I lay on the cold floor, staring at the ceiling, listening to the muffled sounds of life outside my locked room.
Lumi's small voice floated through the walls—she was asking Theo about the time and whether it was okay to sleep yet. Somewhere else, Yuki was updating Jace about how most of the luggage from the basement had finally been moved. Bram's deeper tone reached me too, talking with Kai about assigning rooms on the fourth floor.
They were all living… surviving. And here I was—boxed in like a problem nobody wanted to solve.
Ever since I was confined, a few new people had joined the apartment as refugees. Yuki told me, through the other side of the door, that the residents now worked in two shifts: the First Batch (daytime) and the Second Batch (nighttime). The old man, Silas, managed the First Batch. The Second Batch was led by two names I hadn't seen yet—Jun and Aki.
Today, Ryn brought me what they called dinner. For me, it was breakfast.
I had made up my mind—tonight, I would escape.
When the apartment fell quiet and the usual hallway noise faded into the hum of the fourth floor's construction work, I stood.
My room had a balcony. Across from it, separated by a gap, was another balcony—another room. The jump wasn't impossible, but the fall… the fall could kill me. But death wasn't the same for me anymore.
I steadied my breath and ran.
One leap.
One shot.
One second of weightlessness.
I landed.
Barely.
My heart pounded in my chest so violently it felt like my soul wanted to scream. I crouched low, opened the balcony door—and to my relief, the room was empty.
Phase One: Escape — complete.
Phase Two: Check the basement vehicles.
But there were two problems:
I didn't have the keys to the basement.
If anyone who knew I was locked away saw me, I'd be exposed.
I pulled a cloth over my head, tucking away the white in my hair. Then I slipped out of the room, quiet and careful. My goal: find Jun or Aki—one of them had to have the basement keys.
But I had never seen either of them before.
I approached a person I didn't recognize. That was a good sign—if I didn't know them, maybe they didn't know me. I gave a lie that felt practiced by now:
"Hey, I left some important photos on the bus. I need to grab them real quick. Do you know who has the basement keys?"
The stranger blinked, then answered without much suspicion.
"Jun. He's up on the fourth floor, I think."
Perfect.
I moved quickly but carefully, head lowered to avoid attention. The fourth floor was buzzing with people organizing supplies, but on the stairs I saw someone crouched with a toolbelt, fixing a railing.
He looked a little older—focused, methodical.
Had to be Jun.
I approached and repeated the same excuse. He hesitated, eyes narrowing slightly, as if something about me itched at the back of his mind. But he said nothing. Instead, he handed me the keys.
Before I left, I asked,
"By the way… since I've been mostly inside, how many people have come in lately?"
Jun didn't take his eyes off his work.
"Seven. Came in a car. Just a few days back."
Seven more people. A car.
I didn't like that.
The basement was darker than I expected—quiet in the wrong way. My footsteps echoed louder than I liked, bouncing between the concrete pillars. The air was stale. Every parked vehicle felt like it had a hundred eyes.
Every time I passed a shadow, my fingers tightened on the flashlight.
What if a shapeshifter was here? Watching me right now?
I checked the bus, the car we came in, the others.
Nothing.
No blood. No slime. No misplaced items.
No sign of intrusion.
Still… the chills along my spine didn't go away.
Which left me with the worst options.
If the shapeshifter didn't come in the bus…
If it didn't come in the car...
Then how the hell did it get inside?
And even worse—
Was someone helping it?
Or…
My mind drifted to the only other thing I had seen since we arrived.
That house.
The one I saw from the rooftop.
The only one with its lights still on.
The pieces weren't fitting, but they were definitely trying to.
Tomorrow night, I'd go further.
Check that house if I had to.
Figure out who's hiding the truth.
Because one thing was certain:
There's still a shapeshifter inside this apartment.
And I wasn't going to let it win.