The world wavered at the edges as Isabelle stumbled through the empty streets. She pressed a hand to her temple, trying to steady herself, but it was like walking through water, heavy and slow and thick. Her breath caught in her throat.
The last thing she remembered clearly was escaping the frozen tunnel.
After that—only flashes.
Light. Darkness. The sound of her own heartbeat roaring in her ears.
Now, standing under the jaundiced light of a broken streetlamp, she realized hours had passed.
Her phone buzzed feebly in her pocket, the battery barely clinging to life. Isabelle dragged it out with trembling fingers.
Two missed calls from Estelle.
Three frantic messages.
Where are you?
Please answer me.
I think they're moving faster now. We don't have much time.
Isabelle tried to text back, but her hands weren't steady enough. The letters blurred together into gibberish. She pocketed the phone and staggered toward the nearest building she recognized.
It was Estelle who found her first.
"Isabelle!" Estelle's voice cracked through the twilight like a whip. She sprinted across the street, catching Isabelle just before she collapsed onto the curb.
"You're freezing," Estelle said, pressing her hands against Isabelle's cheeks. Her skin burned with unnatural cold. "Come on, let's get you inside."
They half-walked, half-dragged their way into a boarded-up café nearby. Estelle kicked open the rusted door and eased Isabelle into a battered booth hidden from view.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Only the sound of Isabelle's ragged breathing filled the dusty space.
"You blacked out," Estelle said, kneeling beside her. She pulled a small flashlight from her bag and checked Isabelle's pupils, frowning. "Your eyes aren't focusing. How much time do you think you lost?"
"I don't know," Isabelle croaked. "An hour? More?"
Estelle pressed a damp cloth against Isabelle's forehead. "It's not just the cold," she said grimly. "Someone dosed you."
"Dosed?"
"Drugs. Hallucinogens, sedatives—something subtle enough to make you lose chunks of time without realizing it. It's why you feel so detached."
Isabelle stared at her, throat dry. "But why?"
Estelle hesitated. Her face twisted, as if fighting to keep herself from saying the next words.
"To make you doubt yourself," she whispered finally. "If you don't trust your own memories, you're easier to control."
A silence fell between them, heavy and awful.
Isabelle tried to think. Tried to piece the broken hours back together like fragments of shattered glass.
"Was it—was it when I was underground?" Isabelle murmured.
"Most likely. Cold air, disorientation—perfect conditions to slip something into your system. Maybe through the air vents. Maybe injected."
A sharp, aching memory surfaced: the metronome ticking in the cold, the frozen message on the wall, the sensation of being watched.
"You were here," the frost had said.
Had she really been there before?
Had they brought her back deliberately?
Panic clawed up Isabelle's spine, suffocating her.
"We have to get out of here," she said, struggling to stand. "We have to move."
"Yes, but slowly," Estelle urged. "If you push too hard, you'll crash again. And next time, you might not wake up."
Together, they slipped back into the dying evening light, keeping close to the crumbling alley walls.
The city felt abandoned. Hollowed out. As if whatever had been stalking them had already begun erasing everything in its path.
A cat yowled somewhere distant, a sound so human Isabelle nearly wept.
They turned down a narrow service lane behind the café. Estelle's plan was to cut through the old industrial quarter where the streets were mostly deserted, and regroup at Théo's temporary safehouse.
At least, that was the plan.
But the world continued to tilt beneath Isabelle's feet.
A sharp noise cracked through the alley—like glass shattering.
Isabelle barely registered it before darkness claimed her again.
When she woke, it was night.
And she was alone.
The street was a stranger's mouth, yawning wide around her.
Her head throbbed violently. Her body felt leaden.
For a terrifying moment, she couldn't remember her own name.
Then the smell hit her—metallic and sharp and wrong.
Blood.
Lots of it.
Her hands.
Her hands were slick with it, crimson smeared across her palms, down her wrists, splattered across her sleeves.
She stared, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.
Whose blood?
What had she done?
A low moan echoed from the darkness behind her.
Turning slowly, trembling, Isabelle glimpsed a figure crumpled against the brick wall.
Estelle.
Motionless.
Isabelle dropped to her knees beside her, frantic.
"Estelle—Estelle, can you hear me?"
She pressed two fingers to Estelle's throat, desperately searching for a pulse.
There.
Faint, but there.
Alive.
Relief nearly broke her in two.
But then the terror returned.
If Estelle wasn't dead… then whose blood was this?
The realization hit her harder than a blow:
She didn't know.
She had no memory of what had happened.
And as she tried to stand, tried to get help, Isabelle saw something else—a flash of silver under Estelle's jacket.
A pendant.
Like the others.
This one engraved not just with initials but with a date.
Today's date.
The air seemed to tighten around Isabelle, squeezing her lungs.
Today.
It was supposed to happen today.
Estelle was supposed to disappear.
And Isabelle—somehow—had been made part of it.
The cold voice from the tunnel came rushing back:
"Witness what sleeps beneath."
And now, she understood.
She wasn't just a witness.
She was a pawn.
The blood on her hands wasn't just symbolic—it was literal.
She had been maneuvered into position, blacked out at the right moment, left with no alibi, no certainty, no trust even in her own mind.
The abductor's plan was no longer subtle.
It was in full bloom.
And Isabelle, for the first time, felt the true weight of it settle onto her shoulders.
She wasn't hunting the darkness.
She was being shaped by it.
Piece by piece.
Hour by bleeding hour.
Somewhere in the darkness ahead, footsteps echoed faintly—retreating into the night.
Mocking her.
Daring her to follow.
To be continued...