Chapter 1: Lost Roommate

The rain battered the gothic arches of Oakwood University like a relentless fist, drumming against the stained-glass windows of Haverford Hall. Inside, the air smelled of damp stone and old books, a scent that clung to everything in this ancient dormitory. Ava Grey pulled her sweater tighter around her slim frame, her boots squeaking on the polished hardwood floor as she climbed the narrow staircase to the third floor. Her art portfolio bounced against her hip, a comforting weight after a long day in the studio. She was ready for a quiet night: a cup of tea, her sketchbook, maybe some music to drown out the storm. But the moment she pushed open the door to Room 312, that plan evaporated.

The room was wrong. Not messy—Lily, her roommate, was a neat freak who alphabetized her textbooks—but wrong. The bed on Lily's side was unmade, the crisp white sheets twisted into a knot, as if she'd leapt out in a hurry. A single pillow lay on the floor, its corner stained with something dark. Ava's stomach tightened. She stepped inside, her breath catching as the door creaked shut behind her. The desk lamp flickered, casting jagged shadows across the walls, and she noticed a scrap of paper on Lily's pillow. It was torn, the edges jagged like it had been ripped in a struggle. Three words stared up at her in Lily's loopy handwriting: Don't look for me.

Ava froze, her fingers hovering over the note. The storm outside roared louder, a gust rattling the windowpane, but all she could hear was the thud of her own pulse. Lily had been fine yesterday—chatty, laughing about her bio exam, planning to meet her boyfriend later. She'd even left a sticky note on Ava's sketchbook: Borrowed your red pencil, hope you don't mind! That note was still there, stuck to the desk, but now it felt like a relic from another life. Ava's eyes darted around the room. Lily's phone was gone. Her backpack, usually slung over the chair, was missing too. But her coat—the bright yellow one she wore everywhere—hung on the hook by the door, dripping wet.

"She wouldn't leave without her coat," Ava muttered, her voice barely audible over the rain. She crossed the room in three quick steps, her fingers brushing the damp fabric. It was soaked, as if Lily had been out in the storm not long ago. A shiver ran down Ava's spine, sharp and cold. She wasn't prone to panic—years of living with uncertainty had taught her to stay calm—but this wasn't normal. Lily didn't just vanish. People didn't vanish.

Or did they? Oakwood had its whispers. Every fall, the upperclassmen swapped stories over coffee in the quad: students who'd dropped out without a word, disappeared into the sprawling campus like ghosts. The administration always had excuses—stress, family emergencies, transfers—but the rumors lingered. Ava had heard them too, late at night in the common room, when the lights were low and the wind howled through the ivy-covered walls. A girl last year, vanished after midterms. A guy two years ago, last seen near the old chapel. She'd always dismissed it as gossip, the kind of tales bored college kids spun to feel alive. But now, standing in the half-empty room, those stories didn't feel so far-fetched.

She grabbed her phone from her pocket, fumbling with the screen as rain streaked the window behind her. Her thumb hovered over Lily's contact—Lily Parker, Bio Nerd Extraordinaire—and she hit call. It rang once, twice, then went straight to voicemail. Lily's chipper voice filled the silence: "Hey, it's me! Leave a message, or don't, I probably won't check it anyway!" Ava ended the call, her breath shallow. She tried again. Same result. A third time, just to be sure, but the outcome didn't change. The phone was off, or dead, or somewhere Lily couldn't answer.

"Okay, think," Ava said, pacing the small space. Her boots left faint wet prints on the floor. She needed to do something—call someone, find someone. The campus police? No, they'd laugh her off; it hadn't even been a day. Lily's boyfriend, Matt? Maybe he knew something. But Matt was a senior, always busy with his frat, and Ava barely had his number. She stopped pacing and stared at the note again. Don't look for me. It sounded like a plea—or a warning. Either way, it made her skin crawl.

She sank onto her own bed, the springs creaking under her weight, and pulled her portfolio onto her lap. Drawing always steadied her, ever since she was a kid hiding from the chaos of her mother's disappearance. That mystery had never been solved—her mom walking out one night, leaving nothing but a half-finished painting and a note that said I'll be back. She never was. Ava had spent years sketching that moment, trying to fill in the blanks her memory couldn't. Now, with Lily gone, the old ache flared up again, sharp and familiar. She flipped open her sketchbook, her fingers trembling as she reached for a pencil. Maybe if she drew, she could make sense of this.

The pencil moved before she told it to, scratching across the page in quick, jagged strokes. She didn't know what she was drawing—just let her hand take over, the way it sometimes did when her mind was too loud. The storm outside faded, the room narrowing to the paper in front of her. Lines became shapes: a figure in the dark, cloaked in shadow, standing over something crumpled on the ground. A splash of red—blood?—spread beneath it, stark against the graphite. Ava's throat tightened as the image took form. It wasn't Lily, not exactly, but it felt like her. Like danger. Like a warning she couldn't quite grasp.

She dropped the pencil, her breath hitching. The sketch stared back at her, rough and unfinished, but alive with menace. She'd had these moments before—flashes of intuition that spilled onto the page, hints of things she couldn't explain. Her therapist called it trauma, her art professor called it talent, but Ava didn't have a name for it. All she knew was that it scared her, and it was never wrong.

A knock at the door jolted her upright, the pencil rolling off the bed and clattering to the floor. She shoved the sketchbook under her pillow, her heart hammering. "Who's there?" she called, her voice sharper than she meant it to be.

"Maintenance," came a gruff reply. "Heard there's a leak up here."

Ava hesitated, then crossed to the door and cracked it open. A man in a gray jumpsuit stood in the hall, his face shadowed under a baseball cap. He smelled of cigarette smoke and wet earth, and his eyes flicked past her into the room. "You got a problem?" he asked, his tone flat.

"No," Ava said quickly, her grip tightening on the doorknob. "Everything's fine."

He didn't move, just stared at her for a beat too long. "You sure? Looks like you're alone tonight."

Her stomach dropped. She hadn't told anyone Lily was gone—not yet. "I'm fine," she repeated, forcing a smile. "Thanks for checking."

He grunted, then turned and shuffled down the hall, his boots heavy on the stairs. Ava shut the door and locked it, her hands shaking as she slid the deadbolt into place. She didn't know why, but that encounter felt off, like a puzzle piece that didn't fit. She glanced at Lily's coat again, then at the note, then at the sketch hidden under her pillow. The room seemed smaller now, the walls pressing in, the storm outside a relentless roar.

She couldn't stay here. Not tonight. Grabbing her phone and keys, she stuffed the note into her pocket and headed for the door. She didn't know where she was going—maybe the library, maybe the quad—but she needed answers. Lily was out there, somewhere, and Ava wasn't about to let her vanish like her mother had. Not if she could help it.

As she stepped into the hallway, the lights flickered, plunging the corridor into shadow for a heartbeat before flaring back to life. She didn't look back.