a family that had crossed an ocean in search of it.
I turned on the shower, adjusting the temperature with the ease of habit. The bathroom was soon engulfed in steam—a quirk of our apartment’s ancient plumbing that I’d come to expect.
As I prepared for the shower, I noticed my mother had once again placed her shower foam in the top shelf of the wall cabinet. Out of reach. Being short had its disadvantages—one of them being that my parents used my height as an excuse to hide things. I sighed, mentally designing a mechanical reach-extender that could utilize principles of simple machines to overcome this recurring obstacle.
I stood under the warm water for several minutes, motionless, letting the heat seep into my bones. The warmth was comforting, familiar. The probability that this shower would wash away the day's horrors? Low, but not impossible. The steam blurred my thoughts, the water rushing over me in a steady stream. For a moment, I allowed myself to think of nothing.
When I emerged, wrapped in a towel, the air outside the bathroom felt cold, sharp. I dressed in my bathrobe and padded back to the kitchen. The space was small, compact, a deliberate choice given that the restaurant downstairs served as the true kitchen of the house. As I filled the kettle to make green tea, I ran the numbers in my head, calculating how many minutes it would take for the water to boil, for the tea to steep, for the first sip to take effect.
The woods loomed in the distance outside the kitchen window, their edges barely visible in the darkness. I stared out into the night, my mind wandering back to the discovery we’d made there—Mrs. Gabrowski, the body, the blood.
The kettle clicked, snapping me back to the present. I poured the boiling water into my cup and watched the tea leaves swirl, their movement strangely hypnotic. The familiar scent of green tea filled the kitchen, calming my racing thoughts.
With tea in hand, I returned to my room, my sanctuary of order and logic. The door closed behind me with a soft click, sealing me off from the outside world.
My room stood in perfect order—books aligned by author, desk pristine, bed corners folded at exactly forty-five degrees. Theo and Austin joked that I treated it like a laboratory, but they didn't understand: in a world of chaos, these precise angles and measured spaces were the only things keeping me sane.
I set the tea on my nightstand and changed into my pajamas, folding my bathrobe carefully before hanging it on the hook behind the door. The wall mirror caught my reflection, and for a moment, I stared at the data points that made up my physical self.
My body was a study in contradictions. At 162.5 centimeters—a measurement I tracked weekly with diminishing hope—I stood well below average for my age. Slender arms that could define obtuse angles, ribs that showed no matter how many bowls of má pó tòfu Ba made me eat. "Too skinny," my mother always said, comparing me to the robust American boys in health magazine advertisements. "Like a spring bamboo shoot." She wasn't wrong—my BMI consistently fell in the lowest 15th percentile for my age group, my growth rate slowing to a mere 0.1 centimeters this month. At this rate, I'd never reach my father's height of 175 centimeters, another data point in the endless calculation of ways I fell short.
The mirror reflected features I'd inherited from both sides of my family tree: Mā's high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes, Bà's slightly flat nose and thin lips. A face that marked me as Asian in Aves Grove but would be considered too American back in China. I traced the sharp angle of my jaw—still smooth where other boys my age were starting to shave. Even puberty seemed to be operating on Asian Standard Time, as Austin liked to joke.
Theo once called my face "unreadable," and I'd taken it as a compliment. I'd cultivated that expressionlessness, perfected it like an equation. Statistically, I smiled and laughed 68% less than either him or Austin. They wore their emotions like bright clothing; I kept mine filed away in neat compartments, cataloged and controlled. My face had become its own kind of calculation—each muscle carefully neutral, each expression measured. It was safer that way.
The boys at school had nicknames for me: "stick bug," "calculator," "Bruce Lee's little brother" (despite my obvious lack of muscle mass). I'd documented each one, noting frequency of use and calculating their impact on my social standing. But their words were just variables in a larger equation—one that always seemed to equal 'outsider.'
I examined my reflection for any scratches from the woods but found none. Physically, I remained unchanged: still the same shoulders that couldn't fill out a small-size shirt, still the same wrists too thin for the watch my father gave me for my birthday. Still the same Wei who approached the world through numbers because feelings were too messy, too unpredictable to quantify.
But mentally? The statistical model I'd built of my world had collapsed. No equation could explain Mrs. Gabrowski's body, no formula could rationalize the darkness we'd found in those woods. For the first time, I wasn't sure of anything—and uncertainty, for someone who lived by calculations, felt like free fall.
I sat on the bed, sipping my tea, my eyes wandering to the few objects on my nightstand—a manga I’d been reading, the clock ticking quietly, a scented candle I never lit, and the small otter talisman my father gave me after my tonsillectomy years ago. It was a playful, silly thing—completely out of place in my otherwise logical, orderly world. But I kept it there, a reminder of my father’s gentle presence.
As I lay down, the warmth of the tea spreading through me, I allowed my mind to drift. My father had promised to bring me soup, but the likelihood of him remembering in the midst of the restaurant chaos was low. I didn’t mind. It was a common occurrence, and I had already adjusted my expectations accordingly.
But even as my mind buzzed with calculations, with endless probabilities and numbers, I couldn’t resist the pull of sleep forever. Slowly, my thoughts began to blur, the weight of the day finally catching up to me. In a world where chaos reigned and nothing seemed certain anymore, my room—my safe haven—was the one constant I could rely on.
For now, that would have to be enough.
“Wei,” a whisper slithered through the silence, jolting me awake. My body stiffened, and I blinked against the darkness, heart already thudding in my chest. I turned my head to glance at the clock: 2:07 AM. Beside the clock sat a bowl of soup, likely left by my father while I slept.
“Wei,” the whisper came again. This time it was louder, raspy, crawling under my skin. I froze, scanning my room. Statistically speaking, the chances of an intruder were low. The door had been locked, and we lived in a safe town. But recent events had skewed all normal probabilities, and every shadow now felt like a threat.
The voice called my name again, a deep rasp that scraped at the edges of my sanity. This wasn’t my father. This wasn’t anyone I recognized. My mind raced to rationalize—stress, sleep deprivation, a hallucination triggered by trauma. But logic began to falter as I heard heavy breathing close by. Too close.
I reached for the cup of tea on my nightstand, my hand trembling. Not the best weapon, but the closest thing I had. I calculated the force needed to inflict damage with it—more than I could likely muster in my panicked state. Still, I held it tightly, my knuckles white around the handle.
“Wei, your friends are in danger.”
The words hit me like a gut punch. My heart raced faster.
"This isn't real," I whispered, my scientist's mind desperately cataloging explanations: stress-induced hallucination (probability 43%), sleep paralysis (27%), post-traumatic response (81%). But percentages couldn't explain why my hands were shaking, why each breath felt like it might shatter my carefully constructed world of logic. For the first time in my life, I couldn't trust my own calculations.
Something tugged at the blanket.
This couldn’t be real. It had to be in my head. But the tug on the blanket was real. I felt it. My breath hitched, and panic clawed at my throat.
I gripped the fabric as tightly as I could, fighting against the unseen force. But it was strong—stronger than I anticipated.
The blanket slipped away from me.
I bit down on a scream, heart hammering against my ribs, and with all the courage I could gather, I yanked the blanket off my face.
"Leave me alo—" The words died in my throat. My room was still. Silent. Nothing was there. I rubbed my eyes, willing them to adjust faster to the darkness, searching for any sign of movement. Only the faint glow of the streetlight outside filtered through the window, casting long, eerie shadows along the walls.
I scanned the room, my eyes darting from corner to corner. My heart still raced, but everything appeared normal. My mind, however, was far from calm.
And then I saw it.
A claw emerged from beneath my wardrobe - bone-white, impossibly long, each curve ending in a point that gleamed like polished ivory in the darkness. I couldn't look away. Couldn't think. Couldn't breathe.
The first scratch against wood sounded wet, organic, wrong. More scratches followed, faster now, the sound filling my ears until it drowned out even my thundering heartbeat. Wood shavings sprayed across my floor, pale against the dark wood, like scattered pieces of my sanity.
My mind, usually so ordered, so precise, had nothing left but blind terror. The claw moved with purpose, each motion fluid and deliberate, like it knew exactly where it was. Like it knew exactly where I was.
"Please," the word escaped me, small and broken, nothing like my usual voice. "Please, leave me alone."
But the scratching only grew louder, more violent. The claw dug deeper, tearing into the floor I'd walked across every day of my life, turning the familiar into something nightmarish. I pressed myself against the wall, knees drawn to my chest, the blanket clutched so tight my fingers hurt. All I could do was watch, my whole world narrowed to that pale, sharp thing carving its way toward me.
The scratching intensified, deafening in the small room. I pressed my back against the wall, knees drawn to my chest, clutching my blanket as if it could shield me. My eyes remained locked on the claw, watching helplessly as it clawed deeper into the floor beneath the wardrobe.
"Help," I whimpered, tears burning my eyes. "Why isn't anyone helping me?"
No one came.
“This isn’t real,” I whispered, my voice breaking, the words shaking with desperation. My breath came in shallow gasps, chest tight as I tried to force reason into the chaos. But the fear was real. The sound—relentless and violent—was real. And the claw, pale and sharp, moving ever closer, scraping against the floor, that was real too.
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing it all to disappear, to dissolve into some rational explanation, but the harsh rasping continued, claw against wood, tearing into my sanity. Tears burned at the edges of my vision as I choked out a sob, trembling uncontrollably.
Then—a scream.
It ripped through the night, high-pitched and primal, shattering the air like glass. My heart lurched, every muscle in my body locking in place. I froze, unable to move, terror constricting my throat. The sound was so sharp, so raw, it seemed to slice through the room, drowning out the scratching in an instant.
For a heartbeat, the room was silent.
I opened my eyes, terrified of what I might see, my chest heaving with ragged breaths. The claw... I forced myself to look.
But it was gone.
The space beneath the wardrobe lay still, undisturbed. The only sound now was the pounding of my pulse in my ears. My hands shook violently as I reached for the nightstand, fumbling to open the drawer. The flashlight felt cold and foreign in my grip as I clicked it on, my finger slipping from the button in my panic.
The beam of light trembled as I aimed it beneath the wardrobe. The shadows shifted as the light swept across the floor—empty. No sign of the claw. No scratches. Just the bare floor, as if nothing had ever been there.
Had I imagined it? The probability of such a vivid hallucination? Low, but not impossible.
Another scream echoed through the night, closer this time.
I stumbled out of bed, nearly tripping. Flashlight in hand. My feet cold on the floor. I hurried to the window. Peeking through the curtain, I could see Theo's house across the street. His room was dark—were he and Austin asleep? Had they heard the scream too? We had walkie-talkies for late-night chats, though we hadn’t used them in weeks. I knew mine was still in the drawer—statistically, it would still work.
As I scanned the street, movement caught my eye. A figure, barely illuminated by the faint glow of the streetlights, stood by a tree. My breath hitched. The figure spun in frantic circles, as if searching for something. My eyes darted between the figure and my wardrobe, the fear of the claw returning, though logically it shouldn’t. My mind was playing tricks, blurring the line between reality and nightmare.
The figure outside suddenly stopped, their gaze locked on Theo's house. They were frantic, glancing between the house and the edge of the forest. And then, something else caught my attention.
A girl.
She emerged from the shadows of the trees, moving slowly towards Theo’s house.
My breath caught in my throat. “I have to warn them,” I whispered to myself, heart racing.
I lunged for the drawer, frantically rummaging through it until I found the walkie-talkie. I flicked it on and rushed back to the window, watching as the figure pressed their hand against Theo's window.
I pressed the button, fingers slick with sweat. 'Theo?' I whispered, barely able to get the words out. 'Austin? It's Wei—can you—' My voice cracked. I swallowed hard. 'Can you hear me?' Each word trembled, the panic twisting tighter in my chest.
Silence.