The body was found at sunrise.
Hung from the water tower like a rag doll, arms outstretched, head bowed. The news hadn't broken yet—but the call came in just as Detective Rowan Dyer was stepping out of the shower.
By the time he arrived at the scene, the sky was pale gray, and the tower had already been cordoned off with yellow tape. The small town of Durnville was waking up slowly, unaware that death was still walking among them.
Rowan's boots crunched gravel as he approached Officer Cooper at the base of the tower.
"Who is it?" he asked.
Cooper looked shaken. "We're confirming ID now… but she's not a local."
"Another outsider?" Rowan muttered.
Cooper nodded. "She had something pinned to her shirt."
He handed over a plastic evidence bag.
Rowan's eyes narrowed. Inside the bag was a scrap of paper, wrinkled and bloodstained. Handwritten.
"For the girl who asks too many questions.
See you soon.
—M"
Underneath the note was a drawing: the spiral-in-a-triangle symbol. But this version was different—smaller symbols etched around it, like glyphs orbiting a sun.
This wasn't just a warning.
It was personal.
Mara stood in front of her apartment mirror, unmoving. She had read the note three times. She had stared at the photograph of the water tower victim for almost an hour.
She recognized the woman.
Her name was Danica Wyatt. A former cult survivor turned whistleblower. Mara had interviewed her once—over a year ago—for a piece on ritual abuse in fringe communities. Danica had begged her not to publish the article under her real name.
Mara had listened.
But now she was dead anyway.
Her phone buzzed. A message from a private number.
We see you too.
She stared at the screen. No reply. Just the cursor blinking like a pulse.
Then, a second message appeared. A photo.
Lila Holloway. Sitting on a swing in her backyard, six months before her death.
But in the bottom right corner—barely visible—a shadowed figure stood at the edge of the woods.
Watching.
Mara zoomed in, heart pounding.
The figure was wearing a mask.
That evening, Rowan sat in his office, rifling through evidence boxes from the Holloway case, hoping something—anything—would explain what they were up against. He didn't believe in cults. Not in the way TV showed them. He didn't believe in magic. Or monsters.
But he believed in people.
And he knew what people were capable of.
Then he found it.
Lila's journal.
Confiscated. Never catalogued. Buried in a box marked Personal Effects – DO NOT RELEASE.
He opened it.
The first half was normal—school notes, doodles, lyrics. But around page 63, everything changed.
"I think she knows I've seen them," Lila had written.
"The people with the masks. They meet in the woods behind the church. I only saw them once. But I heard the chant again last night. It's always the same.
They call themselves 'The Cleaners.'
I don't think my mom knows.
Or maybe she does."
Rowan stared at the page.
There, in the margin, Lila had drawn the same symbol. Triangle. Spiral. But hers had names beneath each point:
MOTHER
HAND
EYE
Beneath that, a final line:
"If I disappear, look in the black room. It hears everything."
Rowan exhaled slowly.
The Holloways didn't have a black room.
Unless…
He grabbed his coat.
Meanwhile, in the quiet, candlelit basement beneath the Holloway house, Claire Holloway sat alone. The circle was empty. The masks gone. The boy had been sent home.
She stared at the altar, fingers laced beneath her chin, murmuring something that was half prayer, half lullaby.
Then she rose and crossed to the far wall.
There, behind the tapestries and shelves of old records, was a locked door. Black wood. Brass hinges. Unmarked. Soundproofed.
She unlocked it.
Inside, the walls were painted obsidian. No windows. No light source. Just a table.
And a tape recorder.
Claire pressed PLAY.
A voice crackled through:
"She knows. The blogger. Mara.
And the detective's getting closer.
What do we do?"
Another voice—Claire's own—answered from the tape, eerily calm:
"We let them come."