NOVEL WEB Chapter 5: chapter 5
Echoes in the Hallway
(Daniel's Point of View)
I hadn't meant to see him again.
After what happened outside my door — after the man in the black hoodie — I told myself to shut everything down. Close the door. Shut the curtains. Lock the world out.
But Elian didn't listen to my silence.
He came again.
This time, he didn't bring the pen. He brought himself. A hoodie too big for his frame, eyes that still looked at me like I was something more than broken pieces, and a voice I didn't think I deserved to hear again.
"I'm not afraid," he said.
I should've slammed the door.
Instead, I let him in.
He walked past me like he belonged here. Like the air didn't weigh heavy with danger. Like I wasn't holding a secret that could burn us both.
"Are you always this quiet?" he asked, sitting on the edge of my bed, fingers brushing the scar on my wrist like he'd already guessed.
"You shouldn't be here," I murmured.
"Maybe not. But you don't want me to leave."
He was right.
I didn't say anything. Just stood there, watching him, wondering how someone could look so calm in the middle of my storm.
He leaned back, staring at the cracks in my ceiling.
"This place feels like a story you haven't told yet," he whispered. "And I think I want to be part of it."
I looked at him, and for the first time in a long time… I wanted that too.
But I wasn't allowed peace. Not yet.
Because under my door, another note had appeared while we talked.
Same thick black ink. Just three words this time:
"He's marked now."