The morning air was unnaturally still.
No birdsong. No wind. No passing cars. Just a silence so dense it seemed to weigh down the walls of the Bryce house.
Tiffany opened the front door to grab the morning paper. A habit she picked up recently, it’s as if each day she expected to see something joyous on the news
She looked down and froze.
There, on the welcome mat, sat a dead bird.
Its wings were neatly folded. Its neck twisted at an unnatural angle. But it wasn’t the bird that chilled her to the core.
It was the note tucked beneath its wing.
One word, in scrawled red ink:
“Obedience.”
She didn’t scream.
She backed away slowly, heart slamming against her ribs, eyes darting across the street.
No one was there.
But she felt it—that eerie certainty that someone had been watching,
