The Watcher in the Window

The rumble in the sky faded as suddenly as it came, but its presence lingered like smoke in the lungs. Everyone in the room sat frozen, staring upward, as if expecting the ceiling to vanish and reveal something lurking just above.

But nothing came.

Just silence.

Liam stood first. "We can't just sit here. If there are cracks forming… if something followed us, we need to understand it before it understands us."

"Too late for that," Jenny muttered.

Zayn glanced at her, brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

Jenny didn't look at him. Her hands trembled slightly as she folded the newspaper again. "Sometimes, I see things," she said. "Just… out of the corner of my eye. Like… figures. Watching. Standing just outside the window. And when I turn to look, they're gone."

Louis swallowed. "That's not creepy at all."

"I thought I was going crazy," she continued. "But then I started noticing patterns. They always appear near mirrors. Or reflective glass. Sometimes TV screens when they're off."

"That's exactly how the alternate world worked," Harry whispered. "The reflections. The distortion. Like it was watching us through things."

Niall was pacing now. "So we didn't come back alone… and whatever it is, it's already here. Watching us. Hiding."

Roxy stepped toward the window and tugged the curtain shut with a sharp snap. "Then we stay ahead of it. We don't wait around to be picked off."

Liam nodded. "We need to figure out our connection to it. And fast."

Zayn still had Jenny's sketchbook in his hand. He flipped to another drawing—one that chilled him to the core. It showed the five of them standing in the middle of the cabin in the woods. Their backs were turned to the viewer. Behind them, towering in the doorway, was a figure in black, faceless, eyes glowing white. Its limbs stretched just slightly longer than natural, as though it had been made in imitation of a human… and gotten it wrong.

He handed it silently to Liam.

"That's what I've seen," Jenny said. "Always in the corner. Never moving. Just… watching."

Harry moved closer. "What if it's not just watching?"

Everyone turned toward him.

"What if it's waiting for us to do something?" Harry said slowly. "Roxy said it wanted us gone. Jenny said we don't remember why. What if we were part of something bigger—and whatever this is, it's unfinished business?"

There was a long pause.

Then Liam said, "There's only one way to find out."

—

They split up that afternoon.

It wasn't ideal, but it was necessary. There were too many missing pieces, too many loose threads. They agreed to stay in contact constantly through their group chat, reporting anything unusual, any flicker of memory, any new sightings.

Liam went with Roxy back to their old apartment. She had gathered more notes, photos, everything she'd documented since they vanished.

Harry went to the studio.

He couldn't explain it, but something kept pulling him back there. Not just memories, but an energy, like something had imprinted itself onto the space.

Louis, Zayn, and Niall went to revisit the cabin. Even though it had disappeared from the map after they left the alternate world, Louis remembered a landmark—a twisted tree shaped like a hook near the entrance path. If they could find that, they might find the cabin again… or whatever remained of it.

—

Harry stood alone in the dim light of the studio's back hallway. The main recording space looked normal—equipment untouched, the air still carrying the faint scent of wood and electricity. But when he approached the back storage room, his stomach twisted.

The door was cracked open.

The same door they had passed through when they first arrived in the alternate studio.

Don't go in alone, his brain warned.

But his feet ignored the voice.

He stepped inside.

The room was pitch-black. The moment he entered, the door slammed shut behind him. Darkness swallowed everything.

Then… the soft crackle of vinyl.

A record began to play, slow and scratchy, like an old lullaby played too slow.

Find the music.

The phrase echoed in his mind, again and again. It had been on the map, in the note in the cabin. A directive. A memory.

But this wasn't a song he recognized.

Then a voice.

Not the song.

A voice over the record.

"Harry…"

He turned sharply, heart racing.

Nothing.

Just the voice again. Female. Faintly familiar.

"You don't remember yet," it whispered. "But you will."

Harry's knees buckled slightly.

Roxy?

No—it wasn't her. It was someone else. Colder.

"Come back when you're ready to remember what you lost," the voice said. "We're waiting."

Then the record stopped.

The lights came back on.

Harry stumbled out of the room, chest heaving.

—

Meanwhile, Louis, Zayn, and Niall stood in the middle of the forest, breathless.

They'd found the tree.

It was real.

But the cabin was gone.

All that remained was a patch of flattened grass, surrounded by a faint ring of ash. And at the center of it, something was wedged into the dirt.

Zayn bent down and pulled it free.

It was the CD case.

The same one from the cabin.

Still empty.

But on the back now—faintly written in red ink—was a new message:

"Track 1: Begin to Remember."

And below that, something else had been scratched in:

"She's close."

The wind shifted.

All three of them turned at once, scanning the trees.

Nothing moved.

But they felt her.

The Watcher.

Still lingering.

Still waiting.

—

That night, they all returned to Liam's flat.

They sat around the kitchen table, silent, the CD case in the center. The energy in the room was tense. Each of them had seen or felt something. And it was only getting worse.

"We're going to have to go back," Harry said finally.

The others looked up.

"Back where?" Niall asked.

"To her world. Or the place in between. Whatever it is. She's not going to stop. And whatever we forgot—whatever we did or promised—it's still binding us."

Zayn ran a hand down his face. "If we go back, we might not make it out again."

Louis nodded. "But if we don't, we're just sitting ducks."

Liam looked down at the CD case, then at his phone—still no new messages from Roxy.

He stood.

"Tomorrow," he said. "We figure out how to open a crack… on our terms."

"And if she finds us first?" Niall asked.

Liam looked toward the darkened window.

"Then we fight."