Chapter 1
Noah Walker gripped the steering wheel like it was the only thing keeping him from falling apart. His knuckles blanched white, bones tight under skin. Olivia Rodrigo’s“Get Him Back”blasted through the speakers. Her voice was raw, jagged around the edges, like she knew something about pain and wanted to make sure you did too.
Noah tried to sing along. His voice cracked. Badly.
“I wanna meet his mom just to tell her, her son sucks!”
He winced at himself. “Jesus Christ.”
The sound cut through the still air, sharp and violent. The red sedan ahead of him crawled along, slow enough to make him question if the driver was lost, drunk, or just stupid.
“Move, you fucking idiot! We’re not at McDonald’s Drive Thru!”
When the car finally turned off, the driver didn’t look back. They never did. People like that existed just to test the limits of his patience.
He loosened his grip, flexing his fingers. “Alright,” he muttered. “Zen. Inner peace. Breathe, motherfucker.”
The hills rolled out before him, brown and dry under a sky that looked bored. The road cut through it all like an afterthought. The air outside was crisp, but it couldn’t touch the heaviness sitting in his chest.
He shifted in his seat. His stomach growled. “If this Airbnb doesn’t have food, I’m going to-” He stopped himself, a small laugh slipping out. “Forget it. Even I have standards.”
He cracked the window. The air whipped in, cold and honest. It stung but it kinda felt good.
A lot was going on – the leaky faucet that sang him to sleep every night, the job that paid him to die slowly behind a desk. And of course - Marlene Walker.
His mother.
A storm in pearls and perfume. The kind of woman who could make therapy sound like a punishment.
The trip was her idea.
The trip had been her idea.
Her “gift.”
“You need space,” she had said, as though he was doing too much to her instead of the other way around. So he went. Because you didn’t say no to Marlene. You just let her hurricane pass and prayed it didn’t tear the roof off.
When he reached the address, his stomach did a little flip.
The Airbnb looked like something out of a tech billionaire’s fever dream - steel, glass, and a view you couldn’t afford. The kind of place that looked sterile enough to be safe, which was exactly why it wasn’t.
He parked. Grabbed his bag and stepped inside.
The lobby smelled like bleach and eucalyptus. The silence pressed against him as the elevator hummed its way slowly up.
The hallway stretched ahead, sterile white, lit by LEDs that buzzed faintly like something breathing.
Apartment 666.
Noah dropped his bag. Walked through the living room. An abstract painting hung on the wall.
“Art,” he muttered. “Looks like someone had a fight with a paintbrush.”
He opened the fridge, just for something to do. Sparkling water, overpriced cheese, and some bottle of white wine with a name Noah couldn’t pronounce. He poured cereal instead. The crunch echoed, too loud in the silence.
His phone buzzed.
He stared at the name for a second, then answered. “Good Afternoon, Mum.”
“Did you get there okay?” Bright voice. Too bright.
“Yeah. It’s-” He stopped, and his mind sputtered. “It’s fine. Fancy. A bit much, though.”
“You deserve nice things,” she chirped. “You never treat yourself.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mum-”
“And remember, the event tomorrow, Elliot Carter, the photographer?”
“Who?”
“Elliot Carter. The photographer. Wonderful work. You’ll love it.”
Noah clenched his jaw. “Mum, I’m not going to an art event.”
“It’s not about the art,” she snapped, then softened it. “It’s about meeting people. Broadening your horizons.”
His hand rubbed his forehead. “Mum-”
“You’ll thank me later,” she said.
Then -click.No goodbye. No love you. Just air.
Noah stared at the phone until the silence felt alive again. The city outside was settling into night, neon flickering like restless eyes. He stood by the window, hands in his pockets, staring down at the maze of light and glass.
Something inside him tightened. Not fear. Not yet. Just pressure.
He wandered the apartment, the sterile calm pressing closer with every step. His foot hit something. Hard.
He looked down.
A toy camera.
“What the hell...” He picked it up. The broken lens caught the light, cutting a small crescent into his palm.
He threw it in the bin.
He collapsed onto the couch, letting the back of his head rest against the cushions, feeling his bones sink into the softness. The TV buzzed in the background, but it felt like the whole world had shut down. His eyelids grew heavy, and sleep dragged him under......
Flashback – Age 7
The sheets still smelled like laundry detergent and his father’s cologne, that musky, woodsy kind that soaked into the fabric no matter how many times it was washed. Safe. Familiar. The hum of the nightlight in the corner filled the silence, painting the walls in a sleepy, yellow haze.
His father’s shadow filled the doorway.“Sleep well, son.”A hand brushed the boy’s hair. The cool press of a kiss lingered on his forehead, and for a moment, the world was small, warm, unbreakable.
Then glass shattered.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH” raw, jagged -tore through the quiet.
Noah’s eyes snapped open. His chest clenched, air burning in his lungs as he sat up, the sheets twisting around his legs. Another sound, something heavy falling.
The air changed. Thick and Wrong.
He stumbled out of bed. Bare feet slapped against the hallway floorboards, every step echoing too loud. The corridor seemed to stretch, bend, the walls pulsing with his heartbeat. The smell hit him before the sight did: metallic, sharp, something sour underneath.
And then –He stopped.
His father was on the floor.
At first, his brain refused to understand the shape of it - the way Derrick Walker’s body bent the wrong way, his arm twisted under him like it didn’t belong there. The blood looked almost black in the low light, soaking into the cracks between the boards, pooling, spreading. Slow at first, then faster, a slick, creeping thing that crawled toward Noah’s toes.
It wasn’t just on the floor. It was in it. Sliding through the seams, bubbling where the wood met the wall, tracing lines like veins.
Noah’s breath hitched.
His father’s hand still twitched, fingers curled tight around his own throat, nails caked with red. His mouth hung open - as if caught mid-word-eyes frozen wide, staring at nothing.
The knife lay nearby. A kitchen knife, ordinary, stainless steel, except for the dark smear across its blade. The polished metal caught the glow of the nightlight, throwing back a warped reflection of Noah’s face, eyes too wide, lips trembling, a ghost of himself staring out.
And beside him –
Marlene was kneeling in the mess, her hands pressed to the wound that would not close. Her fingers slipped, red slicking her skin, the blood making a wet, sucking sound every time she tried to stop the flow. Her nightgown, once pale blue, clung to her body like a second skin, soaked through to her elbows.
She whispered something, words crushed beneath the weight of her own breathing. Maybe his father’s name. Maybe a prayer. Noah couldn’t tell. The sound came out broken, almost animal.
Drip.
Drip.
The blood fell from her fingertips, each drop hitting the wood with a sound that filled the whole room.
“Mum?” The word came out strangled, barely air.
Her head snapped up. Her eyes were wild, pupils blown wide, whites threaded with red. She looked at him like he was both her son and a stranger.
“Noah.” Her voice cracked. “Go back to your room. Please. Mumma’s got it.”
But her mouth was shaking, trying to form a smile that didn’t fit her face. The corners of her lips trembled, smeared red, her teeth faintly pink.
Noah took a step closer. The floor groaned beneath him, a thin layer of blood tugging at his heel like glue. His stomach turned. The air felt heavy, wet, every breath thick with copper and something else, something burnt.
A photo lay near his father’s hand, half-soaked and curling at the edges. Their family, the three of them, smiling on the porch last summer. The ink was bleeding, their faces melting into the paper. His father’s grin vanished under the spreading red. His mother’s perfect smile dissolved into the same nothingness on the floor.
“Noah,” she said again, softer this time. Her hands trembled over the wound that would not stop bleeding. “Go back to your room.”
He didn’t move. Couldn’t.He only stared as another thin stream of blood found the cracks between the boards and disappeared into the house’s bones.
It kept seeping.
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It kept spreading.
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And it never stopped.
