The stream had ended, but the night didn't feel over. It never did.
Maris slumped back in her chair, rubbing her temples. The chat was still buzzing in the corner of her screen, but it felt like static, distant and muffled, as if the world outside had suddenly become too loud, too fast. She reached for her phone, only to find another message waiting for her.
The sea whispers, but it doesn't wait forever.
Her fingers hovered over the screen, but she didn't want to read it. Not really. It was the same kind of cryptic nonsense that had been haunting her for days. Messages from people she didn't know, messages from voices that seemed to come from somewhere deep under the water, echoing in her mind.
Stop overthinking it, she told herself. It's just the stress. The lack of sleep.
She glanced around her apartment, trying to ground herself in the here and now. The dim light from her desk lamp barely illuminated the clutter around her—empty coffee cups, half-eaten snacks, and stacks of unopened packages. It was all normal. It was all fine.
Then the flicker hit.
The screen blinked. The lights dimmed. The hum of the city outside, always present, felt suddenly off. She blinked, rubbing her eyes. That weird feeling again. That strange sense that something was wrong. Something off.
Her phone buzzed again, cutting through the tension. She picked it up. A new message.
"Are you going to keep ignoring this?"
Her breath caught in her throat. There it was again—the feeling that something was watching her, waiting. Waiting for her to acknowledge it. To step into whatever it was that had been lurking in the background.
She exhaled sharply. Okay. Enough.
With a resigned groan, she tossed the phone aside and grabbed her jacket. The night air would help clear her mind. She needed to get out of her own head.
The city was quieter than usual. The hum of traffic, the distant chatter of people, the occasional whir of a passing train—it all blended together in a strange harmony. But Maris couldn't shake the feeling. The air felt heavy, like the world was holding its breath.
She ended up at the park, the place she always went when she wanted to escape for a while. There was something soothing about the solitude. The stillness. The distant sound of the fountain. The only thing missing was the chatter of her usual late-night stream viewers.
I'm just being paranoid, she thought. It's nothing. It's just the stress.
But still, she sat on the bench, her fingers gripping the cold metal as if it could anchor her. She closed her eyes, trying to push the creeping sense of unease away.
That's when she heard it. A voice. Soft, but unmistakable.
"Are you alright?"
The voice made her jolt upright. A man stood a few feet away, maybe in his late twenties, holding a bag of convenience store snacks and a drink that looked too adult for his mood.
"You okay?" he asked again, cautiously, like he wasn't sure if she was lost or just… weird.
Maris blinked. "Uh, yeah. Just zoning out."
The man gave her a long look. "You sure you're allowed to be out this late?"
She stared at him. "Excuse me?"
He scratched his head, eyes narrowing like he was doing complicated math. "You look kinda young. Middle school? High school maybe?"
Maris inhaled sharply through her nose. Not again. "I'm twenty-two," she said flatly. "I just have good skincare. And trauma."
That shut him up.
He gave a sheepish chuckle, mumbled something about the weather, and wandered off, leaving her to stew in her embarrassment. Still, there was something absurdly funny about it. If her viewers saw this, they'd be howling in chat. Short fish Energy, they'd say.
She huffed a laugh, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.
The sky was starting to cloud over. A low wind rustled through the trees. She was just about to head back when her phone buzzed again.
This time, it wasn't a message. It was a notification. A calendar reminder. But one she didn't remember setting:
Return to where it all began. Midnight. Don't be late.^_^
Her stomach dropped.
That phrase. It felt… important. Familiar in the wrong kind of way, like a melody you forgot you used to hum as a kid. It made her skin crawl. Made her heart beat just a little too fast.
She checked the time. 11:41.
I could ignore it.
But she was already walking.