Chapter 2: Marked

I didn't sleep that night.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was still watching me.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, my wrist throbbing where the thing had grabbed me. The red mark hadn't faded. If anything, it looked darker now—angrier. It didn't hurt exactly, but it tingled, like static crawling under my skin.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it. The Watcher. Standing in the corn, its hollow eyes boring into me, its grin stretched too wide.

Had it been real? Or had my mind twisted shadows into something worse?

I wanted to believe it was just my imagination.

But deep down, I knew better.

The whispers hadn't stopped.

They were quieter now, barely more than a murmur at the edges of my hearing. But they were there.

Waiting.

The next morning, Amy showed up at my house before school.

I wasn't surprised.

I hadn't texted her after last night. I hadn't texted *anyone.* But I knew she wouldn't let it go.

I opened the door, and the moment she saw me, her expression darkened.

"Jack, you look like hell."

"Thanks," I muttered. "Just what I needed to hear."

She didn't smile. "Let me see your arm."

I hesitated, then rolled up my sleeve.

Amy inhaled sharply. The mark had deepened overnight, the red now closer to black. Jagged lines extended outward, branching like veins.

"That's not normal," she said.

"No kidding."

"Jack… something happened to you in there."

I met her gaze. "I know."

For the first time, I saw real fear in her eyes. Not the thrill-seeking kind. The kind that sank deep and didn't let go.

Amy wasn't the type to scare easily.

That terrified me more than anything.

School was a blur.

The whispers followed me everywhere—down the halls, in the classroom, even in the cafeteria.

I couldn't understand the words, but I *felt* them. They coiled around me, crawling under my skin, tugging at something deep in my chest.

At lunch, Amy sat across from me, picking at her food. Mike and Danny were unusually quiet. Normally, they'd be joking about something stupid, but today, the weight of last night still clung to all of us.

"So," Mike said finally. "We gonna talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about," I said. "It happened. It's over."

Danny scoffed. "Yeah? Then why do you look like you haven't slept in a year?"

I glared at him, but before I could reply, Amy spoke up.

"We need to figure out what's going on."

"There's nothing to figure out," I said, too quickly.

Amy wasn't buying it. "Jack, something *touched* you last night. Something left a *mark* on you. That doesn't just happen."

I clenched my fists under the table. "And what do you suggest we do? Go back?"

Danny paled. "Hell no."

Mike shook his head. "Screw that. I'm not stepping foot near that place again."

Amy hesitated. "Maybe we don't have to go back. Maybe we can just… find out what we're dealing with."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

She lowered her voice. "That field's been abandoned for years, right? But people *used* to live there. Something must've happened. Maybe we can figure out what."

I wanted to tell her she was being ridiculous. That none of this was real.

But I couldn't.

Because the whispers were still there.

And the mark on my arm was still spreading.

That night, I dreamed of the field.

I was standing in the corn again, flashlight dead in my hands. The stalks towered around me, stretching higher than before, shifting in unnatural ways.

I wasn't alone.

The Watcher stood just ahead, its grin wider than ever, its hollow eyes locked onto me.

It lifted one long, skeletal hand—

And pointed.

I turned.

Behind me, the scarecrow was no longer slumped.

It was *standing*.

Its head jerked toward me in sharp, unnatural movements. Its burlap face twisted, and from within, a voice whispered—

*"You're mine now."*

I woke up screaming.

The next day, we met at the library.

Amy had spent all night digging up old town records. She spread them out across the table, eyes scanning each page.

"Here," she said suddenly, tapping a newspaper clipping.

I leaned in. The headline read:

**"Tragedy Strikes Holloway Farm—Family Disappears Without a Trace."**

The article was dated **thirty years ago.**

Amy read aloud. "The Holloway family—parents and their two children—vanished overnight. No signs of forced entry. No struggle. Just… gone."

I swallowed hard.

"Wait," Mike said. "Didn't a different family move into that house after them?"

Amy nodded. "Yeah. And guess what?"

She slid another article forward. Another headline.

**"Another Disappearance Shocks Town—Miller Family Missing."**

Danny shifted uneasily. "So what? A couple families disappear, and suddenly it's a haunted field?"

Amy glared at him. "That's *two* families, Danny. Years apart. Both gone without a trace."

I looked down at the articles, my pulse hammering.

The cornfield had been swallowing people for decades.

And now it had *marked me.*

That night, I barely made it an hour before the nightmares started again.

This time, I was inside the Holloway house.

The walls were covered in *whispers.* Words scrawled in something dark, looping over and over.

*"He's watching."*

*"He never left."*

*"You belong to him now."*

Footsteps

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