Fort Oakley | Part One

8 | Turns Out, Cops Aren't Great Swimmers

The sunlight streaming through my bedroom window warmed my face, dragging me from the restless grip of sleep. My chest rose and fell with shallow, uneven breaths as I sat up, trying to shake the vivid remnant of my dream

The same dream, again. Always the same.

Dark woods. Shadows shifting. Faceless figures standing just beyond my reach, whispering words I couldn't understand.

The doctors called it stress, a side effect of the head trauma from the accident and losing my memory. They told me not to worry—that it would pass with time.

That was years ago, and yet, here I was.

I shook off the lingering unease and glanced at the clock on my nightstand. 9:17 a.m.

Claire was already at church.

Throwing the covers off, I padded to the window and looked out at the woods surrounding the house, a sense of comfort already making its way into me. The woods felt like a shield, a quiet place to escape from the weight of everything I didn't know about myself.

I dressed quickly, throwing on a loose sweater and jeans, and grabbed my sketchbook and paints. The river was calling me, its quiet murmur always managing to drown out the nightmares in my head.

The walk through the woods was familiar, the path well-worn beneath my shoes. The air was crisp, carrying the scent of pine and damp earth. Sunlight dappled the forest floor, filtering through the canopy in soft golden rays.

It was peaceful, the kind of peace that made it easy to forget the world beyond the trees and everything that had happened.

The fear of the people who killed Kinsey taking me was there, but I was far away from the area they had been in, and the sunlight streaming through the trees almost promised that they wouldn't be in the woods.

I decided to go to a spot further up in the river, a mile or two away from the meadow where I knew a family of ducks migrated to this time of year.

I was halfway to the river when a sound stopped me in my tracks.

Voices.

I tilted my head, straining to listen. They were low and gruff, too distant for me to make out the words but loud enough to carry through the stillness of the woods. My first thought was that it might be hikers. It wasn't unusual to run into the occasional nature enthusiast this close to the river, but something about the tone of their conversation made my skin prickle.

Was it the group who killed Kinsey?

Curiosity got to better of me, shoving the fear away. I veered of the path I had made over the years, moving as quietly as I could, careful not to swap any twigs or crunch dry leaves underfoot.

I really didn't want to end up on the town's bulletin board.

As I got closer, the voices became clearer.

"You sure this is what The Order wanted?" one of them said. His voice was rough, like gravel being churned in a cement mixer.

"Yeah. They said to make it disappear. No loose ends."

The words sent a chill racing down my spine.

Who was The Order? What did they want to disappear?

I crouched behind a thick oak tree, peeking out just enough to get a look at them.

When I finally spotted the sources of the talking about fifty feet in front of me, I knew something was going on here.

Something I wasn't supposed to be seeing.