Shirley
The weeks passed like a tightening noose.
WHO had stopped playing shadows. Their banners weren’t on the streets, but their presence was. Flyers appeared overnight on walls, cryptic warnings slipped under doors, messages painted across alleys in blood-red. They no longer bothered with whispers—they announced themselves with fire, with death, with ambushes on wolves too slow or too drunk to defend themselves.
The town was becoming a battlefield of secrets and blood. Every day I woke up wondering whose smile hid a blade, whose words carried WHO’s venom. Even Zara admitted she didn’t feel safe walking home anymore. Ivy said she could smell strangers lingering at the edges of the district, but no one ever caught them. Maddox’s patrols grew heavier, yet people still disappeared.
And
