EMBERREACH: ASHBOUND

Rhea Morgan had always believed that if something truly extraordinary were going to happen to her, she would feel it. Not excitement—nothing cinematic like that. Just a tightening in the chest, maybe. A sense that the air had shifted. A warning hum beneath the skin. Instead, her Thursday evening looked exactly like every other Thursday evening she’d survived for the past three years. The bus dropped her off two blocks from her apartment, its doors folding shut with a hydraulic sigh that sounded too much like disappointment. Rhea adjusted the strap of her tote bag higher on her shoulder and started walking, boots scuffing against cracked pavement still damp from an earlier rain. The sky overhead was the color of old steel, clouds hanging low and heavy, threatening nothing but more of the same. She passed the bakery on the corner—the one that always smelled like sugar and regret after closing hours—and checked her phone again, even though she already knew there wouldn’t be any new notifications waiting. Nothing from work. Nothing from her mother. Nothing from anyone who might notice if she simply… stopped showing up. Rhea slipped the phone back into her pocket and exhaled through her nose. “Don’t be dramatic,” she muttered to herself, earning a strange look from a man waiting outside the liquor store. She ignored him and kept walking. Her apartment building loomed ahead, an aging concrete structure wedged between newer developments that had already begun to outgrow it. Four floors. No elevator. A flickering security light that management had promised—three emails ago—to fix. Home. Rhea fished her keys from her bag and slowed as she approached the entrance. The familiar sense of relief she usually felt at the end of the day didn’t come. Instead, there was a faint pressure at the base of her skull, like a headache waiting for permission to form. She paused. The street was quiet. Too quiet, maybe—but it was late, and the neighborhood tended to empty out after dark. A few cars lined the curb. A stray cat darted between dumpsters across the road. Nothing out of place. Still, Rhea didn’t move right away. She had learned, over years of navigating the world as a woman who preferred not to be small, that instincts existed for a reason. They weren’t always loud. Sometimes they whispered. Sometimes they felt like this. “You’re tired,” she told herself. “That’s all.” Work had been brutal. Another meeting about another project that would never quite come together, another reminder that she was competent enough to rely on but not impressive enough to promote. She’d smiled, nodded, taken notes. She always did. Rhea unlocked the door and stepped inside, letting it close behind her with a solid click. The sound echoed through the lobby, bouncing off bare walls and old tile. Only then did the pressure ease. Her shoulders relaxed as she climbed the stairs, counting each step out of habit. One flight. Two. Three. By the time she reached her door, her earlier unease had dulled into a faint embarrassment. Get a grip, she thought as she unlocked the deadbolt. Her apartment greeted her with silence and the faint scent of lavender cleaner. Small. Tidy. Unremarkable. A couch she’d bought secondhand, a narrow kitchen with mismatched mugs, a single window that overlooked the alley. Rhea dropped her bag onto the chair by the door and kicked off her boots. She rolled her shoulders, wincing as tension cracked loose along her spine. “Living the dream,” she murmured. She moved through the apartment on autopilot, flicking on lights, setting a kettle on the stove. Her reflection caught her eye as she passed the bathroom mirror: dark hair pulled into a messy knot, faint shadows under her eyes, a mouth that rarely smiled unless she made it. Twenty-seven, and already so tired. The kettle began to whistle, shrill and impatient. Rhea poured water over a teabag and leaned against the counter, staring at nothing in particular as steam curled up around her face. That was when the feeling came back. Not behind her this time—around her. As if the apartment itself had drawn a shallow breath. Rhea straightened slowly. Her gaze drifted to the window. The blinds were half open, just enough to let in the glow of the alley light outside. Shadows shifted faintly beyond the glass, cast by swaying branches and passing clouds. Perfectly ordinary. She took a step closer. Her reflection stared back at her in the darkened pane, pale and slightly distorted. For a moment, she thought she saw movement behind it—something darker than shadow, something that didn’t belong. Her pulse spiked. Rhea reached out and snapped the blinds shut. The room felt smaller immediately, the air thickening as though she’d sealed herself inside a box. She laughed under her breath, sharp and humorless. “Congratulations,” she told the empty room. “You’ve officially lost it.” She carried her mug to the couch and dropped down, flipping on the TV for background noise. Some reality show she didn’t recognize filled the space with canned laughter and exaggerated drama. The normalcy of it soothed her nerves, just a little. Her phone buzzed. Rhea frowned and picked it up. Unknown Number She stared at the screen, thumb hovering. Probably spam, she thought. Or a wrong number. She almost ignored it—but curiosity, that trait she’d never quite managed to kill, got the better of her. She opened the message. > Hope you got home safe, Rhea. Her stomach dropped. Slowly, deliberately, she scrolled up. There was no prior conversation. No missed calls. Just that single line of text. Her name. Rhea sat very still, the sounds of the TV fading into a distant hum. She typed back. > Who is this? The three dots appeared almost instantly. > A friend. Her fingers tightened around the phone. > I don’t give my number to strangers. This time, there was a pause. Long enough for dread to creep in and settle somewhere deep in her chest. Then: > You didn’t have to. The room felt colder. Rhea stood abruptly, heart hammering, and crossed the apartment to check the locks. The door was secure. The windows closed. Everything exactly as it should be. She glanced back at the phone. Another message appeared. > You should close your blinds at night. Her breath caught. Rhea turned slowly toward the window, pulse roaring in her ears. The blinds were still shut. But she could have sworn—just for a second—that something on the other side moved away.