Devil in her head

[Nephthys8079]

Brockton Bay General Hospital — Two Days After

I wake to a heartbeat that isn't mine.
Too fast. Too wet. Too human.
Then the smell hits—antiseptic trying and failing to drown out something sour. Fear.

The heartbeat belongs to the girl I'm living in.

She blinks at the ceiling tiles and whispers, "Where am I?"
And because silence feels unbearable, I answer.

"Hospital. Congratulations, you didn't die."

She jerks so hard the IV line quivers. Perfect.
"I—who—what—?"

"Don't freak out," I say, which only makes her freak out faster. The monitor beside the bed squeals like it's laughing at her pulse. "Deep breaths, Taylor. In through the nose, out through the—actually, never mind, that smell's awful."

"Who's there?" she hisses. "I'm hearing things, I'm—"

"Not hearing things. Sharing things. Namely, your head."

The words echo oddly, as if spoken from the inside of her skull. I can feel her trying to wall me off—like pushing at fog. It doesn't work.

"You're—this is—side effects," she mutters. "Trauma. They said hallucinations—"

"Sure," I say. "Hallucinations that talk back, give helpful commentary, and quote your medical chart. Very standard."

That earns a strangled laugh. "Okay. Okay. I'm insane."
"Possibly," I admit. "But that's not my fault. I only moved in after you had a… rough week."

The word locker bubbles up before either of us says it. She flinches, and the image flickers through me—darkness, confinement, the taste of panic that never quite goes away.

I let the silence sit. Sometimes silence hurts more.

Finally she whispers, "Who are you?"

Good question. I look down—or rather, inward—and see a shape gathering around me. Bare feet on dark glass. A reflection that isn't quite mine. A girl with short dark hair worn loose, three pale scars across her face and eyes like gun barrels cooling after a shot.

"Name's Yoru," I say. "Think of me as a roommate you didn't ask for."

"A demon," she mutters.

"Devil, technically. Or trauma. Depends on your worldview." I grin even though she can't see it. "Don't worry. I only bite metaphorically."

She groans, presses the heel of her hand to her eyes. "This isn't real."

"Define real," I counter. "Because I can feel your heartbeat, and it's giving me tinnitus."

A knock interrupts us.
"Taylor?" a nurse calls, half-cheerful. "You're awake?"

Taylor bolts upright. "Y-yeah!"
"Stop talking to me out loud," I hiss. "You look possessed."
She clamps her mouth shut just as the nurse enters, checks vitals, chats about fluids and rest. Taylor nods at the right times, face ghost-pale. The nurse leaves, never noticing the way the room hums slightly too loud.

Taylor exhales. "You're still here."

"Yup. Didn't dissolve with the antibiotics."

"Why me?" she whispers. "Why now?"

I tilt my head. "Maybe because you didn't die. Empty space likes to fill itself."

She stares at the ceiling until her eyes blur. "If this is a psychotic break, it's got a terrible sense of humor."

"I like to think it's pretty good," I say. "You're fun to tease."

"Go away."

"Can't. I'm not sitting on your brain; I'm stitched through it. When you're angry, I get loud. When you hate, I sharpen. We're symbiotic. Or parasitic. The data's fuzzy."

Her mouth tightens. "I'm not angry."

"Liar."

The word lands heavier than expected. She looks away, but the pulse in her throat jumps. Beneath all that fear there's a low, hot coil of fury she refuses to name. I feel it, bright and sweet.

"Think of me as a weapon," I murmur. "All you have to do is point."

Her answer is a whisper I almost miss. "I'm not like that."

"Everyone's like that," I say. "Some of us just admit it."


---

Night settles. Nurses switch shifts. I don't sleep.
Taylor dreams of lockers and laughter and drowning light.
When she startles awake, sweat cooling on her neck, I'm waiting.

"You again," she mutters.

"Me still."

She rubs her eyes, then freezes. Because now I'm not only a voice.

The air at the foot of her bed warps—like heat shimmer given shape. I step out of it, solid, barefoot on the linoleum, wearing a dark school uniform that doesn't belong in Brockton Bay. My hair hangs loose. Three scars cut pale lines across my face. My eyes catch the dim light, red-ringed and restless.

Taylor stares, wide-eyed. The color drains from her face. "You—look like me."

"Close," I say, tilting my head. "You without the safety filters. Little more honest. Little more… weaponized."

Her breath comes in short bursts. "You're not real."

"Still hung up on that?" I smirk. "You're the one seeing me."

For a long moment, the only sound is the monitor beeping between us. Then she whispers, "What do you want?"

I think about it, then shrug. "To exist. To fight. To make sure you never get stuffed in a locker again."

"That's not funny."

"I'm not joking."

She swallows. "If you're part of me—then what happens if I tell you no?"

I grin. "Guess we'll find out."


---

The light flickers once, twice. For an instant she sees my reflection in the window beside her bed—two girls with nearly the same face, one smooth, one scarred.
When the lights steady, I'm gone.

Only my voice remains, soft as static.

Sleep, Taylor. We've got work to do.


---

Brockton Bay General Hospital — 02:14 A.M.

The air conditioner hums like a distant sawblade.
Taylor sits on the edge of the bed, blanket gathered around her shoulders, staring at the space where Yoru had been.

She tells herself it was just shock. Pain meds. A dream stitched together by trauma.

I let her believe it for a heartbeat. Then I move again.

The lights dim—not because I touch them, but because the idea of me presses on reality like a thumb smudging wet ink. My silhouette reforms in the corner, feathers sloughing off into smoke before becoming hair again.

Taylor flinches, gripping the blanket. "Why are you still here?"

"Because you're still awake."

"I—don't want this."

"Neither did I." I cross the room, each step soundless. "But here we are."

Her eyes dart to the call button. I watch the thought form in her head before she even moves. "Press it," I say. "Call them. Tell them you've got a devil squatting in your skull. See where that gets you."

She freezes. Her throat tightens.

"That's what I thought," I whisper.

I crouch beside the bed until we're eye-level. She can't decide whether to scream or blink, and that hesitation tastes like iron between my teeth.

"You remind me of someone," I tell her. "A girl who thought she could live without fighting back. She died with a whimper."
Her fingers clutch the blanket harder. "You think I'm weak."

I shrug. "You were. You could stop being."

Her anger flickers—a fragile spark, but I feel it. Oh, that pulse of humiliation and fury—familiar, human, intoxicating. I lean in closer.

"You wanted them to pay," I whisper, voice curling like smoke through her ear. "Even as you begged for help, even as the smell filled your lungs—you hated them. Don't pretend otherwise."

Her breath shudders. The line on the heart monitor spikes.

"Stop," she says, but it sounds thin.

"You hate them."
"Stop."
"You want to make them hurt."

The last word comes out as a growl, vibrating through both of us. The lights overhead flicker violently; a clipboard falls from the wall with a crack. For an instant I see a reflection on the window—her eyes glowing faintly red, mirroring mine.

Then she gasps, breaking the connection, and I pull back, grinning like a wolf that just learned its prey can snarl.

"There it is," I murmur. "The part of you that's mine."

Taylor stares at her trembling hands. "What—what did you just do?"

"Nothing you didn't want," I say. "You called it up yourself."

"I didn't—"
"You did."

Her denial fades to silence. The clock ticks loud enough to make her wince.

"I'm not like you," she whispers.
I straighten, feathers falling like ash as my shape starts to fade again.
"Then learn," I say. "Because the world doesn't care if you're like me. It only cares if you survive."

"Why me?" she asks again, smaller this time. "Why me, out of everyone in this city?"

I stop halfway through vanishing, the red of my eyes hovering alone in the dark.
"Because you looked the right kind of broken," I say simply. "And I hate being alone."

The silence after that feels colder than the hospital air.
Taylor curls up beneath the blanket, eyes open wide toward the window. Outside, the sodium streetlights smear through the drizzle into long orange tears.

I linger in the reflection—scarred, ring-eyed, bird-shadowed—watching her until her breathing steadies, not quite sleep.
Only then do I dissolve into a few drifting feathers, which vanish before touching the ground.


---

[Aftermath Beat — Later That Night]
Security camera log, timestamp 02:31 A.M.
Room 417, patient Taylor Hebert.
Video notes: Motion blur detected near window. Subject appears asleep. Brief visual distortion—possible interference.
Duration: 4.6 seconds.
End of record.

---
Brockton Bay General Hospital — 06:23 A.M.

Light creeps through the blinds like thin gold knives. The monitors click over to their daytime rhythm: steady, bureaucratic, uncaring.

Taylor opens her eyes to a ceiling that's the wrong shade of white. Her throat tastes of antiseptic. For a few seconds she can pretend everything that happened in the dark was fever.

Then she notices the corner.

A single black feather rests on the floor tile, small as a fingertip. No bird could have gotten in here; the window is sealed, the vents humming. She stares at it until her pulse starts to climb.

Dreams don't shed feathers.

Her first movement hurts—muscles stiff, bandages tugging—but she forces herself upright. The world tilts and steadies. She looks toward the mirror on the opposite wall.

At first it's just her: pale, hair matted, eyes too large. Then the light shifts and something overlays the reflection—a faint shimmer, like a second face fitting itself over hers, scarred across the nose and cheek, eyes a deeper red-brown than they should be.

Taylor's breath fogs the glass. The other girl's breath doesn't.

"Still think you imagined me?" the voice asks softly, inside the fog and behind her ribs at the same time.

Taylor jerks back. The reflection stays still, smiling a fraction late.

"I told you," Yoru murmurs, tone almost conversational. "You called me here."

Taylor shakes her head. "I didn't call—"

"You did. You wanted power. You wanted them to stop hurting you." The reflection tilts its head, the movement just a hair out of sync with Taylor's. "Now we can make sure they never touch you again."

Her knees go weak; she grips the sink. The tile is cold, the feather still visible near her feet.

"What are you?" she whispers.

The mirror-image shrugs. "A devil. A weapon. A second chance. Call me Yoru."

The name echoes like a pulse behind her temples. For a heartbeat she feels warmth—hot, metallic, living—flow through her hands. The machines by the bed hiccup, then resume.

When she looks up again, the reflection is only her own. The feather on the floor is gone.

The nurse outside knocks once before entering. Taylor startles; sunlight spills in.
"You're awake," the nurse says. "Good. Doctor's on his way."

Taylor nods automatically, forcing a smile. The nurse checks the monitors, writes something, and leaves.

The moment the door closes, a whisper slides through her mind like a satisfied sigh:

You and I are going to have fun, Taylor Hebert.

She clutches the edge of the sink, knuckles white, staring into her perfectly ordinary reflection until her heartbeat slows.

Outside, morning traffic hums through Brockton Bay. Inside, something else breathes with her.

---
Brockton Bay General Hospital — Discharge Wing

The papers blur in front of her. "You're free to go," the nurse says, handing over a small envelope of medication and a tired smile.
Taylor signs where she's told, thanks them, and pretends not to see the way the staff's eyes slide past her name on the chart like it carries a smell.

The automatic doors breathe out a gust of city air. Cold. Metallic. Familiar.

She takes two steps into the parking lot and stops.

Left.
The thought arrives uninvited, sharp as a command. It doesn't sound like her.

Taylor hesitates. The correct bus stop is right. She knows that.

Left, the voice insists again, calmer this time. Shorter route. No crowd.

She obeys before realizing she has. Her shoes scuff against damp concrete. The street is nearly empty except for a man unloading crates behind a convenience store. He doesn't look up.

Yoru hums in the back of her skull, low and contented.
"You listen well."

Taylor's jaw tightens. "You're not real."

"Reality disagrees." There's laughter in the words, a rhythm that feels too close to her heartbeat. "Keep walking."

They turn down an alley that smells of rain and metal. The walls glisten with old posters. Taylor's reflection wavers across every puddle, and in each one her eyes look a little too dark, the shape of her mouth a little too sharp.

"You like this place," Yoru says.

Taylor swallows. "It's quiet."

"Exactly." A pause. "You should remember it."

"Why?"

"So we can come back when we need to."

Something in the tone makes her skin prickle. "I'm not— I don't want to hurt anyone."

"I didn't say hurt." Yoru's amusement curls like smoke. "I said need. You'll understand."

A car horn snaps her out of it. She's reached the main road again. People. Movement. The world resumes its ordinary chaos, and the voice withdraws to a whisper.

By the time she boards the bus, her hands are trembling. She presses them flat on her knees until the shaking stops.

Outside the window, Brockton Bay slides past in grey stripes. Every few seconds her reflection in the glass flickers—two faces trading places so quickly she can't tell which one is hers.

When the bus jerks to a stop near her street, Yoru's voice returns, soft enough that Taylor almost mistakes it for her own thought:

Welcome home.

---
Brockton Bay — Hebert Residence

The key sticks halfway in the lock. Taylor has to twist it twice before the door gives with a sigh of dry wood.
Inside, the air smells faintly of cleaning chemicals and stale air; her father must have tried to make the place welcoming. He's at work now. The silence presses close.

She shuts the door and leans against it until the latch clicks. Her legs ache from the walk, her shoulder burns where the bandages pull. Ordinary pain. She can live with that.

Home, Yoru whispers, voice coiling behind her heartbeat. You survived.

Taylor exhales slowly. "Don't talk."

"Then think quieter." A faint chuckle. "You really lived like this? Empty fridge, cracked ceiling, one toothbrush?"

She ignores the voice, moves through the living room. The couch is buried under old newspapers; a single lamp leans sideways. Everything is familiar and slightly wrong, as if she's wandered into a reconstruction of her life built from memory instead of sight.

In the kitchen, a note sits propped against the counter:

> Working late. Call if you need anything. —Dad



Her fingers hover over the paper. "He doesn't know," she murmurs.

"About me?" Yoru sounds amused. "He wouldn't believe it. Humans never do until something bites."

Taylor closes the note, swallows. "He's my father. Leave him out of this."

"Relax. I don't eat family." A pause. "Usually."

She grips the counter until the laminate creaks. "Why are you here, really?"

"You already asked." Yoru's tone flattens. "I'm not a hallucination, and I'm not leaving. You called for strength. I answered."

Taylor turns, catches her reflection in the dark window above the sink. The same overlay—scars, red-ringed eyes—glimmers for a heartbeat before fading. "I don't want you."

"You don't have a choice."

Her pulse jumps. "Get out."

"No," Yoru says simply. "Not yet. You're still soft. Still trying to be harmless. That's what nearly killed you."

The refrigerator hums louder, as if filling the silence. Taylor drags a hand down her face, feeling the tremor in her own fingers. "I just want things to go back to normal."

"Normal is dead," Yoru replies. "You buried it yourself."

Taylor retreats to her room. The door squeals on its hinges; dust hangs in the light from the streetlamp outside. Her books are stacked neatly, untouched. The wardrobe door stands open like a mouth.

She sits on the edge of the bed. "What happens now?"

Yoru answers softly, almost kindly: "Now you sleep. Tomorrow we start fixing things."

"Fixing?"

"Names. Faces. The people who thought you'd break forever." The voice warms, silk over steel. "We'll teach them the cost of cruelty."

Taylor's throat tightens. "No. We're not— I'm not doing that."

"Keep saying I if it helps," Yoru murmurs. "But you'll see."

Taylor lies down, shoes still on, staring at the ceiling cracks until they blur. Her heartbeat slows, steadies.

Just before sleep takes her, the voice returns, quieter than a breath:

Sleep, Taylor. I'll watch.

The house settles. Outside, Brockton Bay exhales through its broken windows. Inside, two heartbeats echo where there should only be one.

 

[Nephthys8079]

Morning bled into Taylor's room like a hesitant confession — faint, gray light creeping past her blinds and brushing against the cluttered floor. The air smelled faintly of damp metal and the ghost of antiseptic from her bandaged hand. Somewhere in the distance, a car door slammed. The world moved on.

Taylor didn't.

Her eyes opened slowly, unfocused, mind swimming between dream and waking. For a moment, she wasn't sure which she preferred. The silence in her skull felt… wrong. Hollow. It was the kind of silence that followed violence — the kind you didn't trust.

Yoru?

No answer.

She waited. One second. Two. Her heart thumped once, then again, steady and human. She felt relief, and then shame for feeling it.

She sat up. The blanket slipped off her shoulders, and cold air brushed her arms. The world was painfully normal — her cracked phone on the nightstand, the old school notebook half-covered by dust. The half-finished sandwich from last night.

She breathed in and out, counting the rhythm like she was afraid to lose it.

Then the whisper came.

"You breathe too loudly."



Taylor froze. Her pulse skipped. She didn't move her head, only her eyes — scanning, searching for something in the corners that wasn't there.

"...You're still here," she said softly.

"You didn't die in your sleep. That's impressive for something so fragile."



Her jaw clenched. "I thought you said you'd watch."

"I did." A pause. Then, faintly amused: "You twitch a lot when you dream."



Taylor rubbed her temples. "You were watching my dreams?"

"They were… noisy. Full of things that scream and crawl." A sharp, delighted hum followed. "Fitting, really."



Taylor wanted to argue, but couldn't. She remembered flashes — cold hands, water filling her lungs, something pressing in the dark. Her stomach twisted.

"You could've warned me before you— before all of this."

"Warned you? You would've resisted. You would've denied me. Now look at you — breathing, standing, alive because of me."



She didn't like the way Yoru said "alive." It sounded like a leash.

Taylor dragged herself out of bed and stared at her reflection in the cracked mirror on the closet door. Her eyes looked the same — brown, tired, human — but behind them, something shimmered faintly. Like heat distortion.

"You see it too," Yoru whispered, satisfied. "My mark. My claim."



Taylor's nails dug into her palms. "I'm not yours."

"No. But we share a body. That's close enough."



The conversation ended there. Yoru retreated — or maybe just quieted. Taylor couldn't tell. The silence that followed wasn't peace; it was a truce drawn in sand.

She showered. Dressed. Ate half of a granola bar. Each motion felt mechanical, like she was pretending to be human again. The reflection in the fogged mirror seemed to smirk when she wasn't looking directly at it.

As she shouldered her bag, Taylor paused at the door.

"Are you going to stay quiet today?"

"If you behave."



"I wasn't planning to misbehave."

"Good. Then we'll see what happens when someone tries to make you."



Her voice was a smile with teeth.

Taylor locked the door behind her and stepped out into the gray, wet air of Brockton Bay. The clouds hung low — heavy, watchful. The streets were slick with last night's rain, and every sound felt a little too sharp.

Every heartbeat echoed like a second one overlapping her own.

The Second Heart.

And it wasn't hers.

---

The walk to Winslow was the same dull gray trudge it always had been — wet pavement, garbage-streaked sidewalks, and that perpetual, oily mist that clung to everything in Brockton Bay like a film you couldn't scrub off. The sky looked like a dirty ceiling, pressing down.

Normally, Taylor would have walked with her head down, hoping no one noticed her. Now she found herself watching everything — the way the wind scraped through litter, the rusted dents in passing cars, the flaking paint on the power poles. It wasn't her habit; it was hers.

> "You live in a city made of wounds," Yoru murmured, voice curling through the back of Taylor's skull. "You can smell the fear in the air. It's intoxicating."



Taylor muttered under her breath, "You're enjoying this way too much."

> "You're not?"



She ignored the question. She couldn't ignore the awareness that followed — that alien pulse in her chest, beating a half-second after her own heart. It wasn't painful, not exactly, but it felt wrong. Like two songs out of rhythm.

By the time she reached Winslow, she could feel eyes on her — or maybe it was just paranoia, sharpened by Yoru's constant quiet hum. The doors creaked as she pushed them open, the scent of too many bodies, sweat, and cheap disinfectant mixing into something that made her stomach twist.

The halls were as miserable as ever. Same peeling tiles, same flickering lights. Same laughter that wasn't meant to include her.

> "Who are they?" Yoru asked suddenly. "The ones who make you flinch."



Taylor's throat tightened. "You don't get to—"

> "I see them."



She didn't have to look to know who Yoru meant. Emma and Madison, clustered by the lockers ahead. Sophia wasn't there yet, but she never stayed gone long.

> "Predators," Yoru whispered. "Preying on something smaller. We could fix that."



Taylor stopped walking. The voice wasn't just in her head anymore — she could feel it like a static pressure behind her eyes, a hunger disguised as suggestion.

"No."

> "You let them hurt you before. Let me hurt them back."



"No." Louder this time. A teacher down the hall looked up briefly, then lost interest.

> "You're shaking," Yoru noted, curious. "You hate them."



Taylor shut her locker, fingers trembling. "Hate isn't the same as killing."

> "It should be."



She didn't realize she'd clenched her fist until the metal of the locker door groaned, a faint dent forming beneath her knuckles. The skin didn't split, didn't bruise. She felt the strain, but her body held — tougher, stronger, subtly wrong.

> "You're learning," Yoru purred. "The human body bends when the will does."



Taylor forced herself to breathe. To act normal. She slipped into class, ignoring the stares, the whispers. She could feel Yoru's satisfaction behind her ribs — the sense of a beast coiled in the dark, patient, curious, waiting.

The morning dragged. Equations blurred. Voices felt far away. Every time Taylor's thoughts began to settle, Yoru's presence brushed against them again — a bird fluttering its wings inside her skull.

By lunch, she couldn't take it anymore. She found a quiet corner in the back stairwell and sat, knees to her chest.

"Why are you here?" she whispered. "Why me?"

> "You called for me."



She blinked. "I didn't."

> "You wanted strength. Power. Revenge. Humans always do before they admit it."



Taylor bit her lip. "I didn't ask for—"

> "For a devil?" The chuckle that followed was dry and fond. "No one ever does. But here I am. And here you are. Two hearts. One purpose waiting to be discovered."



The words settled like a shadow across her bones. She didn't respond. Couldn't. Because part of her — the small, quiet, desperate part — wanted to believe it.

Outside, the bell rang. Life went on.

But somewhere deep inside, Taylor Hebert realized something irreversible had happened.

Not the bullying. Not the hospital. Not even the voice in her head.

It was the understanding that she no longer feared her monsters.

She was learning to speak their language.

---

Lunch ended before Taylor realized it had even begun. The sound of the bell was a gunshot in her skull — too loud, too sudden. She flinched, almost dropped her bag, then caught herself.

> "You're jumpy," Yoru observed, voice like warm steel sliding behind her thoughts. "You need to get used to noise. Violence doesn't announce itself politely."



Taylor gritted her teeth. "You talk like you're preparing me for war."

> "You're surrounded by enemies. What else would I call it?"



The stairwell door creaked as she pushed it open. The hallway beyond was nearly empty, the late lunch stragglers already gone. Taylor walked faster, ignoring the way her heart seemed to beat twice — hers, then the echo.

As she turned the corner, laughter spilled down the hall. Sharp, high, familiar. Emma.

Taylor froze. Her grip on her bag strap tightened until her knuckles went white.

> "That's the red-haired one," Yoru said softly, "the one who used to call you friend."



"Don't."

> "You hate her most of all."



Taylor didn't answer. She couldn't. The sound of Emma's voice triggered something automatic — a pressure in her chest, a coil winding tighter.

Emma and Madison leaned against the lockers ahead, flipping through their phones. Sophia stood a few paces away, her posture relaxed, predatory, utterly indifferent to anyone else in the hall. When her eyes lifted and caught Taylor's, that old familiar smirk curved her lips.

Taylor's breath hitched.

> "Predator," Yoru whispered again. "Like I said."



The world narrowed. Sounds dulled. Every detail sharpened — Sophia's lazy stance, the faint scrape of her boot against tile, the light glinting on her earring. Taylor's instincts screamed at her to run. Yoru's instincts whispered: kill.

"Look who's finally crawling back," Sophia said. Her tone was casual, but her eyes were knives. "Heard you had a little… incident."

Madison snickered. "Yeah, what happened, Taylor? Try to drown yourself in the locker this time?"

The laughter hit like a slap. Taylor didn't move.

> "Say something," Yoru urged. "Assert dominance. They smell fear."



Taylor's hands trembled. Her throat burned. "You wouldn't understand," she said softly.

Sophia stepped closer. "Try me."

> "Yes," Yoru hissed, eager. "Try her."



Taylor's vision flickered — just for a second. She saw something impossible: Sophia's face splitting, blood painting the lockers, the sound of bone crunching like dry twigs. She blinked and it was gone, just her imagination—or Yoru's suggestion, bleeding through.

> "Beautiful, isn't it?"



Taylor turned sharply and walked away before her voice could break. She didn't run. That would have been surrender. But she didn't trust herself to speak again either.

Behind her, Emma's mocking voice echoed, "Still a freak, huh?"

Taylor's steps faltered.

> "You let them call you that," Yoru murmured. "Again."



"Shut up."

> "Why? The truth stings? You and I — we're not like them. They feed on you. Parasites. You could turn the food chain upside down in an instant."



"Stop it."

> "All you'd need to do," Yoru breathed, "is name something a weapon."



Taylor froze mid-step.

"What?"

> "A rule," Yoru said. "My rule. Anything you name as your weapon — it obeys. A desk, a shoe, a memory. Even people."



Taylor's skin crawled. "That's insane."

> "And yet, you believed me."



She didn't respond. She couldn't. Because part of her mind — that new, alien part — pulsed in agreement. She could feel the potential in everything around her: the fluorescent lights humming overhead, the rusted metal edges of the lockers, the shoelaces dragging across the floor. The world felt loaded.

> "Say it," Yoru whispered. "Something small. Something harmless."



Taylor swallowed hard. Her gaze fell on her pen — cheap, cracked plastic.

She lifted it slightly. "Pen…" Her voice trembled. "…weapon."

Nothing happened.

Then, with a faint snap, the air shifted. The pen's body warped, metal bleeding through plastic, reshaping itself into a jagged sliver of black steel in her hand.

Taylor gasped and dropped it. The moment it hit the floor, it reverted — a normal pen again, rolling to a stop by her shoe.

> "See?" Yoru murmured, triumphant. "Even a child can do it. Power answers belief."



Taylor's heartbeat thundered in her ears. Her palms were slick with sweat.

> "You're dangerous now," Yoru said sweetly. "Doesn't it feel good?"



"No," Taylor whispered. "It feels wrong."

> "That's how power always feels the first time."



The rest of the day blurred. Taylor didn't remember the classes or the faces. Only the sense that everything around her had changed — every object, every word, every person carried weight now. She saw potential in everything, and that scared her more than the voice.

When the final bell rang, she waited until most of the students were gone. The rain had started again, soft and cold, drumming against the windows.

She walked home in silence. Yoru didn't speak.

It wasn't peace. It was calculation.

By the time she reached her front door, Taylor felt like a stranger in her own skin.

She caught sight of her reflection in the windowpane — and for just a second, the face staring back wasn't entirely hers. The eyes were different. Brighter. Hungry.

She shut the curtains and tried not to think about it.

But somewhere deep inside, Yoru smiled.

> "We're just getting started."

---
That night, Taylor couldn't sleep.

She tried. She lay still, watching the ceiling blur through the faint orange glow of the streetlight outside. Rain whispered against the window in uneven rhythms — too soft to be comforting, too erratic to fade into background noise.

Her body was exhausted. Her mind wasn't.

Every time her eyes started to close, she felt it — the second heartbeat. Slow, patient, just beneath her own. She pressed a hand to her chest, half-expecting to feel something crawling under her skin. There was nothing. Just that uneven pulse.

> "You're restless," Yoru said, voice low, silk and smoke.



Taylor sighed. "I thought you said you'd be quiet."

> "I said if you behaved. But you keep thinking about them. About today."



"I'm not."

> "You are."



Taylor turned over, pulling the blanket tighter around herself. "Can you read minds now?"

> "Only yours. We're sharing space, remember? Your dreams, your fears — they all bleed through."



"Then stop looking."

> "Can't."



The silence that followed wasn't comfortable. It was like standing too close to a wild animal — that constant, wordless awareness that something behind you was watching, thinking, waiting.

Taylor closed her eyes again. The exhaustion finally dragged her under.

The first dream came softly.

She was standing in Winslow's halls, but everything was washed out — colors bleached, lockers melted into the walls like wax. Her shoes stuck faintly to the floor with every step. When she looked down, the tiles pulsed faintly, like veins under translucent skin.

At the far end of the hall, a locker door swung open. Water trickled out — not fast, just steady, forming a dark pool that crept toward her.

Taylor froze. Her breath fogged the air.

A hand reached out from the locker. Pale fingers. Nails cracked. The sound it made when they scraped the metal was wrong — too wet, too soft.

> "You remember this," Yoru's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere.



Taylor shook her head. "No—"

> "You do."



The hand gripped the edge of the locker, pulling. Then another. A head followed — not Emma's, not Sophia's, not Madison's. Hers.

Dripping, dead-eyed, face gray and bloated from water. Her own reflection dragged itself from the darkness, coughing up black sludge.

Taylor stumbled back. "Stop— stop it!"

> "I'm not doing this," Yoru said calmly. "You are."



The corpse smiled. Its lips cracked.

> "You begged for someone to save you," it whispered in Taylor's own voice. "Now you're scared of what came."



Taylor fell. Her palms hit the floor — soft, not tile but something yielding. She looked down and saw feathers. Thousands of black feathers, spreading out from beneath her hands. They glistened with blood.

A shadow loomed over her. The air grew thick, heavy with the smell of rust and feathers. She looked up.

A bird. No — something pretending to be one. Its shape shifted between owl and human, its eyes twin spirals of red and gold.

> "Do you know what I am?" it asked.



Taylor's voice trembled. "Yoru."

> "Wrong." The feathers rose, swirling. "You don't understand yet. You think you do."



It stepped closer, talons clicking against the soft ground that wasn't ground anymore.

> "I am war. I am hunger wrapped in meaning. And you, Taylor Hebert, are the host of my return."



Taylor tried to move. Couldn't. The feathers tangled around her wrists, tightening.

"Why me?"

> "Because you hate," Yoru said simply. "And hate is the oldest kind of war."



The world folded in on itself. The bird's eyes filled her vision — red spirals spinning faster, drawing her in until everything became motion and sound and heartbeat.

Then she woke up.

Her lungs burned. She sat up too fast, gasping. The blanket was tangled around her legs. Her skin was cold and clammy.

She looked down — at her wrists.

Thin lines of blood, where something had pressed too hard.

Not deep. But real.

> "You dream vividly," Yoru murmured from the dark.



Taylor swallowed, her throat raw. "That wasn't just a dream."

> "No."



"Then what was it?"

> "A memory," Yoru said. "Yours. And mine. Blended."



Taylor pressed her palms to her face. "I don't want that."

> "You don't get to choose what kind of war you are, little human."



The second heartbeat thudded once, hard enough that she felt it through her ribs.

> "But you'll learn to use it."



The clock ticked. The rain had stopped.

Taylor sat there, trembling, staring at her blood-specked wrists until dawn painted the walls in gray.

---

Morning found Taylor half-awake, half-adrift.
The light that slipped through the blinds wasn't warm; it was the color of hospital walls. Her head throbbed to a rhythm that wasn't quite her pulse. For a moment she thought she could hear feathers brushing inside her chest.

When she sat up, her body responded before she meant it to. The motion was too quick, too fluid—like she'd rehearsed it in her sleep. The blanket slithered from her shoulders and pooled on the floor with a sound that made her flinch. Her palms itched. Skin flexed under the pressure, tendons shifting as though something beneath the surface had learned a new pattern overnight.

> "You're adapting," Yoru murmured. "That's good. You'll need it."



Taylor stared at her reflection in the dresser mirror. Her pupils were ringed faintly with gold; when she blinked, the shimmer disappeared. The edges of her mouth looked wrong for an instant—like they'd been cut wider and then healed again.

"Stop doing that," she whispered.

> "Doing what?"



"Making me see things."

> "You're the one seeing. I'm only watching."



She ran a hand through her hair. Strands came away damp, streaked faintly red at the roots. It didn't smell like blood, exactly—more like rusted metal after rain. Her stomach twisted. She rinsed it off in the sink until the water ran clear.

Downstairs the house was silent. Her father had already left for work, leaving the same note he always did:
Have a good day. Proud of you.
The words looked smaller than usual, like they'd been written by someone who was forgetting how to hope.

Taylor tucked the note into her pocket. Her fingers brushed against the cheap pen from yesterday. The one that had changed shape.

She didn't want to test it again. She also couldn't stop thinking about it.


---

Winslow greeted her with its usual gray hostility. Every sound felt sharpened; the squeak of shoes on linoleum, the snap of lockers, the stutter of flickering lights. It was as if Yoru had peeled a film from her eyes and left the world raw.

When someone brushed past her shoulder too hard, she spun before she knew she'd moved. Her bag strap hissed through the air, edge-straight, and tore the fabric of the boy's sleeve. He stumbled back, wide-eyed.

Taylor froze. She hadn't even meant to swing.

> "Reflexes," Yoru said, pleased. "Mine."



She whispered, "You could've hurt him."

> "I would have killed him. You merely grazed."



The hallway's chatter had already swallowed the moment, but Taylor's pulse wouldn't slow. Her right hand trembled. For a second the skin along her knuckles looked too tight, as though something inside had swelled against it.

In class, every scribble of her pen dug trenches into the paper. The ink pooled dark and heavy. The sound of it filled her ears until she couldn't hear the teacher anymore—only the heartbeat behind hers, steady, deliberate, waiting.

By lunch she couldn't eat. Food tasted like dust. She sat alone outside, watching rainwater gather in the cracks of the pavement. Tiny ripples danced across each puddle whenever she breathed.

> "You're thinking about them again," Yoru said.



Taylor didn't answer.

> "About the ones who laughed."



"Yeah."

> "You should practice," Yoru suggested. "Make something yours. Name it."



Taylor closed her eyes. She could feel the rule humming beneath her tongue. Every object around her vibrated with potential: the umbrella leaning against the bench, the glass bottle at her feet, even the slick rainwater itself.

She whispered, "No."

> "Then you'll keep dreaming of dying."



The voice receded, leaving only the hiss of rain. Taylor pressed her palms together until her nails bit into skin—just enough to feel real, to remind herself which heartbeat was hers.

The bell rang in the distance, distant thunder swallowed by the city's endless gray.

She stood, dripping, and walked back inside.

---
Classes blurred together. Taylor barely remembered walking from room to room; the corridors felt longer than they should have, as though the building were stretching around her.
Every few minutes she caught herself listening for the other pulse—the faint, second rhythm that sometimes answered hers from behind her ribs.

By the time the final bell rang, her nerves felt frayed thin enough to hum.
Outside, the rain had stopped, leaving the sky the color of cooling ash. She started down the sidewalk toward home, backpack heavy on one shoulder.

Halfway there, a shout snapped her out of the fog.

"Watch where you're going, Hebert!"

Three of them. Emma's old friends—faces that still made her stomach clench even now. Taylor stepped aside, keeping her eyes down. She didn't want trouble.

One of them laughed. "Still pretending to be invisible?"

Her fingers curled around the strap of her bag. The world narrowed. The echo of Yoru's voice slid under her skin like a current.

> "You could stop them. All you need is a rule."



Taylor squeezed her eyes shut. Don't listen.

But the hum of the rule was there already, gathering at the back of her tongue, tasting of iron and stormwater.

> "Say it," Yoru urged. "Something simple. Something true."



Taylor's heartbeat doubled—hers, and Yoru's, striking the same rhythm.
She whispered so softly she almost didn't hear it herself:

> "Things that touch me… break."



The air twitched. For an instant everything was too clear—the smell of wet asphalt, the tiny scrape of shoe soles, the warmth of breath in the cold. Then one of the girls reached to shove her shoulder.

The shove landed like a spark against glass. The girl hissed, jerking her hand back. No blood, no wound, but her palm flushed bright red as if she'd touched a stove.

"What the hell?" she gasped.

Taylor stumbled away, horrified. "I—I didn't—"

> "Yes, you did," Yoru murmured. "Beautifully."



The others swore, backing off, confusion overriding bravado. Taylor ran.
She didn't stop until she reached the narrow alley that led toward home, chest heaving, the rule still buzzing faintly through her fingertips.

Rain began again—thin, needling drops that prickled against her skin like static. The sensation burned in a strangely pleasant way. She could feel the rule fading, like a muscle unclenching.

> "See?" Yoru said softly. "It listens. You only have to mean it."



"I almost hurt her," Taylor whispered.

> "Almost isn't enough for revenge. But it's a start."



Taylor sank against the wall, eyes closing. Beneath her palms, the concrete pulsed faintly, beating once in time with her heart before falling still. She didn't know if she was imagining it.

When she finally reached home, the house felt smaller than before, the ceiling lower. Her hands trembled as she filled a glass of water; the liquid quivered before she could drink. She forced herself to sip anyway.

The taste of iron lingered on her tongue.


---

Night came quickly.
In bed, she stared at the ceiling, listening to the rain. Every so often, she thought she heard footsteps pacing just above her heartbeat—measured, patient, not her own.

> "Sleep," Yoru said, the voice soft as breath against her ear. "Tomorrow, you'll learn to choose who the rule loves."



Taylor didn't answer.
She only pressed a hand against her chest, feeling the double rhythm pulse once… twice… before she finally drifted under.

---
Sleep came slowly, like drowning in syrup. Taylor floated somewhere between waking and dream, the hum of the city melting into a rhythm she almost recognized — the steady thump of her heart, doubled over itself.

> thump-thump.
thump-thump.



The second beat didn't belong to her.

In the dream, she was standing in the corridor of Winslow, barefoot. The lights flickered with each breath she took. Lockers ran down both sides of the hall, and their doors whispered as if they were breathing too.

Her reflection in the nearest locker blinked out of sync with her.

It smiled.

> "You've done well," Yoru said — not aloud, but through her reflection's mouth. "You made a weapon."



Taylor pressed her hand against the cool metal. "That wasn't— I didn't mean to hurt her."

The reflection tilted its head, eyes glinting with that same ringed pattern Taylor had glimpsed in the hospital mirror days ago.

> "You didn't hurt her," Yoru murmured. "You warned the world that you can."



Taylor's throat felt dry. "Why are you showing me this?"

The hallway stretched longer. The ceiling bent closer. The lockers began to bulge outward, their metal rippling as if something underneath was breathing harder.

Yoru stepped out of the reflection — or rather, the idea of her did. A girl with Asa's frame but sharper, with three dark scars and eyes that spun like storm drains. She carried herself like the world was already hers.

"Because you need to remember what power feels like," Yoru said, circling Taylor. "You begged for someone to notice. You begged for justice. Tell me — when you saw her flinch, didn't it feel good?"

Taylor's stomach turned. "No. It— it scared me."

Yoru smiled faintly, predator-soft. "Good. Fear keeps you alive. Keep it."

The dream warped again. The lockers fell away, replaced by rows of bodies — paper-thin outlines, faceless, moving like windblown curtains. Taylor reached for the wall but found feathers instead of fingers. Black ones.

She gasped and looked down. Her hand was gone; a small black bird perched on her wrist, red eyes spiraling, head tilted in perfect mimicry of Yoru's.

> "This is what I am," Yoru whispered through its beak. "War reborn. You invited me in, Taylor. I only answer what your heart already wanted."



The bird launched upward, scattering feathers that turned into blades midair. Taylor flinched as one grazed her cheek — warm blood trickled down, but the pain came distant, delayed.

Her reflection in the bloodied floor showed both faces — hers and Yoru's — overlapping like two mismatched transparencies.

> "Wake up," the reflection said. "You're late."




---

Taylor's eyes flew open.

Morning light cut across her room in crooked lines. Her heart hammered, and the second beat lingered for a few seconds before fading. Sweat slicked her palms; she sat up too fast and nearly fell.

Her cheek still stung.

She touched it — and found a thin, fresh cut. Exactly where the blade in the dream had grazed her.

> "Good morning," Yoru said lazily, voice humming inside her skull like a second pulse. "You bleed beautifully."



Taylor stumbled to the bathroom mirror. The cut was shallow but real. No mistaking it.
Her reflection's eyes looked a little too bright, too ringed with amber light.

"What are you doing to me?" she hissed.

> "Helping you evolve," Yoru replied simply. "A War Devil shares nothing for free. But what I give you… will make this city kneel."



Taylor's hands trembled. "I don't want a war. I just want—"

> "To be seen," Yoru finished. "To be feared. Don't lie to me, Taylor Hebert."



The mirror flickered. For an instant, Yoru's face replaced hers — cold, scarred, calm. Then it was gone again.


---

At school, everything felt off. Conversations too quiet, colors too saturated, edges too sharp. Taylor sat through classes pretending not to feel the tickle of feathers against her ribs whenever someone laughed at her.

When she looked down at her notebook, the words she'd written in the margins weren't hers:

> Weaponize loneliness.
Rules are chains. Chains are blades.
Make the hive yours.



She crossed the words out until the page tore.

At lunch, she didn't eat. The cafeteria noise pressed in like static. Yoru's voice slithered through it.

> "Choose a target, Taylor. Every weapon needs one."



Taylor clenched her jaw. "No."

> "Then you'll make one."


---

That night, the rain returned, steady and cold. Taylor sat on her bed, staring at her trembling hands, thinking about the red mark on that girl's palm, the scar on her own cheek, and the quiet thrill that came with both.

When she finally whispered "Stop talking to me," Yoru only laughed softly inside her mind.

> "You're the one who keeps answering."

---
The next day began wrong.

Taylor woke before dawn, heart hammering, sheets tangled like a trap around her legs. The air smelled faintly of rust and wet earth, and for a few disoriented seconds she thought she'd left her window open. But when she glanced over—
Closed. Locked.
The smell remained.

She peeled herself out of bed, every motion heavy, electric. The rain outside was soft, relentless, tapping against the glass like impatient fingers.

Downstairs, her father was already gone for work. The silence felt too complete without him. Even the hum of the refrigerator sounded muted, like the house was holding its breath.

Taylor poured cereal, then stopped when she realized the milk in her hand was vibrating. Not shaking—vibrating, like a low note resonating through it. She blinked and it stopped.

> "The world notices you now," Yoru murmured. "It's listening for your orders."



Taylor swallowed hard and muttered, "Shut up," before realizing she'd said it aloud.

Her reflection in the kitchen window smiled faintly. The smile wasn't hers.


---

Winslow's halls were louder than usual—chatter, squeaking shoes, slamming lockers—but beneath it, something offbeat threaded through. Every so often, Taylor swore she heard whispers that matched the rhythm of her heart.

Hebert… Hebert… Hebert…

She tried to tell herself it was nerves. Sleep deprivation. Stress. All perfectly normal things.
But when she sat down in history class and opened her textbook, the page moved.

Tiny black dots crawled in the margins. At first, she thought they were ants. Then she realized they were too small for that—little motes that pulsed faintly red.

They spelled something.

> RULE.



Taylor slammed the book shut. A few students looked up, startled. The teacher frowned.

"Everything all right, Ms. Hebert?"

"Yeah," she lied quickly. "Just… dropped my pen."

The teacher nodded and went back to writing on the board. The whispers in Taylor's head went silent—for a moment.

Then she heard buzzing. Not from the lights. From her backpack.

She reached in with trembling fingers and pulled out her lunchbox.
Inside, dozens of dead insects—flies, bees, beetles—had been packed into neat lines across the plastic surface, like a burial offering. Their tiny legs were folded in perfect symmetry.

Taylor's stomach lurched. She snapped the lid shut and shoved it away.

> "They come to you now," Yoru said quietly. "They can feel the pulse of the War. The hive learns who commands it."



"I didn't ask for this," Taylor hissed under her breath.

> "You didn't need to. Power answers hunger."




---

By afternoon, she could feel it in everything. The air hummed against her skin, tiny vibrations crawling up her arms like static. When she brushed her hand against the metal railing on the stairs, sparks jumped.

When she blinked, for an instant she could see the air—threads of faint scarlet energy weaving through the dust motes, converging around her hands. She jerked them back, heart racing.

She barely noticed the stares she got in the hallway—half curious, half uneasy. Her classmates didn't know why they looked twice. Taylor could see it in their eyes: something in her aura was wrong now.

> "They sense me," Yoru whispered. "They just don't have words for it."



"Get out of my head," Taylor hissed.

> "You'd be boring alone."




---

After school, she took the long route home, cutting through the empty industrial district near the Docks. The sky hung heavy, low clouds churning like smoke.

The ground squelched under her shoes; puddles reflected her face in warped shapes—sometimes hers, sometimes Yoru's, sometimes both. She stopped at the edge of a rusted fence, staring out at the gray waves slapping against the shore.

For a moment, she felt peace. The hum in her chest softened.

Then something brushed against her shoulder.

She turned sharply.
No one there.

Just a shape in the corner of her vision—small, black-feathered, perched on a broken signpost. A bird.
It tilted its head, eyes spiraling crimson, watching her.

Her breath caught. "You're not real," she whispered.

The bird ruffled its feathers, and the voice that answered was inside her head.

> "You dreamt me. That makes me real."



The bird's wings unfurled. The shadows stretched long behind it, slicing across the puddles like knives of black glass. Taylor stumbled back as it dove—and vanished halfway down, bursting into feathers that melted into the rain.

Her heart pounded in her throat.
When she looked down, one feather remained, slick and black with a faint shimmer of scarlet at its edge.

She picked it up before she could stop herself.

> "Keep it," Yoru murmured. "A reminder. Of what waits when you stop denying me."



Taylor stared at the feather, fingers trembling. Its surface was warm. Almost alive.

She shoved it into her pocket and turned toward home, feeling that second heartbeat echo deeper than before.


---
The house was quiet when Taylor stepped through the door.
Too quiet.
Usually there were the normal, grounding noises — the heater clicking, pipes humming, the refrigerator's low whine. Tonight all she heard was the soft, arrhythmic tap of rain on the windows and her own pulse in her ears.

She hung her jacket, dropped her bag by the stairs, and froze.

Every picture frame in the hallway was slightly tilted the same way, as though someone had brushed past each one in a single smooth motion.
A coincidence. It had to be.
She reached up to straighten the first frame — a photo of her and her dad at the boardwalk years ago — and felt the glass tremble beneath her fingers.

When she stepped back, the picture was straight again. But in the faint reflection, her eyes looked ringed with pale gold.
She blinked, and they were brown once more.

> "The house breathes with you now," Yoru said, calm as a heartbeat. "Every wall, every nail. It listens."



Taylor clenched her fists. "It's my house. My rules."

> "Exactly."



Something creaked overhead. The slow, dragging sound of a chair leg across floorboards.
Her dad wouldn't be home for hours.

"Rats," she whispered to herself, but she already knew it wasn't.

She climbed the stairs carefully, one step at a time. The air grew warmer near the landing, heavy with that faint metallic tang that followed her since the alley. Her bedroom door stood open; she was sure she'd closed it before leaving.

Inside, everything was in its place — except her mirror.

It was turned to face the wall.

Taylor's skin prickled. She crossed the room and hesitated before touching it. When she did, the glass gave a soft click, like it had been holding its breath. She turned it back around.

Her reflection stared at her — and smiled before she could.

> "You're learning," Yoru murmured, voice not from her head this time but from the mirror itself, vibrating in the air between them. "The line between thought and order thins when you believe."



Taylor shook her head. "Stop using my body. Stop using my—"

The reflection raised its hand first. Her real arm followed a beat later, like a puppet catching up to its strings. She yanked it back and the mirror rippled once, surface moving like disturbed water.

> "You called me," Yoru reminded her. "Every wish you whisper becomes a shape. A house that hears. A mirror that watches. A world beginning to remember the name of War."



Taylor backed away until her calves hit the bed. The second heartbeat started up again — slow, powerful, steady.

"I don't want this," she said. "I never wanted this."

The mirror's expression softened, almost pitying.

> "Want has nothing to do with it. Need does."



Then the surface stilled. The reflection matched her perfectly again. The air in the room cooled, the hum faded, and the ordinary sounds of the house returned one by one — refrigerator, heater, distant rain.

Taylor sat down hard on the bed, breathing fast. She waited a long time before speaking, barely above a whisper.

"Are you still there?"

Only the rain answered.

---

Hours later, when she finally drifted toward sleep, the mirror across the room caught a flicker of movement.
For a heartbeat it showed a second Taylor sitting beside the sleeping one, her eyes gleaming faintly gold, a small black feather balanced on her palm. Then the feather dissolved into dust and the reflection went dark.

---

Morning came gray and heavy.
Taylor stared at the ceiling before moving, listening for anything strange. No whispers. No second rhythm. The mirror sat harmlessly across the room, reflecting nothing but the washed-out light of a cloudy dawn.

She almost convinced herself she'd imagined it all.
Almost.

When she reached for her backpack, the black feather she'd pocketed yesterday was resting on top of her books. She hadn't put it there. Its edges glimmered faint red, like coal cooling in the dark. Taylor hesitated, then slid it into the outer pocket and told herself not to think about it.

---

Winslow felt muffled, as though someone had wrapped the building in cotton. The fluorescent lights buzzed irregularly; each flicker pressed against her eyes like a pulse.

People stared again, but differently this time—blank, detached, as if they were seeing her from too far away.

She walked into first period and caught the teacher mid-sentence:

"…and Miss Hebert was just explaining that, weren't you?"

Taylor froze. She hadn't said anything. The class turned toward her expectantly.

Words stumbled out before she could stop them. "Right. The—uh—economic collapse. Labor displacement."

The teacher nodded and went on, none the wiser.

Taylor sat down slowly, heart crawling up her throat.

> They're filling the gaps with what you would have said, Yoru murmured, pleased. Your presence rewrites hesitation.



Taylor pressed her nails into her palm until it hurt. Stop.

> You wanted to be heard. Now you are.



By lunch, the effect had worsened.
A boy at her table—one of the quieter ones, who never spoke to her—looked up mid-conversation and repeated her own thought out loud word for word:

> "If you step back, the noise stops."



He blinked afterward, confused, as though he'd just woken from a trance.

Taylor left the cafeteria in silence.


---

The rain returned mid-afternoon, washing the windows in gray veils. Taylor walked home alone, hood up, shoes squelching through puddles. Every drop that hit her skin seemed to hiss faintly, like tiny sparks dying out.

When she reached the house, she found her father's note on the counter: Late shift tonight. Dinner's in the fridge. Love you.
Normal. Grounding. She clung to the ordinary letters longer than she meant to.

Upstairs, the mirror was exactly where she'd left it. No movement. No voice.
She turned on her lamp and took the feather out of her pocket.

The light bent around it. The shadow it cast on the desk wasn't a feather—it was a silhouette of something perched, wings spread wide.

Taylor stared until the room began to hum again. Not loud. Just enough to make her teeth ache.

> "Every rule leaves residue," Yoru said softly. "You named one. The world adjusts. The hive answers."



Taylor's reflection looked back at her, mouth moving half a beat late. "What are you turning me into?"

> "Something honest," Yoru replied. "You've lived too long pretending power is cruelty. It isn't. It's definition."



Taylor's throat tightened. "I'm not you."

> "Then stop proving me right."



The hum swelled—an invisible heartbeat thrumming through the floorboards, walls, and her chest all at once. The bulb above her desk flickered. She grabbed the feather and held it tight, and the light steadied.

Silence returned.


---

Outside, rain slid down the window in thin, perfect lines, each droplet tracing a faint red shimmer before fading. Somewhere in the city, sirens wailed and cut off mid-note.

Taylor sat very still, the feather clenched in her fist. Her heartbeat and the city's seemed to match for a few breaths—two rhythms aligning.

> We're learning to share, Yoru whispered.


Taylor didn't answer. She only stared at the reflection that no longer quite matched her own expression.

 

[SCP-035]

Love it so far

 

[Laath-]

This one seems interesting.

Watched

 

[Nephthys8079]

The hum didn't stop when I opened my eyes.
It had followed me out of the dream and into the dark of my room, low and even, the same pitch as my pulse. For a moment I thought it was the radiator, or the streetlights, or the whisper of traffic beyond the glass—but when I held my breath, the sound held too. It was inside me. Beneath me. Threaded through the walls like veins.

—Taylor.

The voice wasn't quite speech. It was the sound a knife makes when you think about using it.

I sat up too fast. My muscles jerked wrong, like they were obeying someone else's timing. My hair brushed my cheek and I caught it in my hand; it felt heavier, damp with sweat, blacker in the faint light than I remembered.

"Yoru," I whispered. "You're still here."

Of course I am. The answer landed between thought and breath. You made a rule, didn't you?

I blinked at the ceiling, confused. "A rule?"

You said you'd survive. A rule binds. A rule feeds. I like it.

My stomach twisted. Every word she spoke pressed faintly against my ribs, as if my organs were being rearranged to make room for her. I swung my legs off the bed, tried to steady my breathing. The floorboards were cold under my feet, the cold grounding me in something real.

"What do you want from me?"

To teach you how to win.

The answer came with a flicker of something hot behind my eyes, a pulse that briefly made the room shudder. My desk lamp swayed. Feathers—dark, oily—drifted past my vision and vanished before they touched the floor.

"Hallucination," I muttered. "Lack of sleep. Trauma."

Denial's another rule, Yoru said, amused. Humans use it to pretend they still own themselves.

I clenched my fists. The skin of my palms felt too thin, as if there were something beneath waiting to push out. I went to the mirror. The scar across my nose—no, her scar—caught the moonlight. For an instant I saw both of us layered together: the school-uniformed girl with the knife-edge glare and the frightened one trying to breathe through panic.

We can make new rules, Yoru whispered. One for each betrayal, each slight, each name they called you.

The locker. The filth. The laughter. My heart stuttered.

"No."

Yes.

Her tone softened, almost coaxing. You felt it, didn't you? The power in the thought? Say it again. Say you'll survive, and feel the world listen.

I swallowed hard. My reflection's eyes glowed faintly—ringed, layered, alien. Mine didn't. Or maybe they both did. It was impossible to tell.

"I'll survive," I said.

The hum deepened. The lightbulb popped. Something under my skin fluttered—like wings testing their span. The pain was brief, sharp, then gone, leaving only the echo.

Yoru laughed quietly in my mind. Good girl. That's how the hive begins.

—

The room still smelled like ozone and wet feathers.
The air felt thicker, dense enough that my lungs had to work harder just to pull it in. I stood there, trembling, waiting for something else to happen—for another flicker of the impossible—but nothing moved. Just the slow beat in my ears. The hum had faded into something quieter, deeper. It wasn't gone; it had sunk inside.

I reached for the light switch. The bulb was cracked, the glass spiderwebbed. When I brushed my fingers against it, a thin trail of red welled up along my knuckle. The cut wasn't deep, but it didn't sting right—it pulsed, as if the wound was thinking about healing or closing on its own decision.

"Stop it," I muttered.

You started it, Yoru said, voice velvet over steel. Every rule has a price. You said you'd survive. So the body adapts.

I looked down. My hand was already fine. The skin knit itself without leaving a mark. No blood, no scab—just clean flesh that felt subtly different, too smooth, too alive.

"This isn't me," I whispered.

Not yet, Yoru replied. But it will be.

A faint rhythm echoed through the window. Brockton Bay wasn't quiet—cars, sirens, wind off the ocean—but beneath all of that, something else moved. The sound had a pattern. It matched the beat in my chest. The world was breathing with me. I couldn't tell where the city ended and I began.

Yoru's amusement bled through like warmth.
You sense it now. The hive hums because you do. You're its heart, Taylor. All it takes is one command to make it yours.

I almost laughed. "You think I can command Brockton Bay?"

Not yet. But you could start smaller. A rule must be simple. Direction, intent, consequence.

I turned from the window. "I don't—"

Say: I won't be prey.

The words slid across my tongue before I could stop them.

The moment they left my lips, the world answered.

Every noise outside fell silent. Even the draft under the window stopped. My ears rang. I felt pressure behind my teeth, like the air itself had teeth too. For half a second, I swore I saw the faint silhouette of wings unfurl across the walls. The shape wasn't mine.

Then the hum returned, steadier now. The silence broke with a drip from the faucet, a car horn in the distance, the faint crash of waves. Ordinary sounds, almost a mercy.

I sat on the bed, shaking. The air had weight again.

"What did I just do?"

You made yourself truth, Yoru said simply. Now, when the world looks at you, it will remember what you are. Not prey. Something else.

Her satisfaction settled in my skull like a heartbeat that wasn't mine. And I realized with a slow, cold certainty that she hadn't lied—because in that quiet, the hunger in me didn't feel human anymore.

—

The silence didn't last.

A low vibration moved through the floorboards, faint as a sigh, almost gentle. The radiator clicked once, then twice, falling into rhythm with my pulse again. Every sound in the room—drip, hum, heartbeat—folded into a single quiet pattern.

It listens to you now, Yoru murmured, pleased. Rules reshape things that believe them.

Her words lingered like smoke in the back of my mind. I wanted to argue, but my throat felt locked. My body obeyed the impulse to move before I could second-guess it. I stood, crossed to the window, and looked out.

The street below was empty, washed in the gray before dawn. The lamps flickered in unison, one heartbeat late to each other, like a living chain stretching toward the harbor. The glass reflected my face—no, our face—two sets of eyes superimposed for a moment.

You're adapting quickly, Yoru said.

"I don't want to," I said. My voice came out thinner than I meant, quieter. "I just want to go back to normal."

Normal is what broke you.

Her tone wasn't cruel. It was factual, flat, like someone reminding me of gravity.

I leaned my forehead against the glass. The chill helped me think. "And if I stop?"

You won't.

I hated how sure she sounded.

The faintest movement caught my eye—one of the street lamps tilted slightly, its glow flickering when my heartbeat skipped. It went still again when I steadied my breathing.

I shut the curtain.

The room seemed smaller afterward, heavier with the idea of what might be listening.

"I can't live like this," I said finally. "I can't feel everything."

Then narrow it. Define what matters. That's all rules are—limits. If you don't choose them, something else will.

Her advice landed in the same part of my brain that remembered how to breathe when I was scared. Logical. Ruthless. Right.

"Fine," I said, almost to myself. "Then I'll make a new rule."

The words trembled but came out anyway. "I won't be afraid."

Something clicked deep inside, like a lock turning. The air grew still.

Yoru said nothing for a while. I thought maybe she was gone—then her voice returned, soft, almost reverent.

Good. The hive won't fear either.

My breath caught.

The hum around me steadied again, not louder but closer, as if the city was holding its breath with me.

I sat back on the bed and pressed my palms to my knees. The warmth of my own skin grounded me. I didn't know whether I'd taken control of something—or given it permission to take control of me.

Either way, dawn was coming. And I couldn't tell which of us—me or Yoru—was smiling.

—

Outside, Brockton Bay looked washed clean — but not renewed.
The air carried the smell of wet rust and salt, the kind of cold that made breath visible and thoughts sharp.
Concrete still gleamed from last night's rain, streaked with oil-slick colors that didn't belong in daylight.

I stepped off the porch. My shoes left faint prints that lingered a little too long before fading. The world was awake, yet no one else was outside. For a second, I thought I'd slipped into another version of the city, one hollowed out and left behind.

The hum was still there. Quieter now, but woven through everything — the droning of streetlamps, the drip of gutters, the low groan of buildings settling.
It moved with me.

It knows the shape of your steps now, Yoru murmured. You've told it who you are. That's the first rule of any army.

"Army," I repeated softly. "I didn't ask for one."

No one asks for power, she said. They either claim it or get crushed under those who do.

A wind rolled through the alley. Paper scraped across the pavement — flyers, receipts, pieces of lives half-lived. One of them caught against my leg. I bent down to peel it off.

It was an old newspaper clipping: "Local girl still missing — last seen leaving Winslow High."
The ink had run, but the photo was clear enough: a smiling face, eyes bright with that fragile kind of teenage hope.

Something inside me twisted. I didn't know her, but for a moment I felt her absence pressing at the edges of my ribs, like the city itself remembered and wanted to show me.

"Was she one of yours?" I asked before I could stop myself.

Yoru's tone sharpened. Don't confuse pity with understanding. The world eats weakness, Taylor. It always has.

"I'm not weak."

Then prove it.

The challenge wasn't loud, but it dug in deep.
I folded the paper and dropped it in the nearest trash bin, my hand shaking only once.

A bus rumbled in the distance. The sound made the hum shift, faint vibrations running up through the soles of my shoes — a heartbeat that wasn't mine, syncing in time anyway.

For a second, the city felt alive.
Not metaphorically — alive.

Every sound, every flicker of light, pulsed with intent. The air vibrated around me like breath. And in that strange harmony, I felt something look back.

It wasn't a person. It wasn't even a presence. It was recognition — as if the world had just learned my name.

My chest tightened.

"Yoru," I whispered. "What's happening?"

It heard your rules, she said, almost proud. Now it waits for the next one.

—

The morning light never quite settled.
It slid across cracked windows, pooling in corners that should have been dark, avoiding others that should have been bright. I walked fast, trying to outpace the rhythm that followed my steps.

Trash lined the gutters in damp clumps. Something red trailed through the runoff—paint, I told myself. Just paint. The air smelled of metal and seawater. I didn't look closely enough to prove myself wrong.

See how the hive stirs? Yoru murmured. Every nerve waking, every wound remembering.

I passed a narrow alley where the pavement glistened slick and uneven. A shape slumped near the wall, wrapped in shadow. The flies around it moved in lazy spirals. My brain filed it away as "garbage." Easier that way.

A crow—or maybe not a crow—hopped along the roofline, feathers matte and heavy as wet paper. When it turned its head, its eyes caught the light and spun faintly, red rings turning inside one another. My stomach flipped.

"You're seeing things," I muttered.

No. You're finally seeing correctly.

I kept walking. My shoes left dull prints on the wet concrete, each step swallowed by the city's heartbeat. The hum wasn't a sound anymore; it was an atmosphere, pressed against my skin, following the path of my veins.

A siren wailed far off, warped by distance. The sound fractured mid-note, like the city itself didn't have the strength to keep screaming.

Do you feel it now? Yoru asked. The weight of your rules? "Not prey." The world listens—and adjusts.

"What does that mean?"

Something else will be hunted instead.

The words hit harder than they should have. I thought of the slumped shape in the alley, of the crow's turning eyes, of how quiet everything suddenly was.

"Yoru…"

Don't look back, she said gently. You'll only see proof.

I didn't. I couldn't. The smell of salt grew stronger, sharper, as though the ocean had pushed closer to the streets. My pulse steadied into that new rhythm, the hive's rhythm, and each beat told me the same truth:
I had changed the rules, and Brockton Bay was obeying.

---
Winslow's front doors breathed her in like a throat swallowing.
The hinges whined—too wet, too close—and the smell hit next: disinfectant mixed with something that didn't belong in a school.
Copper?
Rot?
No.
She refused to name it.

Taylor moved through the hall, head down. Her sneakers left pale marks on the linoleum where it was still drying from a half-hearted mop.
The janitor's bucket sat abandoned, the water inside dark, almost red.
She didn't look at it long enough to be sure.

All these little cells, Yoru whispered. Each pretending to be separate, when really, they just serve the same organism.

Taylor's fingers clenched around the strap of her backpack.
"You mean the students?"

The hive.

She pretended she didn't hear that.
Her thoughts were a haze—half memory, half vibration. It felt like the air in the building was humming, like the floor beneath her shoes had a pulse that didn't sync with her own heartbeat.
A wrongness so constant it became invisible.

Someone bumped her shoulder in the hall. She didn't react. Didn't even see who it was.
It didn't matter.
The murmurs, the sidelong glances, the shifting shapes of faces that didn't quite stay fixed—she let them all slide past.

At her locker, something dripped from the vent above.
She opened the door, found it streaked faintly pink, and shut it again without blinking.

You adapt quickly, Yoru said, voice a soft curl in her ear.
Even when your senses tell you to scream.

"I don't have time to scream."

No. You have rules instead.

Taylor's reflection in the locker's dull metal stared back at her—thin, gray around the eyes, like something had been siphoning her sleep for days.
Behind her reflection, the hallway pulsed once, faintly.
The walls breathed in.
Out.

She turned, blinked hard—and it was just Winslow again.
Just a hallway.
Just the same cracked floor and flickering lights.

"Not prey," she whispered, testing the words again.

Somewhere far behind her, a crash echoed.
Screaming—no, laughter—rose and fell.
She couldn't tell which.

And for a brief moment, as the noise faded, she thought she saw movement at the edge of the corridor—a shape dragging itself upright.
It waved at her.
Or twitched.
She couldn't tell that either.

Taylor closed her locker, shouldered her bag, and walked away.

---

Insects do not mourn, Yoru murmured as the bell rang. They consume.

Taylor didn't answer.
But the hum beneath her skin deepened in rhythm—like a response.

---

The classroom was half full when Taylor walked in.
Eyes lifted.
Then went back down, as if by rehearsed instinct.

The air smelled faintly of ozone and overripe fruit. The hum followed her inside—low, electrical, resonant with her pulse.
She ignored it. She always did.

The desks were arranged the same as yesterday, but something about the room's geometry felt wrong. The lines didn't meet where they should. The far-left corner seemed deeper than it had any right to be, like the wall was stretching away infinitesimally each time she blinked.

She sat down near the window. Outside, the world looked normal: clouds, cracked asphalt, a few trees stripped by salt wind.
Inside, the light flickered like an insect's wingbeat.

You shouldn't be here, Yoru murmured, soft as breath against her neck.
Every cell in this hive recognizes what doesn't belong.

Taylor's pencil hovered over her notebook.
"I belong here."

You want to.

The teacher—Mr. Gladly—entered. He smiled, that same thin, strained smile he always wore, and began talking about group projects.
Taylor didn't hear a word.
The hum was louder now, like a swarm pressed against the back of her skull.

A droplet fell from the ceiling, landing on her desk.
Clear. Perfectly round.
She wiped it away with her sleeve.

But when she looked up, the stain on the ceiling wasn't water.
It was a handprint—small, childlike—pressed from inside the plaster.

She blinked, and it was gone.

The voices around her blurred together, students whispering, paper rustling, chairs scraping.
She told herself she was imagining the way the air shimmered at the edges of her vision.
The way the shadow under the whiteboard pulsed like something alive.

You're learning, Yoru said.
Not to react. Not to break the illusion. That's good.

"I'm not learning. I'm surviving."

Same thing.

Her name was called.
Taylor jolted, realizing Mr. Gladly was staring at her expectantly.
"Sorry," she said, her voice smaller than she wanted it to be. "I—uh—what was the question?"

Laughter rippled through the class.
Background noise.
She could handle that.

But in the reflection of the window beside her, she didn't see laughter.
The students' mouths were open too wide, their teeth wrong, faces stretched like wax melting under heat.
The reflections moved half a beat out of sync.

Taylor turned her head—everything was normal again.
The sound of her pencil breaking in her grip filled the silence that followed.


---

By the time the bell rang, she couldn't remember what subject the class was.
Only the weight of eyes that didn't blink when she wasn't looking at them.

One period survived, Yoru whispered. Seven more to go. Try not to molt before lunch.

Taylor almost smiled. Almost.

Then she caught her reflection again in the window—eyes dark, hair trembling as if in wind that didn't exist—and the smile died quietly before it reached her lips.

—

The bell's clang bled into the hum inside her skull.
Desks screeched, laughter swelled, and bodies shuffled out of the room in a wave of chatter and cologne.
Taylor followed, clutching her books too tightly.

The hallway stretched ahead like a tunnel of flickering fluorescents. Every footstep landed a half-second late in the echo, as if something invisible was mimicking her walk a breath behind.

She told herself it was acoustics.
She told herself a lot of things.

Lockers slammed. Someone brushed her shoulder—too cold, too fast.
She didn't look.

You feel it now, Yoru murmured. The hive senses you. They smell the rule forming in you. Curiosity. Fear. Both are nourishment.

Taylor's throat tightened. "Stop calling it that."

You'll need a word for it soon enough. Everything in a hive has a name, even the rot between cells.

A group of sophomores ahead of her slowed, blocking the corridor. Their laughter stuttered and died when she drew close. One of them glanced over her shoulder instead of at her, eyes glassy.
The hum pulsed.
When she passed, the smell of ozone deepened, sharp as burned plastic.

She reached her locker, twisting the dial twice before realizing the numbers had blurred—every line melting into a spiral that kept turning.
She blinked hard. The metal was normal again.
Her fingers ached from gripping the handle.

Behind her, something clicked rhythmically against the tiles. A locker hinge? A pen tapping?
She didn't turn around.

Yoru's tone softened, almost approving. Good. Don't give it recognition. That's how the rule works—you see it, it grows teeth.

"Then you look," Taylor whispered.

I always do.

A reflection glimmered in the tiny dent on her locker door—her face, Yoru's face, overlapping for a heartbeat. The scars were there, faint but real, like the metal remembered a different person.

The second bell rang. Students dispersed. The hum dimmed, settling low in her bones.
She exhaled, unaware she'd been holding her breath for minutes.

Still alive, Yoru said. Still pretending to be one of them.

Taylor closed the locker and began walking again, every step aligning with the faint echo that wasn't hers.

—

The next hallway was nearly empty. Only the janitor's cart waited at the far end, a single wheel squeaking in lazy circles.
Fluorescent light buzzed overhead—an arrhythmic heartbeat that seemed to sync with her pulse.

Taylor's shoes whispered across the tiles. Her reflection ghosted beside her in the trophy-case glass, thin and color-drained, moving half a frame behind.
She didn't stop to check which version lagged.

Do you feel it? Yoru asked.
Her voice carried that faint metallic undertone again, as if words were being poured through wire.
The hive adjusts around you. It doesn't want to, but rules rewrite instinct.

Taylor brushed hair out of her face. "You keep saying that like I understand it."

You will. Instinct bends to pattern. Pattern becomes law. You've already begun drafting one.

She opened her mouth to argue, but her throat seized.
A ripple of dizziness passed through her; the corridor flexed like heat-haze.
For a heartbeat the lockers were honeycomb cells—each one filled with something breathing slow, sticky breaths.
She blinked. Metal again.

She leaned a shoulder to the wall, heartbeat hammering against it. "Just… hallucinations."

Survival's first lie, Yoru murmured. You name what you can't fight.

Down the intersecting hall, a light snapped off. Another flickered, then steadied.
She realized the sound following her—soft tapping, like fingers drumming—wasn't echo anymore. It was pacing her deliberately, step for step, only audible when she exhaled.

Taylor forced herself forward. The hum inside her head softened to a steady, insect-wing drone—comforting, almost.

By the time she reached the stairwell door, the tapping stopped.
The quiet that followed felt heavier than the noise.

She pushed through into the stairwell's cold air.
The smell hit her first—disinfectant, rust, something faintly sweet. A janitor must have spilled cleaner.
The floor beneath the landing glistened faintly red in the dim light. She didn't look closer.

Yoru said nothing for once, and that silence unnerved her more than the voice ever did.

—

The stairwell door groaned shut behind her. The sound rolled down the concrete throat of the building and vanished.

Each step creaked under her weight. The hum inside her chest steadied; it was almost rhythmic now, matching the fluorescent flicker above.
She kept her eyes on the landing. Don't look at the stains. Don't breathe too deep.

When she reached the bottom and pushed into the cafeteria, light and noise hit her like surf breaking.
Hundreds of voices, trays clattering, chairs scraping the linoleum. Ordinary life.
Normal, she told herself. Normal.

But the sound didn't quite mesh. Laughter and conversation overlapped out of sync, forming a texture more than a sound — like the city static she'd heard in the hospital.

She walked to the line, grabbed a tray, went through the motions.
Every movement felt practiced, scripted. The smell of food was muted, plastic.

Watch carefully, Yoru said. Rules act like ripples. You'll see it before you feel it.

Taylor's hand froze mid-reach for an apple.
The fruit in the tray were bruised, half-rotten — except one, pristine and red at the center.
The lunch lady hadn't placed it there. Taylor was sure. She hadn't even looked away.

She took it anyway. It felt warm.

When she turned toward the tables, the chatter dipped. Not silence — just a half-second lull, as if everyone inhaled at once.
Eyes glanced up, flicked away.

Emma and Madison sat across the room, their heads bent together over something on a phone.
No laughter this time.
Just stillness, that same frozen look she'd seen in the hallway earlier.

They sense the line you drew, Yoru whispered. Instinct again. They don't know what they fear, only that they should.

Taylor sat alone at the edge of the cafeteria, her back to the wall.
She bit into the apple. Sweetness flooded her tongue — too sweet, cloying.
It bled faintly red against her palm, staining the tray.

She blinked hard and looked again.
No stain. No color. Just cafeteria gray.

That's how rules begin, Yoru said, faint amusement in her tone. Observation defines the frame. You imagined, the world complied, then corrected itself. It's learning to survive you.

Taylor swallowed the last bite mechanically.
The noise around her settled back into the usual low buzz.

But she could feel the shift now — the cafeteria's hum tuned to her pulse, the faint static crawling along the fluorescent lights.
A single rule, half-written, somewhere deep in her mind.

She didn't know the words yet, but the world was already listening.

—
The lunchroom light trembled again, one bulb flickering above her table.
Taylor tried to ignore it. She kept her eyes on the half-eaten apple, willing herself to breathe evenly.

A tray clattered somewhere behind her—followed by a short, sharp gasp.
Her shoulders tensed, instinct telling her to look.
She didn't.

You want to, Yoru murmured. Curiosity is the seed of dominion.

Taylor gritted her teeth. Shut up.

She didn't realize she'd spoken aloud until a hush rippled through the nearest tables.
Every conversation froze for that same suspended heartbeat.
Then—like a switch flipping—every student turned back to their food in perfect unison.

Her skin crawled.

See? Yoru's voice was almost pleased. They obey.

"I didn't do anything," Taylor whispered.

You corrected them. The hive follows order.

The overhead light steadied. The hum in her chest swelled, a resonance that vibrated the air itself.
Across the room, a glass of juice tipped off a table and shattered—but instead of scattering, the pieces folded inward, fusing back into shape as if time itself was too afraid to disobey.

Taylor's breath caught.
No one else reacted. Not even the boy whose tray had spilled.

She stood slowly, heartbeat loud in her ears. The fluorescent bulbs buzzed in rhythm.
Something in the room watched her—not a person, but the space itself, the architecture waiting for instruction.

Say the rule, Yoru whispered, voice coiling like smoke around her thoughts. It's yours. It already knows.

Taylor's mouth moved before she could think.
"Don't look at me."

Every head bowed.
Hundreds of eyes dropped to the floor, spoons halted mid-air, conversation erased.
Only silence answered her.

Her tray slipped from her hand and clattered to the tile.
No one flinched.

The hum pulsed once, satisfied.

Taylor backed toward the exit, pulse thrumming with disbelief and something darker—an echo of Yoru's exhale against her spine.

Good, Yoru said softly. Now they understand.

The door shut behind her, cutting off the stillness like a severed limb.