CHAPTER 3
November 25. Ten Years Earlier.
The small wooden room beneath the low ceiling was cramped, noisy, and cozy in its own way.
Multicolored string lights, tangled in their own wires in places, blinked lazily, shifting from toxic blue to warm orange.
In the center of the room stood a low coffee table crowded with empty beer and soda bottles, bowls of peanuts and chips that no one had touched in ages. A glass ashtray beside it was overflowing—cigarette butts balanced along the edge, threatening to spill onto the floor at any moment.
In the far corner stood a bookcase filled with a jumble of worn detective novels, comic books, and board game boxes, half of whose pieces had been lost long ago.
And somehow, that was exactly what made the place feel cozy.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” A curly-haired young man with a dazzling smile threw his arms up theatrically in the middle of the room. “Welcome to the traditional gathering of the Dampfield Snares! Are you ready to plunge into an abyss of horror and fear?”
“Oh, cut the crap, Mark!” called a plump red-haired girl with a grin, throwing a pillow at him.
“No, Emma, let him continue,” Steve chuckled. “I'm sure Cooper spent all day rehearsing this speech.”
“Keep your jealousy to yourself, Miller.”
The room buzzed with quiet laughter.
“Well then, my little freaks...” Mark narrowed his eyes with exaggerated menace. “Tonight, I'm going to tell you a legend...”
The room grew a little quieter. Someone subtly moved closer to the couch and farther from the dark corners. A cigarette butt slipped from the ashtray, leaving a tiny gray mark on the tabletop.
“Here we go,” Aaron muttered, shaking his head.
He leaned toward the blonde girl beside him and asked quietly: “How are you doing? Scared?”
Katie shifted uneasily and gave a small nod.
“A little...” she admitted, lowering her eyes.
Lake gave her hand a gentle squeeze, his thumb brushing slowly across her knuckles as though automatically trying to reassure her.
“This story is about a ghost who tears out girls' eyes...” Mark suddenly lowered his voice, then glanced toward the boys by the wall. “Lucas, Tom, turn off the lights.”
“I'll do it!” Emma immediately jumped up, shoving pillows aside and bumping her knee into the boys sitting nearby.
“Hey!” Steve protested.
“Watch it,” Rick hissed. “I almost spilled my beer!”
“Sorry, Steve!” Emma batted her eyes innocently.
Though a second later she was already racing toward the outlet and yanking the string lights from the wall. The room instantly plunged into ominous darkness.
“You don't want to apologize to me?” Parker grumbled.
“Shhh...” she immediately hissed back.
“John, hand me the flashlight...” Mark said. “Yeah, thanks.”
Mark pointed the beam beneath his chin, and his face immediately transformed into a grotesque mask carved with deep shadows.
“It happened fifty years ago. Her name was Francesca Whitmore. Once beautiful... now cold. Dressed in white. Long black hair, soaked as though she still wanders through the woods in the rain.”
Mark spoke slowly, stretching out his words, which only made everything more unsettling.
“They say she used to be the most beautiful girl in Dampfield. Boys followed her everywhere. Wanted to be with her. But one day she simply vanished... She walked out of her house at night—and never came back.”
A candle crackled softly.
“A few days later, they found her body in the woods.”
Mark paused briefly before adding more quietly:
“Barefoot. Her neck broken. Her eyes carved out...”
Emma nervously pulled a pillow tighter against her chest. Lucas listened intently. John let out a quiet snort, though not a particularly confident one.
“Sometimes, late at night, people hear her walking barefoot between the trees, searching for girls more beautiful than she was.”
The flickering candlelight pulled faces from the darkness—faces that were noticeably tense now. Even the loudest among them kept glancing toward the dark corners of the room.
“If you ever see a woman in white at night, don't look at her face.”
Mark lowered his voice almost to a whisper.
“Because Francesca doesn't have one.”
A chill swept through the room. Someone shifted a foot and accidentally kicked an empty can on the floor. The dull clatter sounded strangely loud.
Katie tightened her grip on Aaron's hand, and he tensed almost imperceptibly as the warm woven bracelet pressed against his skin. Her breathing had quickened.
Rick sprawled across the couch, lazily spinning a beer can between his fingers. The alcohol was already humming pleasantly in his head, smearing away the exhaustion of school and making everything feel a little simpler than it really was.
Almost everything.
His gaze drifted back to Lake and Brown on its own.
To how close they were sitting. How Katie's shoulder nearly touched his. How naturally and calmly he held her hand in his.
He forced himself to look away.
“If you hear someone whispering your name at night, don't turn around,” Mark continued slowly. “If you catch a glimpse of a strange face in the mirror, don't look...”
His voice dropped almost to a whisper.
“And if it suddenly becomes too quiet...” He stopped speaking.
Even the candle wax seemed to stop crackling.
“...run.”
The door burst open with a deafening bang.
A tall, thin figure stumbled into the room wearing a dirty white dress. Tangled black hair concealed its face, and beneath it were nothing but dark, empty sockets where eyes should have been.
Katie screamed first.
She jerked backward so sharply she nearly fell onto the couch.
“Oh my God!” Emma immediately shrieked, clapping her hands over her mouth.
A second later, the “ghost” and Cooper were both doubled over with laughter.
“Jesus, you should've seen your faces!” Mark gasped, clutching his stomach. “That was perfect! Even better than we planned!”
“Cooper!” Aaron shot to his feet. “You think that's funny?!”
He immediately turned to Katie.
She was standing there pale, her lips trembling and her eyes shining with tears. She quickly smoothed her hair with shaking hands and bolted for the door without looking at anyone.
“Katie, wait!” Aaron called after her, but she was already gone, slamming the door behind her. “You're such an asshole, Cooper,” he snapped angrily, taking a step toward the young man who was wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. “Scaring girls is the peak of your sense of humor now?”
Mark only smirked while trying to catch his breath and looked at him with open contempt.
Almost none of the earlier amusement remained in his face now. All that was left was irritation.
“And what would you know about talking to girls?”
The tension in the room became almost tangible.
“Alright, thirty-minute break!” John cut in loudly, clapping his hands together. “And don't wander off too far!”
The room immediately filled with voices and movement again. Some people reached for their jackets. Others grabbed fresh cans of beer. But Rick barely noticed any of it.
He was watching only one thing:
The way Aaron hurried after Katie.
And that irritated him more than anything else.
A dull irritation began spreading through his chest, heavy and sticky, pulling unpleasantly beneath his ribs. Maybe it was the alcohol, the noise, or the suffocating walls of the small cabin, but his memory immediately offered up the previous evening.
A brightly lit school dance floor.
Katie laughing in the center of the room.
And Aaron standing beside her.
Rick clenched his jaw so hard the muscles stood out along his cheekbones. The cabin suddenly felt far too hot and noisy.
The others had already begun breaking into smaller groups and drifting outside. Rick got up from the couch as well. He needed some air.
The freezing air hit his face almost painfully. He immediately pulled out a pack of cigarettes and flicked his lighter. The smoke hung before his eyes in a pale cloud, mixing with the steam of his breath.
He walked a little farther from the cabin along the narrow path, away from the laughter and voices, trying to quiet the noise in his own head.
The cold air burned unpleasantly in his lungs, but the sticky irritation inside him remained, untouched by either cigarettes or alcohol.
The forest around him stood dark and unnaturally quiet. Only the branches high overhead creaked softly in the wind, while fog drifted slowly between the trees.
At one point, Rick even thought it felt as though someone was watching him from the darkness.
Maybe the same “girl without eyes.”
He chuckled quietly at his own thoughts and took another drag, slowly exhaling the smoke.
“So, what do you think, newcomer? How'd you like our little performance?”
A girl's voice sounded very close behind him.
Startled, Parker flinched and turned sharply.
Misty was standing there.
Without the smeared makeup and white dress, she looked completely different—perfectly ordinary, even pretty. Her black hair hung loose, and a familiar mischievous smile played across her lips.
“It was... effective,” Rick said with a quiet huff, raising the cigarette to his lips again. “But wasn't it a little cruel? Katie was genuinely scared.”
“Well, that's Katie's problem,” Misty said with an easy shrug.
She stepped closer and, without asking, took the cigarette straight from his fingers.
She took a drag herself, slowly exhaling the smoke toward the forest.
“So why are you out here all alone?”
“Just getting some air.” He leaned lazily against a tree and glanced at her. “What about you?”
“Looking for you.”
She said it as simply as always, as though there was nothing special about those words, yet something inside him still gave an unpleasant twitch.
“By the way...” Misty handed the cigarette back to him. “Sorry I ran off so quickly yesterday. John got here earlier than I expected, and I had to help with the setup.”
“It's fine,” he replied, though he suddenly caught himself watching her face a little too closely. “Actually, I wanted to talk about yesterday too.”
She frowned for a second, as though she didn't immediately understand what he meant, but almost at once she smiled again—slowly, and somehow strangely, with a hint of mischief in her eyes.
Then she stepped even closer.
“Forget it,” Misty whispered.
Her fingers gently wrapped around his wrist.
“Let's just go have some fun.”
Before Rick could answer, she was already pulling him deeper into the forest.
Wet leaves rustled softly beneath their feet. The glow of the string lights quickly disappeared behind them, the others' voices gradually fading into the darkness, until only the creak of branches and the cold November wind remained overhead.
Beneath the tree, she suddenly spun around and shoved him in the chest hard enough that his shoulder blades hit the rough trunk. For a second, she simply stood there, breathing heavily, her eyes locked on his.
In the dimness of the forest, her blue eyes looked almost black. Then, before he could say a word or gather his thoughts, she crashed her lips against his.
The kiss was hungry, almost angry. The taste of cigarette smoke mixed with sugary candy lingered on her tongue.
Misty was tall, nearly his height, and that made everything feel too natural, too easy—as if they’d done this hundreds of times before. She pressed herself against him, warm and close, leaving no space between them. Her hands slid across his chest through the fabric of his shirt, catching on his collar. Her nails lightly grazed the skin of his neck while her lips moved lower, leaving burning kisses beneath his jaw.
For a moment, Rick was genuinely caught off guard.
The contrast to her shyness in the dark storage room the night before was almost startling.
But the moment he understood where this was heading, something inside him jolted awake. He caught her hand before her fingers could wander any lower, pulled her closer by the waist, and kissed her back with sudden force—without caution, without hesitation.
And yet, even now, his thoughts betrayed him. The images flashing through his mind were not the ones that should have been there.
A warm borrowed jacket draped over his freezing shoulders that night… Trembling fingers moving across a cold phone screen during Mr. Scott’s class… Sleepless nights after what had happened in the gym… The attentive gaze of gray-blue eyes. The kind of gaze that turned his entire chest upside down, as if he were being seen right through.
And then, like a punch beneath the ribs—the dance the night before.
Katie’s hands around Aaron’s neck. Her laughter. The slow sway of their bodies to the music. The way they had stood so close together.
Something inside Rick snapped painfully.
His kisses grew rougher. More demanding. As if he were trying to drown everything out at once—his anger, his frustration, that strange burning beneath his skin that refused to go away. As if he wanted to erase someone else’s gaze, someone else’s touch, someone else’s presence from his mind.
Misty only pressed herself closer in response.
With a faint smirk, she gently bit his lower lip, almost painfully, and that finally shattered the last remnants of his self-control. Rick’s hands slid along her back, pulling her closer. His kisses became desperate, uneven, feverish.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flicker of movement. Something darted between the trees far too quickly.
Rick pulled away abruptly, breathing hard, and instinctively turned toward the dark bushes. His heart was still pounding somewhere in his throat.
“What is it?” Misty asked in a near whisper, her arms still around his neck.
He stared into the darkness for several seconds, but the forest remained motionless. Only the wind stirred the branches with a faint rustle.
“Nothing,” he replied hoarsely, briefly wetting his swollen lips. “Probably imagined it.”
Misty followed his gaze toward the trees and gave a nervous smile.
“Creepy out here, isn’t it? This forest… and whatever might be living in it.”
“Yeah,” Rick said with a crooked smile, trying to sound casual. “Perfect setting for a horror movie.”
She let out a quiet laugh, though a trace of tension still lingered in her voice.
For a few seconds they simply stood there, catching their breath. The cold air only made their heated skin burn more intensely.
“Maybe we should head back?” Rick suggested more quietly. “It’s cold out here. You’ll catch a cold.”
Misty nodded.
They stepped out of the forest’s shadows and headed back toward the house. After the darkness, the light spilling from the windows felt almost blinding.
Rick absentmindedly straightened his jacket and rumpled shirt while Misty smoothed down her messy hair with slightly trembling fingers.
Just before reaching the door, he leaned closer and gently tucked a loose black strand behind her ear.
“You’re very beautiful.”
To her own surprise, she blushed, looked away, and smiled faintly.
Rick took her hand and confidently pushed open the creaking door.
Inside, the air felt thick with tension, heavy enough that it seemed the room itself could sense it—one more push, and everything would go straight to hell.
The music continued to thud dully through the walls. Laughter, fragments of conversations, voices from every corner of the house—all of it felt distant now, as though it were happening beneath a thick layer of water.
Aaron and Mark stood almost nose to nose.
Lake looked stretched to his limit. It showed in everything—the rigid line of his shoulders, the sharp rise and fall of his chest, the way his fingers were clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white. Something dark simmered in his eyes, something angry, almost impossible to control.
“How the fuck did you even think this was a good idea?!” Lake shouted, his voice breaking into a yell.
“Dude…” Mark looked him up and down. “It was a joke.”
“A joke?” Aaron barked and shoved him hard in the chest. “Jesus fucking Christ, Cooper, you’re such a fucking asshole!”
Mark stumbled back, raising his eyebrows in irritation, and Rick felt a familiar wave of anger instantly begin to boil inside him.
“Cool it, Lake!” he called out, stepping into the argument and letting go of Misty’s hand.
“Fuck off.”
Rick froze for a second, feeling something heavy and ugly twist inside his chest.
The coldness in Aaron’s voice hit harder than it should have, like a sharp slap after everything that had happened between them.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Rick stepped closer, grabbing him by the shoulder. “Katie will calm down and—”
“I said fuck off!” Aaron roared, shrugging off his hand without even looking at him. “Mind your own fucking business!”
The irritation that had been building inside Rick all evening suddenly surged up his throat in a suffocating wave of heat. He clenched his jaw so hard his cheekbones began to ache.
“Maybe I'll decide that for myself!” he snapped, forcibly turning him around and finally making him look him in the eye.
In that same instant, everything around them seemed to freeze.
The air became heavy, electric. It felt as though one more word and everyone in the room would be struck by lightning. The music kept pounding, but here, in this room, the silence was deafening.
Everyone watched them in silence, realizing this had gone far beyond an ordinary argument.
Rick locked his gaze on Aaron's face and felt everything inside him boiling over. Anger, hurt, tension—it had all merged into one suffocating knot.
Aaron wasn't looking at him any differently.
His stare was just as heavy. Just as angry. As if one more second and he really would snap.
“Listen to Parker, Lake,” Mark said with a smirk. “At least he knows how to talk to girls, right, Misty?”
“Shut up, Mark!” Emma cut in, realizing exactly what was about to happen.
Misty merely rolled her eyes in irritation, not reacting to the jab at all.
But Rick couldn't hear them anymore. Blood was roaring in his ears.
“Or what's your problem?” he threw at him quietly, a bitter smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “In love with Katie?”
For a fraction of a second, something flickered across Aaron's face, as though a switch had flipped.
“You fucking idiot, Parker!”
Aaron lunged forward, grabbing Rick by the collar so hard that the fabric stretched and split at the seam. Rick shoved him in the chest in return—a dull impact of palms against thick jacket fabric—and Lake staggered backward.
The first punch sliced through the air and crashed into Aaron's cheekbone with a heavy thud. His head snapped to the side, but he surged back almost immediately—as if he'd been waiting for it. His fingers dug into Rick's shoulder, jerking him forward, and the next blow slammed into Parker's ribs.
The air burst from his lungs in a sharp hiss.
Rick doubled over as pain spread through his stomach like fire, but he immediately gritted his teeth and drove an elbow into Aaron's side.
Aaron exhaled sharply through clenched teeth and took a step back.
A second.
Just one brief second in which they stared at each other with wild, heavy looks, as though neither of them could stop anymore.
And then they collided again.
Harder.
Closer.
At last, all the anger that had been building for months came pouring out.
“Somebody stop them!” Emma cried.
But Rick didn't hear her.
His vision swam with adrenaline, rage, and that impossible mixture of anger and something far worse that had been suffocating him all evening.
He couldn't understand when everything had fallen apart and how they had both ended up here.
Rick caught his foot on the leg of the coffee table, and a second later they crashed onto it together. The wood splintered beneath their weight with a loud crack. Bottles and the glass ashtray exploded across the floor in a shower of fragments.
Aaron ended up on top almost immediately. He pressed his full weight down on Rick, pinning him to the floor, breathing hard directly into his face. Blood was already darkening his split lip.
And for some reason, that only twisted something inside Rick even tighter.
A dull, wrenching sense of hurt.
Because only minutes earlier, Aaron had looked at him as though he wanted to push him out of his life forever.
“Get off him!” someone shouted nearby, trying to pull them apart.
Lake drew back his fist again, and at that moment something inside Rick finally snapped.
He caught Aaron's arm, yanked him forward—and punched him square in the face with all his strength.
A dull crack rang out. Aaron's eyebrow split open instantly.
A thin stream of blood ran down his temple.
“I hate you, Aaron!” The words tore out of him hoarsely, almost broken.
For the first time—not “Lake.”
For a second, everything seemed to stop.
Rick was breathing hard, unable to take his eyes off him, and suddenly something dropped away inside him, as though the blow had knocked loose something else too—something hidden for far too long.
He shoved Lake in the chest, and they rolled onto their sides again, still grappling.
“You ruined everything, Rick!” Aaron's voice broke into something close to a shout.
Not “Parker,” either.
And somehow that made it hurt even more.
Aaron was breathing hard, looming over him again. Hot blood ran down his chin, dripping onto Rick's shirt and face. Something painful, furious, almost desperate churned in his gray-blue eyes.
“You should never have come to our town,” he breathed hoarsely, staring straight into his eyes.
Those words hit harder than any punch.
Something in Rick's chest clenched sharply, as though a blunt shard had been driven beneath his ribs. For a moment he simply froze, staring up at Aaron while the rush of blood thundered in his ears.
Then the door burst open with a deafening crash.
“Katie's gone!” Steve stumbled into the room, breathless. His face was white as chalk.
Everything stopped instantly.
Aaron whipped his head around.
“What do you mean, gone?” Mark breathed out in shock.
Lake's fingers were still clenched desperately in Rick's shirt, but now something else was rapidly replacing the anger on his face.
Fear.
Real fear.
He shoved himself off the floor, getting to his feet so quickly it was as though he'd only just come back to himself.
“Knock off this circus!” Steve shouted. “Grab flashlights—we need to find Katie!”
Rick's heart dropped heavily.
The room became far too quiet again.
