3. What lies beneath ?

The night pressed down around her, thick and impenetrable. A slow, creeping fog curled around the edges of the road, swallowing the world in muted grays. Claire's breath came in ragged bursts, each inhale sharp against the cold.

Her fingers twitched. Barefoot. Her skin prickled against the frozen asphalt.

"I was in my apartment. I was in my bed.

W..what's going on!! Why am I... "

The cold air burned her skin. The rough gravel bit into her bare feet. Her lungs tightened as if she had been running, but she didn't remember moving. Her heart pounded, frantic and erratic, like a trapped moth slamming against glass.

She swallowed, but her throat was dry—parched, like she had spent hours screaming in her sleep.

Her body wasn't just cold. It was drenched in sweat, the damp fabric of her nightshirt clinging to her skin. Her fingers twitched at her sides, her breaths uneven, shallow, like she had forgotten how to inhale properly.

Why ... Why did it feel like the night had swallowed her whole? Like she had woken up somewhere she wasn't supposed to be?

why was she here?

The house loomed ahead, its silhouette jagged against the sky. The broken windows gaped like empty sockets, and the wind hummed low through the cracks in the walls.

A shiver raked down her spine.

I didn't walk here.

Her pulse quickened. She took a step back, her foot meeting damp earth. Something crunched beneath her heel.

Bones.

Tiny, brittle fragments scattered in the dirt.

Her stomach twisted. The air smelled of rot. Of something wet and old.

She turned, her breath stalling.

The grave.

The floorboards she had ripped open. The place where Adam Lorne's decaying body had been.

But it was empty.

The wood lay splintered, clawed apart from the inside.

Her lungs locked. The earth around the grave had been disturbed, long furrows dragging outward—

The grave wasn't just empty. It was violated.

The wooden boards lay in splinters, some snapped clean in half, others warped, as if something hungry had clawed its way through them. Deep, jagged grooves marred the earth, dragging outward in long, uneven trails.

Not dug up. Not disturbed.

Escaped...

The soil was damp, freshly overturned, but it wasn't just dirt that stained the surface. Dark smears—thick, congealed—soaked into the broken planks, trailing out of the grave like a path.

Blood.

Claire's stomach twisted. The air reeked of it. Sharp. Metallic. Fresh.

Her pulse pounded in her ears.

And then she saw them.

The prints.

Imprinted deep in the dirt, smeared through the blood. Not boot prints. Not bare feet.

Hands.

Fingers had torn through the earth, leaving behind deep, jagged trenches in the damp soil—marks of something that hadn't just risen, but fought its way free. The ground was shredded, clawed apart with a desperation so raw it seeped into the air, thick and suffocating.

Whatever had been buried here hadn't simply emerged.

It had crawled. It had struggled.

And judging by the deep, uneven handprints leading away into the darkness…

It was still moving.

Claire staggered back, her chest tightening. The silence around her felt wrong—too deep, too still. As if the world itself was holding its breath.

Then—a shift.

A sound.

Faint. Wet.

Something moved behind her.

A whisper curled through the air, soft as a breath against her ear.

"Claire."

Her skin turned to ice.

Slowly, she looked up.

A figure stood by the house. Still. Watching.

Not Adam.

Someone else.

The wind picked up, and for the briefest moment, she could swear she heard it again.

Not a whisper.

A laugh....

She turned sharply.

A black sedan loomed at the edge of the darkness, its sleek body barely visible beneath the dim glow of the moon. The engine was silent. The windows, impossibly dark—like twin voids swallowing the night itself.

Claire's breath hitched, a sharp, involuntary gasp that barely left her lips. She knew this car.

Not in the way one recognizes an ordinary vehicle on the street—this was deeper, carved into her bones, an unsettling déjà vu that made her stomach twist.

The black sedan sat unnervingly still, its sleek frame swallowing the moonlight. The windows were too dark, too empty—like twin voids, watching her, waiting.

She couldn't move. The air had thickened, pressing against her chest, each breath shallow and strained.

It wasn't just familiar—it was identical. The same model. The same dent near the rear bumper. The same lifeless presence from the grainy surveillance image in Anna Prescott's missing persons report.

And then—

A slow, deliberate creak shattered the silence.

The driver's door creaked open, slow and measured, like something inside had been expecting her.

Claire's pulse thundered. No one stepped out. The door hung ajar, a gaping wound in the night. The air shifted, thick with something unseen.

Something was waiting. Watching.

And then—

To be continued.....