The weight of silence

William's POV)

For the longest time, I thought keeping quiet was the safest option. No one believed me before—why would they believe me now? But after what I just saw, after hearing their panicked breaths and seeing the fear in their eyes, I knew I didn't have a choice anymore. The thing I saw, the thing that's been haunting me since that night in our hometown... it was here. And it wasn't going away.

I leaned against my bedroom door, listening to them argue downstairs. Daniel, Ella, Trevor, and Alex—panicked, frustrated, desperate for answers. I exhaled slowly, my fingers tightening into a fist. It was time.

Steeling myself, I made my way down the stairs. Their voices grew clearer.

"I'm telling you, we have to do something!" Daniel was saying. "We can't just sit here and wait for it to show up again!"

"And do what, Daniel?" Alex shot back. "We don't even know what it is! How the hell do we fight something we don't understand?"

"We find out what it wants," Ella said. "Everything has a reason, right? It's been after Daniel for months, but why? There has to be a pattern."

"There is," I said, finally stepping into the room.

They all turned to me, surprise flickering across their faces. I could tell Daniel wasn't expecting me to speak up. I wasn't expecting it either. But I had spent over a year with this nightmare, and now that they had seen it, I couldn't let them go through what I did.

Trevor folded his arms. "Okay, you got our attention. What do you mean by 'a pattern'?"

I hesitated, choosing my words carefully. "I've seen it before. Not just tonight. Not just here." I looked at Daniel. "You know what I'm talking about."

Daniel's expression darkened. "Back home."

I nodded. "The night everything changed for me."

I hadn't spoken about that night since it happened. I'd buried it so deep that sometimes I convinced myself it wasn't real. But it was. It always was.

"The night before we left our hometown, I saw it," I began. "Not just a glimpse, not a shadow out of the corner of my eye—I saw it in its true form. And it saw me."

Ella's breath hitched. "What did it look like?"

I swallowed hard, the memory clawing its way back to the surface. "It's... hard to describe. It doesn't belong in this world. Its shape, its presence—it bends reality. One moment it looks human, the next, it's something else entirely. But the eyes... the eyes are always the same."

Daniel looked down, his hands tightening into fists. "Glowing," he whispered. "Like in the basement."

I nodded. "Exactly."

Trevor sat down on the couch, rubbing his face. "So what the hell does it want? Why is it after you and Daniel?"

"That's the part I don't know," I admitted. "But I do know this: it feeds on something. I don't know if it's fear, memories, or something else entirely, but it latches onto people. It doesn't just haunt randomly—it chooses."

Silence settled over the room as the weight of my words sank in. Daniel exhaled sharply. "If that's true, then why did it choose me?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. But I think our dad's research has something to do with it. Whatever he was studying, whatever he found... I think it caught the entity's attention."

Ella's eyes widened. "That means we need to go deeper into his notes."

Daniel stood up, determination written all over his face. "Then let's do it."

We spent the next two hours combing through our dad's research in the basement. The dim overhead light flickered as we flipped through pages of old books, loose notes, and faded photographs. Every so often, I caught Alex shivering, glancing toward the darkened corners of the room. He wasn't alone. The entity had been here once—who was to say it wouldn't return?

"This is insane," Trevor muttered. "Your dad had all this stuff, and he never told you what he was looking for?"

Daniel shook his head. "He always kept his work private. He said he'd tell me when I was older, but then he... disappeared."

I clenched my jaw. "Not disappeared. Taken."

Ella turned to me. "You think the entity took him?"

I hesitated. "I don't know. But I do know that he knew something. And whatever it was, the entity didn't want him to share it."

Trevor suddenly held up an old leather-bound book. "This looks important."

We gathered around as he flipped it open. Inside were pages filled with symbols, drawings, and notes in Dad's messy handwriting. The sketches sent a chill through me. They looked eerily similar to what I had seen that night in our hometown.

Daniel read aloud: "'A presence older than time. Existing between worlds. Drawn to those who see beyond the veil.'" He looked up at me. "Will... this thing didn't just choose us randomly. We saw it."

My stomach twisted. "You're saying just seeing it was enough?"

Ella pointed to another passage. "Look. 'The first sighting is an invitation. The second is a bond. The third... is a claim.'"

A heavy silence filled the room. Trevor exhaled sharply. "So what, we're cursed now?"

Daniel shook his head. "No. But if this is right, then seeing it multiple times means it won't let go."

Alex groaned. "Great. So we're all basically on its hit list now."

"No," I said. "Not all of us."

They looked at me, confused.

I exhaled and pointed at Daniel and myself. "It's been following us. You guys only just saw it tonight. That means there's still a chance to break whatever this is before it binds itself to you too."

Ella frowned. "How?"

Daniel flipped another page, eyes scanning the text. He went pale. "'The only way to sever the bond is to return to the place of the first sighting.'"

My blood ran cold. "We have to go back home."

Trevor groaned. "You mean the place you ran away from?"

Daniel looked at me, and I could see the fear in his eyes. But I also saw something else—determination.

"We have no choice," he said. "If we don't end this now... it's going to end us."