The first message arrived at 2:17 a.m.
Mara didn’t hear her phone buzz—she felt it. A faint tremor through the mattress, subtle enough to slip into her dream. In it, she stood in her childhood home, staring down the hallway toward her mother’s bedroom. The door was closed, but something on the other side scratched softly. Not frantic. Not desperate. Patient.
Scratch… scratch… scratch…
Her eyes snapped open.
Darkness pressed in from all sides. Her room felt unfamiliar for a moment, like it ha