Chapter 3 Doubt in the dark

Selene pressed her back against the wall, every muscle rigid. The sound those faint, deliberate footfalls still echoed in her head. But the apartment was small. One bedroom, one kitchen, one living space. She would have seen someone by now.

"Get it together," she muttered, her voice thin and trembling. "Storm's messing with your head."

The cat twitched its ears, As if disagreeing.

She rubbed her temple, pacing slowly across the room. Her bare feet brushed the scattered envelopes on the floor, their edges damp with spilled rainwater from her shoes by the door. She crouched to gather them, eager for something,anything that grounded her in the ordinary.

That's when she noticed it.

The top envelope. The one with no return address.

She didn't remember bringing it in.

The paper was slightly warped, as though it too had been caught in the storm. Across the front, in thick black ink, her name stretched in an uneven hand: SELENE MARCH.

Her stomach dropped. She hadn't received hand-addressed mail in years.

The cat jumped down from the couch, padding silently to the table. It brushed against the envelope as if urging her to open it.

"No," she whispered, shoving the stack aside. Her heart was beating too hard, too fast. She hadn't even looked at the bloody window again. Couldn't.

Her thoughts spiraled: the storm, the handprint, the dead phone, now this envelope. It was too much. Was she imagining all of it?

Her breath hitched. What if the bloody handprint wasn't even there?

Driven by a desperate need to prove herself wrong, Selene forced herself back toward the window. Each step felt like wading through water. Her reflection met her first, pale and wild eyed.

She looked past it.

The window was clean.

No handprint.

Selene staggered back, gripping the frame with both hands. She wanted to laugh, cry, scream all at once.

The storm outside battered on.

And the cat purred.