Chapter 4 — Supernatural Hint: The Night Arin's Shadow Stayed Behind
The house was quiet that night, too quiet.
Arin sat by his window, staring at the streetlamp outside. Its pale light cast a long shadow across the floor—his shadow, stretched unnaturally, trembling as though alive.
He shivered. Not from the cold.
"…We see what we don't want," he whispered to the empty room.
The shadow moved without him. A subtle twitch. A hesitation.
Arin froze.
Had he imagined it?
He looked down at his hands. Still, calm. Solid. Real.
And yet… his shadow lingered a second too long, curling toward the doorway like it wanted to follow someone who wasn't there.
"…Leave me alone," he said quietly.
The shadow hesitated, then receded.
But in the next morning, when he left the room, there were faint footprints on the carpet.
Not his.
Not Neel's.
And not anyone else's.
A whisper of him left behind—
a reminder that some things, once formed in silence, never truly vanish.