Morning light pooled faintly across Elanor's apartment, washing the walls in a pale, almost hesitant glow like the day itself wasn't sure it wanted to begin. Dust drifted slowly in the air, stirred by nothing but silence. The atmosphere felt suspended, as if the world had forgotten to move for a moment. Or perhaps it was just Elanor who hadn't moved on at all.
His workspace sat by the window neat, organized, yet strangely hollow. A place arranged by someone who needed order to survive the chaos inside his chest. Elanor lowered himself into the chair and let it rotate slightly, an absent-minded motion he had done a thousand times before. His laptop stared at him, its blank page glowing like a spotlight thrown onto a stage where he wasn't ready to stand.
He flexed his fingers over the keyboard.
Nothing happened.
The words that once flowed so easily, the sentences that used to chase each other in his mind none of them came. Instead, the silence thickened, carrying the echo of a voice he had tried so hard to archive somewhere unreachable.
Isabella.
Her name alone felt like a pulse beneath his ribs.
He closed the laptop gently, almost reverently, as if afraid the soft click would shatter the fragile balance he was clinging to. He leaned back, eyes drifting toward the window where the city exhaled in muted tones distant horns, a train rumbling somewhere below, footsteps layering on sidewalks still damp from last night's drizzle.
He should have been used to the loneliness by now.
Yet the room still felt too big.
And he still felt too small inside it.
Elanor exhaled slowly, a breath weighted with the kind of heaviness that had no clear source, only an accumulation of days. He pushed himself up from the chair and walked toward the kitchen, where the faint smell of coffee grounds lingered from the night before. He filled the kettle, watching the water swirl dark, reflective, almost hypnotic before flicking the switch.
As he waited for the boil, his gaze drifted to the small corkboard pinned beside the fridge.
It was empty now.
He had cleared it after Isabell's final message a message he still couldn't delete from his phone, though he had memorized every word. It was as if clearing the board was supposed to help him clear the ache. It didn't. It only made the kitchen feel like a space borrowed from someone else's life.
The kettle clicked.
He poured the water, watching steam billow upward like a whisper rising from the past. He lifted the mug to his lips but paused midway when something unexpected brushed his peripheral vision.
Something moving.
Something shifting at the edge of the living room.
Elanor turned his head sharply.
Nothing.
Just the couch. The lamp. The faint indentation on the cushion where he had fallen asleep last night. But the movement had felt real too real to dismiss. He placed the mug down and walked cautiously toward the living room, his footsteps quiet against the hardwood floor.
Then he saw it.
A ripple in the air, faint but unmistakable. A distortion, as if heat were rising from invisible flames. It hovered near the bookshelf right at the spine of a book he hadn't touched in months:
The Last Lesson.
Isabell's favorite.
Elanor's breath caught.
He blinked.
The ripple vanished.
But the book.
The book had shifted.
It was pulled outward by an inch, enough to break the perfect alignment he always kept.
A chill rolled across his arms, raising goosebumps in a slow wave. He reached out, fingers brushing the edge of the book. The moment he touched it, a thin draft slipped past him cold, unnatural, as though someone had sighed behind him.
He turned.
Again nothing.
Only shadows stretching along the floor, long and patient, as though waiting for him to acknowledge them.
Isabella swallowed. "I'm imagining things," he muttered, though the words didn't sound convincing even to himself.
He slid the book out completely. A folded piece of paper slid out from between the pages and fluttered to the floor. His heart lurched. He crouched, fingers shaking ever so slightly as he picked it up.
It wasn't his handwriting.
And it wasn't Isabell's.
The ink was faded, the edges worn, as if handled by someone who'd been afraid to let it go.
He unfolded it slowly.
You're not alone in this fog.
His pulse hammered. A strange pressure expanded at the base of his throat, equal parts fear and something else something disturbingly close to recognition.
A soft thud sounded behind him.
Elanor spun around, clutching the note.
A picture frame had fallen from the wall.
The one containing their last photo together.
He approached it cautiously, each step measured and slow. The glass hadn't shattered it had simply fallen, almost carefully, as if placed on the floor rather than dropped. He knelt and lifted it, brushing off the dust that clung to the edges.
Their faces smiled back at him.
Isabell's eyes calm, gentle, rooted
and his hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
He whispered, barely audible, "Why now?"
Of course, the room didn't answer.
But the silence felt different now.
Less empty.
He stood and set the frame on the nearest table. His phone vibrated in his pocket just then, startling him so hard he almost dropped the frame again. He pulled out the phone and glanced at the screen.
Unknown Number.
Elanor hesitated before swiping to answer.
"Hello?"
A crackle filled the line, soft at first, like static dissolving into breath. He froze. The air in the apartment shifted, tightening as if the walls were listening.
Then a voice emerged
fragile, distant, trembling at the edges.
"Elanor…"
He knew that voice.
He knew it the way he knew the rhythm of his own heartbeat.
But it couldn't be.
"Isabella?" he whispered.
Another crackle. The line trembled.
He pressed the phone harder against his ear. "Isabella, if this is."
The call cut.
A sharp, dead silence replaced it.
Elanor stared at the screen.
Call ended.
His heart pounded violently. He felt the room tilt slightly, reality slipping from its neat corners.
"No," he murmured. "No, that's impossible. That's".
His phone buzzed again.
This time, it wasn't a call.
A message.
From the same unknown number.
He opened it.
A single image filled the screen.
A photo of his living room.
Taken from behind him.
Taken minutes ago.
His breath faltered.
His skin prickled.
Someone or something was inside the apartment.
He turned slowly, eyes scanning every corner, every darkened gap, every shadow that could hide a presence he wasn't prepared to face.
Nothing moved.
Yet he felt watched.
Heavy.
Close.
Unseen.
His throat tightened. "Show yourself," he said, though his voice cracked at the edges.
Silence.
Then.
A whisper.
Soft.
Barely there.
Almost like the tail end of a prayer swallowed by the air.
Elanor…
He backed away, pulse racing, until he hit the edge of the table behind him. His fingers gripped the wood, anchoring him.
This wasn't grief.
This wasn't imagination.
This was something crossing a line that wasn't meant to be crossed.
His phone buzzed again.
Another message.
Eight words this time.
Come to the place where the fog began.
Elanor's stomach dropped.
There was only one place that message could mean.
The valley.
Where Isabella disappeared.
Where the world had shifted around him.
Where the fog rolled not like weather, but like a boundary between the seen and the unseen.
His hands trembled as he set the phone down. He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, his movements sharp and determined despite the shaking in his chest.
As he stepped toward the door, he glanced once last time at the picture frame resting quietly on the table.
"Whatever this is," he whispered, "I'm going to find out."
He flicked off the lights.
The apartment fell into shadow.
But the moment he closed the door behind him.
A soft tap echoed from inside.
As if someone had just touched the picture frame.
Or placed it upright again.