Behind the Hollow Eyes (REWRITE IN PROGRESS)

Chapter 7

The fog rolled in before the final bell.

Not thick. Not yet. Just a thin, wet veil creeping through the empty field like it belonged there.

I stayed late again.
Didn't mean to.
Told myself I was finishing a sketch in the library, but really, I didn't want to walk out the front doors and see Dahlia laughing like nothing ever happened.

By the time I left, most of the school had cleared out.
Only a few voices echoed from the gym wing.
One of them was hers.

I took the back exit.

The fog was thicker now. Clung low to the grass. Smelled like rain and chalk dust.

I followed the path around the side of the school, backpack heavy, hood pulled up.
And then I heard it.

Laughter.
High, sharp. Familiar.

I slowed.

Up ahead, near the edge of the parking lot, I saw them through the haze—Dahlia and her two shadows. Lex and Marcie.

They stood near the lamppost where the light flickered, casting them in quick, jerky flashes like old film.

I should've turned around.

I didn't.

Maybe it was the way Lex was standing—arms crossed, back rigid. Like she was pretending to be relaxed and failing.
Maybe it was the way Dahlia's voice cut too loud, then too quiet.

Something was off.

I moved closer, staying in the dark, behind the bike rack.

"...God, it's just a joke," Dahlia was saying, voice thin and biting. "You don't have to act like you're scared of your own shadow."

Lex muttered something I couldn't hear.

Then Marcie laughed—shrill, uncomfortable.

That's when the wind changed.

No sound. No shift in temperature. Just... a feeling.
Like the air had been scraped clean of breath.

The fog thickened all at once.

And from the edge of the trees—

Something moved.

---

Unknown's POV

It moves.

They all move. Loud. Thoughtless. Scraping light with their noise.

But this one- this one vibrates.

Nervous. Mean. The sharp-tongued one.
Lex.

She smells like fear before it even rises. Like it's always lived under her skin.

It steps closer. No sound. No breath.
Just space that doesn't belong to her anymore.

The air bends.

The others don't see.

She does.

Eyes widen.
Body still.

Too late.

No scream worth keeping.

The girl folds like paper.
Gone before the light flickers twice.

Not blood.
Not bone.
Just absence.

I take only what quivers.

The others scatter. One cries. One runs.

They will remember something.
But not the shape of me.

Only the cold.

Only the blank.

Only the space where a girl should have been.