Content Warning: Depictions of murder, blood, and emotional distress.

Alice woke late next morning. Her head was full of noise. Quiet noise, the kind that puzzes just behind your eyes. She sat up slowly, pulling the blanket tighter around her. Her fingers brushed something soft and shapeless, remnants of the night before. For a moment, she couldn't place the ache inside her. Then, it came all at once. The argument. The suspicion. Lili's eyes. Everything. It still hung over her like a shadow she couldn't shake.

She didn't even blink. She thought about what to do next, but in the end, her instincts took over. She needed to talk to her parents. To spend time with them. She wasn't sure why—didn't even know what she would say—but she knew she needed to be near them, especially her mom.

Alice got up, got dressed quickly, and headed toward her parents' room. She stepped out into the hall, where a few voices floated nearby. Quiet conversation. Low words. But she didn't hear them. They were all background noise. She had her focus set on one thing: reaching her parents.

The little paper charm was still taped on their doorframe—a dirty joke from her mom, something about fungus and spirits, an old saying that had become their little in-joke. She almost smiled at it. Almost.

And then, she saw them.

Victoria stood outside the door, hunched in on herself. She was looking at Alice—at her shoulder. She didn't meet her eyes. There was in her look, something Alice couldn't decipher. And that alone told her enough. Something was wrong. Something bad was coming.

Erdmann Warner stood on the opposite side, holding his cane in one hand. His eyes were dark—like he hadn't slept all night. The light overhead flickered once, but neither of them spoke.

Alice stopped just in front of them. She opened her mouth to ask, but before she could, she heard Victoria's voice, thin and flat. "Don't go in there."

It was a warning, spoken with a tone that Alice knew too well. Victoria wasn't trying to stop her—she was just preparing her. Preparing her for something awful, something she couldn't yet see, but knew was coming. Alice paused for a heartbeat, but her feet had already decided for her. She was going in.

"What do you mean?" she asked, "What's in there? Are they okay?"

"I mean it." Victoria said again. "Do not go in there."

This time, there was something on her face—a brittle kind of fear, the kind that only sets in after you've already seen the thing that breaks you.

Alice stepped forward anyway.

"Alice—"

"I need to see."

She brushed past her.

The door wasn't fully closed. It drifted open with the lightest push.

Silence.

Her mother lay on the bed—bare-chested. A word was carved into her skin, etched with the tip of a knife. Alice didn't read it. It didn't matter. Her eyes never stopped long enough. All she saw was the blood that had soaked the blankets. And now for once, everything in this room was still. Her mother was still.

The same kind of scene. The same pattern. The same message.

Alice stood frozen in the doorway. The blood was still wet. There wasn't much of it. There never was.

"No." she whispered.

"No. No. No…"

No scream. No theatrical collapse. Just breathless, broken denial.

She crawled forward, not even sure she was moving. One arm reached out halfway, trembling, hovering in the air. She didn't touch her. Couldn't touch her.

Behind her, her father entered slowly.

He didn't speak right away. He crouched beside he mother's wheelchair. He stared at the floor for a long time. Then, without looking at Alice, he reached out and touched his wife's hand. Just once.

"I left her alone."

Alice looked up at him. His voice was steady. Too steady.

He didn't return her gaze. His eyes were fixed on his dead wife. There was something hard in them—focused, narrowed. A quiet, locked-away fury.

"This isn't going to be just another name." he said. "Not just another part of the pattern. This will not go unanswered."

Alice couldn't speak. She couldn't even cry.

From behind them, Erdmann's voice came low and flat. "No. It won't."

Alice did not look at anyone. She stood near the edge of the bed. Her fingers twitched as if they might close into a fist—but they never did. There was no thought, no structure to what she was feeling. Just the hollow weight of something permanent, something that couldn't be undone.

She kept waiting to feel something she could understand. Rage, maybe. Panic. But there was only the quiet tearing sensation inside of her.

Her mother was supposed to be untouchable—not strong, not fierce, but constant. A presence that filled the room, filled her life. And now it was just stillness, where her mother used to be. Now she was not a constant. Not anymore.

Alice realized her mouth was open, but no sound came. She didn't even know what words would fit. A scream wouldn't bring her back. A sob wouldn't change anything.

She hated the silence. Hated, most of all, that people behind her were already talking about answers. Hated that there was nothing left to hold onto—not even grief. Not yet. Just the blank shape of it forming.

This wasn't a message. This was her mother.

This wasn't just another dead body. This was her mother.

And whoever had done this—whoever thought they could make her part of some sick pattern—they didn't understand what they'd taken.

Alice closed her eyes. Just for a moment.

She wasn't hopeful for whatever came next.

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