Erica woke with a violent gasp that tore through the silence.
For a moment, she didn't know where she was — the world seemed to pulse around her, heavy and damp, as if the very air had thickened into something alive. It clung to her throat, wet and suffocating, tasting faintly of copper and rain.
Her chest rose and fell in jagged, uneven breaths. The darkness of her bedroom pressed close, the familiar corners now strange and shifting. Moonlight filtered through the blinds in thin, trembling streaks that crawled across her sheets like pale vines creeping toward her. The silvery glow painted her skin ghost-white, gleaming against the sheen of sweat that covered her arms and neck.
Her heart hammered so hard she could feel it in her fingertips. She pressed a hand against her sternum, feeling the frantic rhythm beneath — the thud of life trying to remind her she was still here, still awake, still separate from the thing that had chased her out of her dreams. But her skin was cold, clammy, unconvincing.
Another nightmare.
The third one in as many days.
They all began the same way — in a place she could never fully remember when she woke. A forest, maybe. Or something that only pretended to be a forest. There was always the smell: iron and moss, the scent of something both decaying and alive. The air would feel thick, like fog wrapping around her lungs, and beneath that came the whispering.
Not words — not exactly.
But the shape of words.
A rhythm that spoke without speaking, that moved like breath against her ear. Sometimes she thought she could almost understand it — almost recognize the voice that slid between her thoughts like smoke — but every time she reached for meaning, it shifted away.
Then it would say it. Always the same phrase, in that low, coiling tone that scraped the back of her mind.
"You're not safe."
That's when the vines came.
They would rise from the dark ground, black and slick, moving with the patience of something that had all the time in the world. They wound themselves around her wrists first, cool and deliberate, then around her ankles, her waist — learning her shape, testing the give of her skin. Sometimes, when they pressed tight enough, she could swear she felt a pulse within them. Not hers — something else's heartbeat, syncing with her own.
And just before she woke, right before the moment of panic shattered the dream, came the eyes.
They didn't belong to anyone she knew. Not Lucas's warm gaze that always softened when he looked at her. Not even the sharp, kind eyes of her mother. No — these were something else entirely.
Eyes that were wrong.
Lifeless brown shot through with thin, black veins, shifting and glimmering like oil under firelight. They would fix on her, unblinking, not with hatred or malice, but with something far worse — hunger.
The hunger of a thing that didn't just want her gone. It wanted to be her.
Erica jerked upright, dragging both hands through her tangled, damp hair. Her fingers trembled. The clock on her nightstand blinked 3:47 a.m., its blue light washing her face in a cold glow.
For a long moment she just stared at it, as though the numbers might change, might tell her something — a reason, a warning, anything.
She wanted to call Lucas. God, she wanted to hear his voice. But what would she even say?
Hey, I keep dreaming about being strangled by plants and haunted by dead eyes that want to wear me like a coat?
Yeah. That'd go over well.
Instead, she stood. Her legs felt unsteady, like her body hadn't quite decided it belonged to her yet. She paced the length of her small bedroom, her bare feet silent on the wooden floor. The air felt colder than it should have been, though the heater hummed quietly in the corner. The nightmare shouldn't have followed her this far — but her skin still tingled where the vines had touched her, phantom pressure blooming around her wrists like faint bruises.
It felt real. Too real.
She crossed to the window, drawn by some stubborn instinct to see — to prove to herself that the world outside still existed, still obeyed the rules of normality.
Beacon Hills stretched below her, quiet and still. The streets were empty, pools of amber light flickering under the streetlamps. The wind stirred the trees, their shadows swaying softly.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw it.
Her reflection.
It didn't move.
Her breath hitched. She blinked, leaned closer — her heart thudding loud enough to drown out thought. The reflection's lips twitched upward, curling into a smile that wasn't hers.
Just for a second.
Then it was gone.
Erica stumbled back, slamming into the dresser behind her. The sound of her heartbeat filled her ears. She wanted to scream, but the air felt stuck in her throat, trapped beneath a weight that didn't belong to her. She forced herself to look again — slowly, carefully.
Only her.
Pale. Shaking. Eyes wide and rimmed with fear.
Utterly alone in the dark.
But somewhere far beyond the quiet streets, beyond the sleeping town and the swaying woods, something stirred.
Inside the borrowed body of Darren, the parasite twitched — faint, but alive. Its consciousness uncoiled like smoke in water, tasting the echo of Erica's fear across the unseen tether that connected them.
And it smiled.
Its influence had already begun to take root within her — creeping through her body the way its tendrils once crept through the soil, subtle and patient. It could feel her resistance weakening.
When it finally spoke, its voice was soft and almost tender, curling through the hollow space between thought and dream.
"Almost ready."