Low. Gentle.
Too gentle.
“They always land on you, little moth. You must be made of light.”
I jerk upright.
No. No, no, no?—
I clench my fists, but the memory claws deeper.
“Don’t tell your mother. She wouldn’t understand.”
“I only watch because I care.”
“You’ll thank me someday when the others try to hurt you and I stop them.”
He said that.
The boy.
The boy with the broken front tooth and the camera with the duct-taped lens.
I used to think he was a figment—an anxiety hallucination from when I was fifteen and hiding in closets from shadows that never showed up on cameras.
But he was real.
He left gifts.
He drew pictures.
And now?—
Now he’s back.
A scream builds in my throat, but nothing comes out. I grab the envelope and hurl it across the room.
It hits the wall. A small moth flutters off the lampshade, startled.
There are more.
On the dresser. The headboard. Perched on the windowpane like little silent soldiers, waiting.
Watching.
They never stopped.
Like he’s been here the entire time, slipping through cracks I didn’t see—because Damien’s obsession is loud and burning.
But his?
His obsession rots through floorboards.
The kind that sits patiently in the dark with a knife and a lullaby.
And now I remember the worst part?—
His rhyme.
