Continuation
1669 Words
The tapping came again.
Soft. Careful.
Measured in a way that made Aurora’s skin crawl.
She turned her head slowly toward the window, every muscle in her body tightening as if bracing for impact. Her mind raced through possibilities—wind, a branch, the building shifting—but deep down she knew better.
This wasn’t random.
It was intentional.
Someone wanted her attention.
Another tap, sharper this time, like a fingernail dragging lightly across the glass.
Her breath shook out of her chest.
Aurora forced her feet to move, one step at a time, her heartbeat vibrating in her ears. The room felt smaller with each inch she crossed—air heavier, shadows deeper. The only thing that stayed the same was the phone clutched tightly in her hand, the unknown messages still glowing faintly on the screen.
When she reached the window, her fingers hovered over the curtain.
She swallowed.
Hard.
“Aurora…” she whispered to herself. “Don’t be stupid.”
But curiosity and fear were tugging at opposite ends of her spine, pulling her straight toward the danger she should’ve been avoiding.
She lifted the curtain.
Her heart dropped.
Nothing.
No one.
Only the night—deep and quiet and suffocating. The alley below was empty, dimly lit by a flickering streetlamp. A dumpster. A cracked patch of pavement. A cat darting across the shadows.
Silence.
Then—
Her phone vibrated.
She flinched so hard she nearly dropped it.
A new message had appeared.
Unknown: Don’t open the curtain again.
Aurora’s stomach twisted. She stepped back from the glass immediately, pulse hammering out of control. “How—” She looked around wildly. “How did he know I—?”
Another message cut her breath short.
Unknown: He’s not the only one watching you.
Her hand tightened around the phone, anger overtaking fear for a brief, desperate moment.
“Who the hell are you?” she hissed under her breath, typing furiously.
Aurora: If you’re outside, show your face.
Aurora: Right now.
The typing dots appeared.
Stopped.
Appeared again.
Then—
Unknown: You don’t want that.
She stared at the message, chest rising and falling too fast.
Aurora: Try me.
A pause.
A longer one this time.
Then—
Unknown: You look like your mother when you’re angry.
Everything in Aurora’s body went still.
The air froze.
Her knees nearly buckled.
And just like that, the world she had spent years holding together with sheer will began to fracture.
Her mother.
A name no stranger should ever say.
A ghost she refused to resurrect.
A wound she never let anyone touch.
Her hands trembled violently, a sudden wave of dizziness washing through her.
“No…” she whispered, stepping back.
But the messages kept coming.
Unknown: She would’ve run too.
Unknown: She feared the truth just as much as you do.
Aurora shook her head, tears pricking her eyes—hot, unwanted, blurring her vision.
“Stop,” she whispered.
The phone buzzed again.
Unknown: Ask Viktor what he did the night she died.
Aurora’s breath shattered.
A choked sound escaped her throat—half sob, half rage—and she stumbled back until her spine hit the wall. She pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to keep the panic inside, but it was overflowing through the cracks.
Her mother’s death was the one thing she never questioned.
Never doubted.
Never reopened.
A car accident.
That’s what she was told.
That’s what everyone said.
But now—
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, shaking uncontrollably.
Aurora: What are you talking about?
Aurora: Tell me the truth—NOW.
Seconds stretched like hours.
Then—
Unknown: I’m giving you the chance to hear it from the only man alive who knows the full story.
Aurora’s vision blurred.
Her heart pounded so violently she thought she might faint.
Another message appeared.
Unknown: Go to the prison tomorrow.
Unknown: Sit across from Viktor Riddles again.
Unknown: Ask him what happened the night your mother took her last breath.
Her throat closed.
Her lungs refused to take air.
And then the final message hit, cruel and precise:
Unknown: Ask him why she begged for your life before she died.
Silence crashed into the room.
Aurora’s phone slipped from her hand and hit the floor with a soft thud.
She slid down the wall, drawing her knees to her chest, burying her face into her arms as everything she had ever believed cracked open at once.
Fear.
Grief.
Rage.
Confusion.
Something darker she didn’t want to name.
It all poured out of her in one broken, shaking breath.
Her mother.
Viktor.
The texts.
The threat outside her window.
The truth that had been buried for five years.
And the terrifying realization that she wasn’t just involved anymore—
She was the center of it.
Aurora lifted her head slowly.
Her cheeks were wet.
Her hands were trembling.
But her eyes—
They were steel.
“I’m going back,” she whispered, voice hoarse but unshakably firm.
“I don’t care what Viktor knows.”
She pushed herself to her feet, jaw tightening with a new, fierce resolve.
“I’m going to find out.”
And somewhere in the darkness outside, unseen—
someone watched the lights in her apartment flicker out
and whispered:
“Good girl.”
Aurora didn’t sleep.
She tried.
She lay down.
She closed her eyes.
She even forced her breathing to slow…
But every time she drifted toward sleep, her mind dragged her back violently.
The tapping on the glass.
The messages.
Her mother’s name.
The truth she never asked for.
And Viktor—
the way he looked at her today as if he recognized something in her that she didn’t know existed.
She stood from the bed and paced the apartment quietly. Every sound felt magnified. The creak of the floorboard. The hum of the refrigerator. The soft whisper of the wind outside her window.
She checked the locks again.
And again.
Her hand hovered on the deadbolt, tightening once more as if her body no longer trusted anything—not walls, not locks, not the night, not herself.
The phone buzzed once.
Her stomach fell—but it wasn’t the unknown number.
It was an alarm she’d set years ago.
2:57 a.m.
A time she didn’t remember choosing.
One she never deleted.
One that had always felt… hauntingly familiar.
She turned it off slowly, her fingers trembling.
Then she froze.
A floorboard creaked behind her.
Inside the apartment.
Aurora spun around, heart bursting into her throat—but the room was empty, silent again, as if mocking her.
She swallowed hard.
“Get it together,” she whispered to herself. “You’re just scared. You’re just—”
Another creak.
Closer.
Her pulse spiked violently.
She reached for the closest thing she could grab—a lamp—and held it like a weapon, her breath ragged.
“Who’s there?” she hissed.
No answer.
The silence pressed against her ears.
She stepped forward cautiously, gripping the lamp tighter. Her heart thudded in a steady, panicked rhythm as she scanned every shadow.
One step.
Two.
Three.
Then—
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She flinched and nearly dropped the lamp.
She pulled it out slowly, dread rippling through her as she saw the number.
Unknown.
The message appeared word by word, as if someone were typing while watching her move.
Unknown: You’re not alone in that apartment.
Aurora’s grip tightened until her knuckles whitened.
Her chest constricted painfully.
She typed with shaking hands:
Aurora: Stop playing games with me. SHOW YOURSELF.
A pause.
Then—
Unknown: If I wanted to hurt you, I already would’ve.
Her stomach twisted.
Aurora: Then who is inside my apartment?
There was a longer pause.
So long she thought maybe they wouldn’t reply.
Then—
Unknown: Someone Viktor warned.
Her spine stiffened.
The lamp felt suddenly useless.
Aurora: Warned about what?
Unknown: About you.
Aurora blinked, the words slicing through her.
“What?” she whispered.
Unknown: About what you might remember.
Her entire body went cold.
The lights flickered.
A shadow moved across the hallway.
Aurora held her breath.
She didn’t blink.
Didn’t move.
Didn’t even breathe.
The shadow paused.
Stayed still.
As if listening.
Her heart pounded so loudly she was sure the whole building could hear it.
Her phone buzzed again.
She didn’t want to look.
But she did.
Unknown: Don’t confront them. Leave.
Her blood iced.
Aurora: Why? Who is it?
A pause.
Unknown: Someone who thinks you’re starting to remember the truth.
Aurora’s lungs tightened painfully.
“What truth?” she whispered into the dark.
Then a new message appeared:
Unknown: The one Viktor kept buried for five years.
Another shadow shifted—closer this time.
Aurora stepped back.
Her eyes locked onto the hallway.
Someone was definitely there.
Watching.
Waiting.
Breathing.
And she didn’t recognize the silhouette.
Her phone buzzed again, rapid messages firing like gunshots:
Unknown: Get out.
Unknown: Now.
Unknown: Don’t turn on the lights.
Unknown: They’re armed.
Aurora’s heart slammed so hard she nearly dropped the phone.
Her breaths came short. Fast. Unsteady.
She backed toward the door slowly, silently, keeping her eyes locked on the dark shape in the hallway.
Her hand closed around the doorknob.
Turned.
Opened—
A sliver of hall light broke into the apartment.
And the shadow stepped forward.
Aurora bolted.
She didn’t look back.
Didn’t breathe.
Didn’t stop.
She sprinted down the hallway barefoot, adrenaline drowning every rational thought. Her pulse was a roar inside her head.
The apartment door slammed behind her.
Her phone buzzed again.
Unknown: Good. Keep moving.
Aurora gasped for breath, gripping the railing at the stairwell.
“What do they want from me?” she whispered shakily.
The answer came instantly.
Unknown: Your silence.
Her heart cracked open with a fresh wave of fear.
She swallowed, voice breaking:
Aurora: And Viktor? What does HE want?
Another pause.
Then the message that shattered her:
Unknown: You.
- Writer
