After Drake left, an unsettling calm descended upon Sara's apartment. She stood in the dim light filtering through the closed curtains, staring at the laundry basket overflowing with dark memories woven into fabric. Each shirt of his—worn, familiar—whispered secrets of that fateful night when the world had unraveled with the crack of a gunshot.

“Drake is dead,” she muttered, each word dropping like stones into a deep well of uncertainty. Her mind danced in spirals of disbelief, flickering images of his laughter before the hollow silence, the shadow of death that loomed now.

Haunted by the past, she began to hum a tune; it was an old song, one that once brought them joy. The melody curled around her like a comforting fog, wrapping her in its soft embrace. "Hold my hand in the dark, we'll find our way…" she sang, each note scattering the thoughts of despair. For a moment, her heart lifted—a trickle of hope flowing back.

But it was then, at the climax of her forgotten lullaby, that the knock on the door echoed like a thunderclap through the hushed room.

“Sara? It’s me, Courtney. You okay?” The voice was bubbly yet concerned, a stark contrast to her own somber thoughts. Sara's heart raced as she caught her breath, the warmth of her friend’s presence a flicker of light in the shadows.


She opened the door to reveal Courtney, her best friend clad in bright colors that almost felt foreign in the wake of loss. "I came by to check on you and to see if you needed to go anywhere," Courtney said, stepping in and wrapping her arms around Sara, pulling her into an embrace. “I need to show you something, come here.” Sara said.


Courtney hesitated, the chill in the air wrapping around her like an unwelcome shroud.

They moved towards the great oak tree, its gnarled branches reaching out like twisted fingers. The presence of the forest weighed down on them, as if it too sensed something wrong. “Sara, what is it?” Courtney probed, her heart racing.

Sara turned, her eyes wide and glimmering with a mixture of fear and something darker. “I killed him,” she confessed, her voice barely more than a tremor. “I shot him this morning. He was... he was acting strange.”

Courtney’s breath caught in her throat, confusion washed over her like the shadows of the gathering night. “Wait a minute, what? What are you talking about?” She felt the ground beneath her begin to tremble, as if the roots of the oak were stirring from their deep slumber.

“Just look,” Sara urged, her gaze fixated on something beyond the trunk’s knotted bark. “I buried him right there.”

Courtney's eyes followed as Sara pointed to a patch of disturbed earth. Had it shifted overnight? Just a few hours ago, this vibrant clearing had been a place of laughter, not horror. The air felt thick, like the moment before a storm breaks, the kind of heaviness that crawls under your skin and makes every hair stand on end.

“Buried who, Sara? Who is he?” Courtney’s asked.