ISABELLA
I woke up to silence. Not the peaceful kind — the heavy, suffocating kind that presses against your ears until you feel like you’re underwater. The house felt wrong. Too still. Too cold. Too empty.
“Adrian?” I whispered into the darkness.
Nothing.
A chill crawled up my spine.
I slipped out of bed, the hardwood icy beneath my feet. The moonlight leaking through the curtains painted the hallway in long, pale streaks. Shadows stretched unnaturally across the walls, bending in ways that made my skin prickle.
I descended the stairs slowly, each step creaking louder than the last.
Halfway down, I froze.
There was something on the floor. A dark smear. My breath hitched. I stepped closer. Another smear. Then another. A trail.
The metallic scent hit me next — faint but unmistakabl
