Jonas

Like it hadn't even turned on.

I barely slept that night.

Every time the wind moved, it got up to check the window.

Nothing out there.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching.

The next morning, Liv came back around ten.

First thing she asked was if I'd gone into her room.

I told her no.

She paused for a second, then said someone had written something on her bathroom mirror.

Just one word.

Stay.

She wiped it off without thinking, but it rattled her.

Rattled me too.

We left that afternoon, packed our bags and drove to a motel in Freighton, three towns over, nowhere near the forest.

Back then, I was renting this narrow little duplex just outside a town called Crossford in western Pennsylvania.

If you blinked while driving through, you'd miss the exit.

The place was buried between wooded ridges and sat maybe 200 feet off an old state highway that hadn't seen proper maintenance in years.

I found it through a friend of a friend, cheap, barely insulated, and not the kind of home you'd invite people over to.

But for me, it worked.

I worked swing shifts at a machine shop about 40 minutes away in Slaytonville, and all I really needed was a quiet place to crash in a halfway decent water heater.