A Face in the Water
In the morning when he woke up.
The first thing Elias felt was cold.
Then the sting.
Then the smell.
Metallic. Sharp. Familiar.
His eyes snapped open.
He was in a bathtub — not his own. Water, dark red and clinging, lapped at his chest. His hands floated limply, stained in scarlet. Blood. Not a dream. Not water dyed with rust.
Real.
He sat up in panic, gasping, drenched and trembling. No wounds. No pain. None of this blood was his.
The bathroom was unfamiliar — cracked ceramic tiles, mold trailing up the grout like rot blooming from years of silence. A single lightbulb flickered overhead, casting the room in a nauseating strobe. On the fogged mirror above the sink, faint words had been traced with a finger:
"Do you remember now?"
His heart pounded.
He stumbled out of the tub, his soaked clothes clinging like a second skin. His shoes were missing. The floor was icy, grime-caked. The silence felt intentional — oppressive.
He didn't know how he got here.
Didn't remember walking in.
Didn't remember the blood.
A small window let in the faint gray hue of morning.
That's when his phone vibrated on the counter.
UNKNOWN CALLER.
Elias hesitated. Then, slowly, answered.
"Elias Cross?" A woman's voice — calm, firm, professional, but oddly soft beneath it.
"Yes…"
"This is Detective Quinn from Central Precinct. We'd like to speak with you. There's been a case. Your name appeared in connection with it."
Elias swallowed hard. "Why?"
"The victim was a former staff member at Vale House. We need to ask you a few questions — routine procedure."
Her voice dropped slightly.
"I suggest you come soon."
Click.
The silence returned, louder than before.
---
The Central Police Precinct was a slab of concrete, sour coffee, and flickering lights. Fluorescent bulbs buzzed overhead like angry flies. Elias sat stiffly in the reception area, his damp clothes now hidden beneath a borrowed coat — someone's lost item from the train station. He could still smell the blood beneath it. It hadn't washed off entirely.
Across from him, a young man sat silently. Pale. Fidgeting. Called in for the same case, Elias overheard. The receptionist had mixed up their names once.
Elias didn't know him. Didn't ask.
He wouldn't matter. Not yet.
The television on the wall played static between local news headlines — one of them about the ongoing string of killings in East Duskmoor. "No suspects at this time," the anchor droned. "Authorities confirm the messages left at the scenes are being analyzed…"
Messages?
Elias looked down at his hands.
Still clean.
But not clean enough.
---
Detective Quinn met him personally. She wasn't what he expected.
A beautiful woman in her mid-forties, sharp-featured with dark, serious eyes. Her presence was commanding without being cold. Her coat — long, black, tailored — flowed behind her like a shadow. She removed her soft leather gloves as she approached, revealing slender fingers that had no doubt signed off on many crime scene photos.
"Mr. Cross," she said, nodding. "This way."
They passed rows of offices and frosted glass, every door closing behind them with soft finality.
The room was sterile. Single table. Two chairs. An old air conditioner hummed with the indifference of a dying machine.
"You were admitted to Vale House as a child," Quinn began, placing a manila folder between them.
"Yes," Elias said. "But I don't remember much."
"That seems to be a pattern," she murmured, almost to herself.
She laid a photograph on the table.
A woman — late fifties, maybe. Eyes closed. Pale, peaceful in the most disturbing way. Blood dried like rivers around her neck in neat surgical slashes which looked exactly like a smiling face. But it wasn't the body that froze Elias.
It was what was behind her.
Drawn crudely on the peeling wallpaper — in green wax — a child's drawing. Stick figures. One tall, arms twisted and too long. Another figure — smaller — cowering in the corner. Both had the same hollow, blackened eyes.
A smile on the tall one. Too wide. Too wrong.
Elias's stomach turned. He felt the nausea swell like a rising tide.
"We found this near the body," Quinn continued. She held up a clear evidence bag.
Inside: some broken pieces of used green crayon.
"This is what drew it. It was clutched in her hand."
She paused, her voice careful.
"Fingerprints were partial, but a forensic trace matched a childhood print from Vale House. Yours."
Elias's voice felt distant, like it traveled from someone else. "I don't remember ever—"
"Exactly," she interrupted gently. "You don't remember. But someone does."
She slid the photo aside and pulled out another document.
"The woman was named Marlene Haycroft. She worked at Vale House for twenty years. Retired in '09 after a breakdown. You were one of her assigned children. You and six others."
Elias's mouth went dry.
"All six of the others are dead now."
"What?"
She didn't blink.
"Accidents. Suicide. Overdose. Two disappearances. None of them made headlines. We only linked them recently."
He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
"You're not under arrest," Quinn said, her voice softer now. "But I'll be honest — this case isn't going away. We're not looking for monsters. We're looking for answers. And if there's something inside you that remembers…"
She didn't finish.
Didn't need to.
The words on the mirror came back to him.
"Do you remember now?"
---
Outside, the city breathed in smog and coughed it back out.
Elias wandered.
The hours slipped like oil between his fingers. Streets blurred. Horns, flashing signs, and drifting voices all became background noise. The city no longer looked real. It looked staged — like paper cutouts trying to imitate memory.
He stopped at a crossing. Red light blinking. No cars. No people.
He checked his pockets for change and felt something smooth.
Something waxy.
He froze.
Fingers trembling, he pulled it out.
A green crayon.Snapped clean in the center.
Exactly like the one in the evidence bag.
His breath caught.
The same make. The same feel.
His mind screamed.
Not at the detective's words.
Not at the woman's death.
But at this.
How did it get into his pocket?
His thoughts twisted. Were they planting it? Was this a trick?
Or was it his?
No.
No.
His hand trembled violently as he threw it into the nearest trash bin.
He didn't look back.
Couldn't.
---
By nightfall, Elias had found himself deep in the outskirts of Duskmoor — where the city forgot itself. Rusted swings groaned in the breeze. A vandalized sign marked "Whisper Park" with fading paint and a graffitied skull.
He walked toward the pond.
It had been here since he was a child — a mirror of still black water tucked into a hollow of dying trees. No birds. No frogs. No sound.
He knelt at the water's edge, breath fogging in the night air.
And stared.
The water reflected him.
But not him.
The eyes were his — but not the same. Brighter. Deeper. Empty.
Then the reflection smiled.
But he hadn't.
It was too wide. Too sharp.
And then it blinked.
Elias leaned closer, his breath catching.
The reflection whispered — lips unmoving:
"You fear her words…"
"…but deeper still, you fear yourself."
The surface rippled as if something stirred beneath.
He backed away, stumbling onto the grass, heart pounding like thunder in his skull.
But he couldn't look away.
Because in that reflection — just before the surface broke — he saw it.
His face — but not him.
A grin that knew things he didn't.
A mind behind the glass.
The Nameless One.
It didn't need to speak.
Because its smile said everything.
"You never left anything."
"You just took it with you."
The pond went still again.
But Elias wasn't.
He sat there, staring, unable to move.
The crayon was back in his coat pocket.
And this time…
He didn't take it out.
He just closed his eyes.
Because he finally understood:
The monster wasn't in the drawing or mirrors.
The monster was inside him
Waiting to be remembered.
| Arc I: Whisper of the Hollow — End
To Be Continued…