Real.
And that’s when the memory hits.
Not a dream. Not a flashback.
A present-tense invasion of the past.
FLASHBACK
There was another boy once.
Not Damien.
A different monster.
I was sixteen. He was older. Smarter. And he liked how quiet I was.
He started with compliments.
Then playlists.
Then photos of me I didn’t remember posing for.
And one night—he left a note under my pillow that said, “You looked beautiful when you cried in the hallway today.”
That was the night I stopped sleeping.
The voices started after that.
One of them said,“Run.”
Another said,“Kill him first.”
But the third voice—the dangerous one—whispered,“What if it’s love?”
I changed schools. Burned the note. Buried the fear.
I never forgot his face.
Damien isn’t him. I know that.
Damien… Damien didn’t appear until months ago. And I know his name because I found it—he left it for me.
On purpose.
A receipt in the bin outside the alley I walk every Thursday night.
His name scrawled in sharp black ink on the side of a coffee cup.
“DAMIEN.”
And next to it?
My fucking name.
“Raven – black, no sugar.”
The exact way I order it.
