A Second Figure?
1643 Words
Seconds passed before my body would listen.
Out there on the roof, motionless in the downpour, a silhouette cut sharp against the dark - so high it seemed off, even from far away. At first, I figured it was just someone with a cigarette, or another soul chasing ruin like folks here often do when the sky goes low. But the longer my eyes held on, the less sense it made. The way it stood didn’t sit right with me. Not just quiet - devoid of movement. Meant to be seen, maybe. Stillness like that isn’t accidental.
A sudden flash split the distant horizon. The sky lit up beyond the edge of sight. Light stabbed through the dark, way off behind the city line.
A flash of light appeared, just for an instant.
Empty.
Breath caught sharp in my ribs without warning.
Halfway up from the seat, I stared at the building next door as rain slid slow through the windowpane. A whisper came out - “What the hell…” - almost too quiet to hear.
"Kira?" came my mother’s voice - soft, near my shoulder, already seeing something shift across my face. A pause hung before she said more. “What's wrong?” “That look on you... it wasn’t there a moment ago.” Her words stepped slow, like they were testing the floor. Something had changed. She saw it first. Not loud, but clear. The quiet worry rose between us
A figure stood out there, I’m certain of it. My finger moved slowly, aiming at the roof opposite us, while my stare stayed locked on the glass. It wasn’t my imagination, not at all - someone had been right there.
Her expression shifted right then, when those words came. Not puzzled. Not worried.
Panic.
Real panic.
Halfway toward the window, she froze - something inside just knew better than to keep going. Right then, out slipped the words: "Draw the curtains." She said with extreme urgency.
My body shifted to face her, bit by bit. A pause hung there before I said it - “what?”
“Close the curtains!.”
Out of nowhere, the edge in her voice froze me mid-breath. Not quite shouting, yet close - her words carried a tension that hadn’t been there before. Beneath each syllable, though, trembled something raw: fear curling like smoke through speech. Hidden under wool cuffs, her fingers had curled themselves tight, unaware they’d turned to stone.
Back I looked once more at the roof. Nobody’s up there now, I told myself. Down came the rain, heavier than before, smacking the pavement till the roads shimmered - streaks of light from cars mixed with glowing signs melting in puddles.
“Kira,” she said. This time my mother moved nearer. Her voice dropped lower. Shut your eyes, was what she meant
It wasn’t just her words. How she spoke - quiet, even - sent a slow chill crawling up from my back. The air between us tightened. A hush settled around the house. That calm voice did more than a shout ever could.
Just like that, I moved my hand to the curtains and drew them closed over the window. Out there, the city disappeared in a blink, blocked by heavy cloth. Inside, only dim yellow bulbs glowed. A low electronic buzz settled into the air of the kitchen.
A breath slipped out of her, uneven. The air around us seemed to pause.
Nothing else tonight hit quite like that did.
“You’re acting like you know something,” I said carefully while turning toward her again. “Mom… seriously. What aren’t you telling me?”
Right away, her head moved from side to side.
“Nothing.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Kira.”
“No, you don’t get to keep doing this.” Frustration finally pushed through the fear building inside my chest. “Dad disappears after spending months obsessing over weird livestreams and now you’re reacting like this every time Lupus gets mentioned? You obviously know more than you’re saying.”
Just then, her eyes widened like she could not find a way out.
As if her mouth refused to shape the sounds stuck inside. Maybe it was fear, maybe just silence winning. Her throat closed off, though her eyes tried speaking instead. Words existed somewhere deep, yet they never reached the air.
After that, she stepped back from the counter, taking hold of the kettle using both hands - more because it gave hersomething to fcus on. Water rushed into the metal pot as she stood by the tap, speaking low: “My husband believed someone had been trailing him those last days. At the start, she figured it was just fear playing tricks. What else could make sense?” The words hung, half-dropped, like they’d always known silence
Steam curled through the air as her voice cut the quiet. Metal groaned under the weight of falling drops. She kept talking, steady, while the kettle trembled on the edge of sound.
“But then strange things started happening around him.”
Not a single muscle moved. Stillness held me tight.
“What kind of things?”
Her shoulders tightened slightly beneath the sweater. “Small things at first. Cars parked outside the apartment for too long. Phone calls with nobody speaking on the other end.” She swallowed quietly before continuing. “Sometimes he’d come home convinced somebody had been inside his office while he was gone.”
Something odd began pushing at my chest.
“He thought somebody was watching his investigation,” she whispered. “And after a while…”
She stopped talking.
“And after a while what?”
Her grip wavered on the kettle just once, then tightened back up. “Things began catching my eye after some time passed”
Tightness seized each nerve inside me.
I asked…
“What things?”
My mother looked toward the hallway instinctively before lowering her voice almost to a whisper. “One night I woke up around three in the morning and found your father sitting on the living room floor replaying one of those streams.” Her face looked distant suddenly, like she was seeing the memory happen again while speaking. “He kept pausing the footage over and over again because he thought somebody appeared in the background for a few frames.”
“That doesn’t sound crazy,” I said quietly.
“That’s not the problem.”
Quiet settled back into the room. The walls held their breath once more.
“When I looked at the screen,” my mother continued slowly, “there really was somebody there.”
My stomach dropped.
Faint rumbles shook the sky above Noctis once more, outside. Rain drove into the walls, striking so sharply that glass shivered beneath cloth.
“He showed me the footage,” she whispered. “It was only visible for a second. Somebody standing between the trees wearing black.” Her eyes slowly lifted toward mine. “Your father said the figure appeared in multiple streams if you slowed them down enough.”
Out of nowhere, the rooftop came back to me.
A shadow stands still, facing the road. It keeps its place on the far sidewalk. A presence lingers without moving. Eyes fixed from a distance. Nothing shifts but the light.
Frost crept under my flesh right away.
“What happened after that?” I asked.
My mother laughed quietly under her breath again, though exhaustion weighed heavily inside it now. “He stopped sleeping almost entirely.” She leaned tiredly against the counter while the kettle continued filling beside her. “Every night he searched forums and archives trying to connect the streams together. He became convinced there was some hidden pattern linking all the disappearances.”
“Disappearances?”
Another pause.
After that, she gave a single nod.
“He believed people in the videos were actually going missing.”
Something pulled my gaze back to the laptop without thinking.
Still spinning fast, the thread filled up quick - new posts flashing by every couple seconds. Some folks watched it unfold like a show, glued without pause. Others locked horns, chasing meanings tucked deep behind frames of video nobody could prove mattered.
A single remark showed up out of nowhere, sitting high on the screen.
USER: @feetsmeller47
“Anybody know why the stream ended early tonight?”
Another message popped up right after…
“Probably because somebody noticed the girl.”
My entire body froze solid. Stillness took hold without warning. Tension spread through each limb at once. Not a single part could move.
The girl.
Just then, my finger moved on its own. The profile opened before I even realized.
No posts.
No followers.
Blank account.
Just made it six minutes back.
Beneath my skin, my pulse started pounding faster.
"Kira?" my mother asked, her voice soft, when she saw my expression a second time. Was something off? “Your demeanor, it changed again…what happened?”
Back at the screen, I clicked play on the recording again, pulling the progress bar further back - closer to where everything went dark that last time.
Forest.
Static.
Screaming.
A tremor ran through the light as it cut between trunks, breaths warped and lurching on the recording. The woods swallowed each flicker, air thick with staggered inhales that didn’t match any rhythm.
Out of nowhere, there it was.
Not the victim.
Not Lupus.
Something else.
A shape appeared at the fringe of sight, tucked just behind trunks, observing through gaps in the leaves. Not as broad as Lupus. More slender. Hardly seen under shifting shadows.
But unlike Lupus…
This one… flashed a grin.
- Writer
