Midnight Walkers

I care?

She stood up and walked to the door.

“You should’ve known—grief teaches sharper lessons than fear ever could.”

Click.

She left him on the floor—breathless, broken,

and finally silent.

Five hours later, the air was colder, heavier, but Liv returned to Room 7A.

The apartment was still. No lock changed.

She pushed the door open—and froze.

Elias Trent was still there.

Collapsed beside the table. Pale. Breathing, but just barely.

Unconscious.

The mug was still tipped over, dried coffee pooling around it.

She crouched next to him. Checked his pulse—weak, but alive.

“You’re lucky I gave you just enough to remember the pain,” she muttered.

She moved past him.

Started searching the place with calculated purpose.

Drawers, hidden boxes, floorboards.

Found a hard drive, paper files, and a hidden receiver embedded behind the bookshelf.

It blinked faintly—still recording.

She plugged it into her spare laptop.

Live feed: her apartment building.

The camera across the street still worked.

Liv sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, bathed in the cold glow of her laptop screen.

Outside, the world slept.

Inside, she was wide awake—reading the truth.

The memory card played its footage again and again:

A hooded figure, not Elias, slipping the milk bottle at her door.

Same figure returning days later with folded newspaper notes.

Always the same routine. Always her door.

Whoever it was… they knew her habits. Her timing. Her silence.

And Elias had been watching them, too.

---

She turned to the hard drive.

Inside, hidden behind generic folders, she found it.

A file named: “YARA_Logs.”

She clicked.

> “Subject met twice. Showed signs of fear and paranoia.

Delivery of compound was diluted. Ingestion not confirmed.

Death unconfirmed.

Relocation in process.”

Liv’s lungs stopped moving for a moment.

> “Final status withheld from operative. Video evidence post-death suggests relocation may have succeeded.”

It wasn’t even written like a journal.

It was written like a case report.

Yara’s death might’ve been staged.

And Elias didn’t know what happened after that.

Someone else pulled the strings.

---

Then… she saw another folder.

Labeled simply: LIV_A71

Her heart skipped.

She clicked.

Inside were screenshots of her school schedules, her bank transaction history, surveillance footage of her leaving for tutoring jobs.

Even audio transcriptions of conversations she had with herself.

> "Subject showing early resilience. Grief processing atypical. Obsessive control over routine.

Prediction: Self-sustaining. Possibly dangerous.

Watch closely."

Liv’s face went pale.

They weren’t just watching Yara.

They had been watching her.

For a long time.

Maybe before Yara even disappeared.

She closed the laptop.

This wasn’t a case of a girl investigating her sister’s murder anymore.

She was part of the experiment.

And she was about to end it.

Liv couldn’t sleep.

The apartment was quiet. Too quiet.

Everyone still talked about Yara like she was perfect. Like she was light. A victim of some faceless darkness.

But if Liv had learned anything—perfection is usually a mask.

And hers had started to slip.

---

It started with an old cloud backup.

Liv remembered Yara once logged into her email on Liv’s tablet—months before she died. She tried the same password on the email linked to the SIM.

It worked.

A few old app connections were still active.

One of them: GroupText+

Liv opened the logs.

Hundreds of messages flooded the screen.

Yara’s name stood out immediately.

Not as the victim.

As the leader.

Screenshots. Nicknames. Inside jokes that weren’t jokes at all.

There was a kid in the group chat—someone named “CJ”—who had been relentlessly targeted for weeks.

Photos of his science fair project. Voice messages mocked and shared.

One of them even said:

> “LMAO imagine CJ thinking he could win with THAT? Stick to being background wallpaper.”

The sender?

Yara.

Liv’s chest tightened.

She remembered that exact morning. The day before Yara “died.”

Liv had woken up late. Yara was already dressed, curled on the couch, glued to her phone—typing fast, smiling like it was some secret joke.

Liv thought she was flirting.

But no.

She was bullying someone. Relentlessly. Publicly.

And the group… it wasn’t small.

Some of the names?

Recognizable. Familiar. Even… close.

Yara wasn’t just targeted.

She may have triggered something.

---

Liv leaned back, staring at the messages.

Maybe her sister didn’t deserve to die.

But she also wasn’t the person Liv had built in her mind.

She was someone else entirely.

And maybe…

CJ didn’t forgive.

Maybe CJ watched.

Maybe CJ planned.

One day later.

Liv stood again outside Room 7A.

Same chipped paint. Same rusted doorknob.

But this time, she wasn’t alone.

She held a small paper-wrapped bundle in her hand—an old folded newspaper, just like the ones someone used to leave warnings for her.

Inside it, hidden carefully, was a slender glass bottle.

And two thin metal wires, coiled like snakes in her hoodie pocket.

This wasn’t for threat.

It was control.

---

She opened the door quietly.

And stopped.

Elias had moved.

Only a little—just a few inches from where she’d left him—but enough to tell her he’d been awake.

Watching her? Waiting?

He now lay near the wall, propped halfway against it, head slumped to the side.

Alive. Weak. But aware.

Liv closed the door behind her with a deliberate click.

“You moved,” she said, walking in without fear.

Elias didn’t speak. But his eyes flickered open, slow and unfocused.

Liv crouched down, unwrapped the old newspaper slowly and dramatically. The same kind they used to threaten her with—now repurposed.

Inside, she held up the small bottle—its pale liquid gleaming under the flickering tube light.

“Remember how it felt last time?” she asked softly.

Elias’s gaze sharpened.

“This time, the dose is measured,” she said. “Not fatal… unless I want it to be.”

She placed the bottle on the table with a soft clink.

Then pulled out the two thin wires, twirling one between her fingers.

“You’re going to talk,” she said calmly.

“Because I don’t think you moved just to stretch your legs.

I think you were trying to crawl to your phone.

I think you still have something—or someone—you’re protecting.”

She crouched again, face inches from his.

“And guess what, Elias? I don’t care if you bleed this time.”