Chapter 3 – Where the Shadows Watch
I kept walking because I didn't know what else to do.
The pain in my ribs dulled into a slow, tight squeeze with every breath, but I couldn't tell if that meant I was healing or just learning how to live with it. My legs hurt, my stomach twisted, and the skin beneath my tattoo burned faintly, like a low fever tucked under the surface. Everything else—the bruises, the scrapes, the stiffness in my neck—blurred together into a single ache I didn't have the energy to name.
But worse than all of it was the silence.
Not outside—inside me.
No thoughts. No plan. No memory strong enough to hold onto. Just a gnawing stillness that spread every time I tried to remember something that felt safe.
And still, I walked.
I drifted through streets that looked like they'd been forgotten by time. Weeds curling up through concrete. Abandoned stores with dust-washed windows. A long row of vending machines, half of them dead, the rest humming with the sound of machines that hadn't been serviced in years.
I passed three people.
None of them met my eyes.
They didn't cross the street, or run, or yell—but they kept their distance like I was leaking something they couldn't explain. The last one, a boy no older than twelve, looked right at my arm. His eyes widened. Then he grabbed his mother's coat without a word, and they both vanished into the next alley.
The hunger was worse now. It came in waves. Hot and dizzying.
I found a gutter pipe leaking into a storm drain and drank from it with cupped hands. It tasted like metal and mold. I threw it up a few minutes later, curled behind a dumpster behind a smoke shop.
Still, I walked.
The first time I felt it, it didn't register as fear.
It felt like I was being pulled toward something. Like my legs were slightly off-balance. Like the air in front of me was thicker than the air behind me, just enough to make me lean forward even when I wanted to stop.
I paused.
The air didn't.
It moved.
Not wind.
Not weather.
It was just… movement.
A ripple. Like heat off asphalt. But colder.
I turned, half-expecting to see someone behind me, but the street was empty. Just a slow breeze and flickering neon reflected in puddles that hadn't been there an hour ago.
Then I noticed the cat.
It sat at the far end of the alley, one paw lifted slightly off the ground. Too thin. Almost skeletal. Its fur was ash-colored and patchy, like it had once been on fire but never burned through. It didn't blink. Just stared.
I looked away.
Another cat perched on a fence across the street.
Same build. Same stare.
They didn't feel alive.
They felt like statues watching for breath.
I turned again, this time faster. The air behind me changed—lighter, as if something large had just stepped back into the dark.
But there was nothing there.
No footsteps.
No sound.
No sign.
Just me. The cats. And the tension crawling down my spine like a second skin.
I kept moving.
Faster now.
I found shelter in a half-collapsed building near the city's edge. Maybe it had been a school once—graffiti covered the walls, but the layout felt like it had been meant to guide people. The windows were smashed in. The doors hung like broken limbs. I climbed through one and settled in a corner on the second floor, where I could see the skyline without being seen.
The tattoo on my arm pulsed.
Slow. Rhythmic.
I touched it again.
The skin beneath my fingers was too warm. I could feel the ink like it was part of me, not under me.
A memory tried to surface. Her hands. The needle. Her whisper.
I pushed it down.
I couldn't afford to think about love in a place like this.
I slept. Kind of.
What I really did was black out for a few hours and drift in and out of something that felt like dreaming but tasted like static.
I heard voices, but they weren't speaking.
Just breathing.
Like they were waiting for me to notice them.
I didn't.
Not really.
But something inside me did.
Because when I woke, my body felt heavier—but cleaner. Like some small infection had been burned out without medicine or fire. My ribs didn't scream when I sat up. My shoulder still ached, but it no longer shook when I moved.
It scared me more than the pain had.
I left the shelter by dusk.
Back into the noise.
Back into the strange.
The streets felt different again—quieter, but not in a peaceful way. The buildings leaned closer. The air tugged at my clothes like it was trying to measure me. I passed a mirror someone had propped against a wall and caught my reflection.
I looked like I'd survived something.
And something looked back through my eyes that didn't belong to me.
Later, I found a quiet street market—mostly empty, save for a few vendors cleaning up their stalls. I approached one slowly. An old man selling dried fish and packaged rice balls. He looked up, gave me a nod.
I held up a few coins I'd found earlier in a gutter, and he took them wordlessly.
Then he saw my tattoo.
He paused. Just for a second.
Then reached for a small bell beneath his cart and rang it three times.
I didn't stay long enough to find out what that meant.
I grabbed the food and ran.
That night, I saw someone watching me.
Not a cat.
Not a passerby.
A man. Standing across from an empty rail station. He wore dark clothes and mirrored glasses, even though it was almost pitch black. His arms were folded. He didn't move.
I stared back.
I waited.
No reaction.
I blinked.
Gone.
When I finally found a place to rest, I sat against the edge of a closed arcade, tucked between two trash bins. The cold seeped through my hoodie. The food I'd stolen sat in my stomach like a stone, but it was better than nothing.
I looked at my hands.
They didn't feel like mine anymore.
Not because of the bruises or cuts—those were healing. Too fast.
It was the way the space around them shimmered ever so slightly, like the air didn't know how to wrap around them.
I whispered to myself.
Just to hear something real.
But even my voice felt thinner.
I didn't know what I was becoming.
But I knew it wasn't human—not in the way the city wanted it to be.