Prologue
284 Words
The night was too quiet.
Luna hated silence—it always left room for her thoughts to wander back to places she didn’t want to go. Her parents’ laughter, the sudden scream, the crash of metal—that memory replayed in her head like a broken record. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t silence it.
But tonight, the silence wasn’t empty. It was watching her.
The old Hayes house groaned as the wind slid against its walls, but Luna knew that wasn’t the only sound. She could feel it—the weight of someone’s eyes on her. She tugged her blanket tighter, heart racing, convincing herself it was just the house settling.
Then came the faint creak outside her door.
She sat up, listening. The air turned heavy. The doorknob shifted, only slightly, as if tested by an unseen hand. Luna’s breath caught, her body frozen.
The door didn’t open. Instead, a low whisper slipped through the cracks.
“Luna…”
Her blood ran cold. She knew that voice. Soft, tender—too tender. The same voice that once promised to protect her, to keep her safe. The same voice that now made her feel trapped.
Rick.
She pressed her hands over her ears, trembling, but the whisper seeped in anyway, curling through the silence like smoke.
“You don’t need anyone else. Just me.”
The knob is still. Footsteps retreated down the hall, slow and deliberate.
Luna exhaled shakily, but the fear didn’t leave her chest. Because she knew the truth: Rick never really left. He was always there, always watching, always waiting.
And no matter how tightly she locked her door, she couldn’t lock him out of her life.
- Writer
