Hawthorne Bridge

CHAPTER 1: THE WEIGHT OF OXYGEN

The first thing Camellia noticed wasn’t the pain. It was the noise.

Usually, the morning sounds of Hawthorne Falls were a soft mosaic—the distant hum of a lawnmower, the rhythmic chirping of birds, the comforting creak of the old floorboards in the Lane house. But today, the world was screaming. A fly buzzing against the windowpane sounded like a chainsaw cutting through bone. The sunlight filtering through her curtains didn't just brighten the room; it stabbed at her retinas with the force of a thousand needles.

Camellia groaned, her fingers clutching the sheets. Her skin felt too tight, vibrating with a frantic, invisible current.

The festival. The memory hit her like a physical blow: the scent of ozone and ancient moss, the cold, marble touch of the altar, and Erica Wane’s face—pale, beautiful, and hovering on the edge of death. Camellia remembered reaching out. She remembered a heat so intense it felt like her blood was boiling. And then, the white light that had swallowed everything.

"Cammy? You alive in there, or should I call the morgue?"

The door burst open. The sound of the hinges was a gunshot.

Jenni Lane strode in, a whirlwind of ginger hair and the suffocating scent of vanilla-coconut hairspray. She was holding her phone out at arm's length, her face perfectly contoured for the "Get Ready With Me" vlog she was currently narrating to her followers.

"And here is the Sleeping Beauty herself, back from the dead after the Big Explosion," Jenni chirped into the camera, her bubbly energy usually infectious, but today, it felt like a blunt instrument. "Tell the fans you’re okay, Cam. People are literally crying in my DMs."

"Jen... turn it off," Camellia croaked. Her throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper.

She reached for the glass of water on her nightstand, her hand trembling. She didn't even touch the glass. As her fingers came within an inch of the rim, a sharp CRACK echoed through the room. The glass didn't just break—it detonated, shards of crystal spraying across the hardwood floor.

Jenni gasped, her phone dropping an inch. "Oh my god! Did you—how did you even do that?"

"I didn't," Camellia whispered, staring at her shaking palm.

"Camellia, look at me." Jenni stepped closer, her influencer persona dropping for a split second to reveal the terrified sixteen-year-old underneath. She turned her phone toward Camellia's face.

On the screen, in the high-definition glow of the camera, Camellia saw herself. She looked haunted—dark circles under her eyes, her skin a sickly pale. But it was her eyes that stopped her heart. The deep forest green was gone, replaced by a swirling, molten gold that pulsed with every beat of her heart.

"Your eyes..." Jenni whispered, her thumb hovering over the 'record' button. "Is that a filter? Cam, what is happening?"

Panic flared in Camellia’s chest. A surge of white-hot static raced down her arms. No, no, no. The phone in Jenni’s hand suddenly hissed. A puff of acrid smoke rose from the charging port, and the screen flickered violently before turning into a dead, black slab.

"My phone!" Jenni wailed, shaking the device. "The battery was at ninety percent! It’s burning hot!"

"I’m sorry, Jen. I... I think I’m just sick. A reaction to the gas leak at the festival," Camellia lied, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

She forced herself out of bed, her bare feet narrowly avoiding the glass shards. She stumbled toward the bathroom, needing to be away from Jenni’s wide, questioning eyes.

She gripped the edges of the porcelain sink, staring into the mirror. The gold in her eyes was fading back to green, but the "static" in her head remained—a low-frequency hum that made her feel like she was plugged into a wall socket.

She wasn't just sick. She was wrong.

She thought of Erica. Erica, who should have died on that altar. Erica, who had looked at Camellia right before the light hit with a look of pure, unadulterated shock.

She knows, Camellia thought, a chill settling in her bones. She’s the only one who knows what happened when the world broke.

"Camellia?" Jenni called out from the bedroom, her voice small. "Mia is outside. She’s been honking. And Ethan... he’s been texting me every ten minutes asking if you’re coming to school. Are you sure you're okay?"

Camellia took a deep breath, the oxygen feeling heavy and metallic in her lungs. She had to go. She couldn't stay in this room with the shattering glass and the dying phones. She had to find the girl who had been on that altar.

"I'm fine, Jen," Camellia said, her voice hardening with a sudden, desperate resolve. "Tell them I'll be down in five. It’s the first day of the rest of our lives, right?"

But as she looked back at her reflection, she saw her shadow flicker. It didn't mimic her movements. For a heartbeat, the shadow stayed perfectly still, its head tilted to the side as if it were listening to something she couldn't hear.

The festival hadn't just changed her. It had invited something in.