Welcome to Chapter One!

Isla Veyra had always wanted life to make sense.
Some people got that naturally. She didn’t.

As a kid, she felt things she couldn’t explain—a weight in her chest, a restlessness when the night grew too still. It wasn’t fear exactly, but it marked her as different. When she finally told her grandmother, she expected to be laughed off. Instead, her grandmother had pulled her close at the kitchen table, candlelight flickering over jars of herbs, and told her she believed her. She said Isla wasn’t broken, just tuned differently. That she noticed what others didn’t.

The only other person who ever believed her was Lila. Always Lila.
They were opposites in every way—Isla practical and sharp-edged, Lila wild and dreamy—but somehow they fit. On the playground Isla would whisper about that strange pull in her chest, and Lila would grin like it was the start of an adventure. It means something, she’d say. Isla wanted to roll her eyes, but deep down she was grateful she never had to carry it alone.

School gave Isla an escape. Facts and charts. Answers that lined up neatly. Where the world felt messy, science was steady. She wasn’t the fastest in class, but she was relentless—late nights bent over textbooks, stubbornly pushing until the knowledge stuck. Where other kids chased fun, she chased clarity.

She needed normal. More than anything.

That drive carried her into medicine. The ER was chaos, but it was a kind she could control. Symptoms, diagnoses, steps to follow. People came in broken, and she put them back together. She could measure that. Trust it. Unlike the hum that haunted the edges of her life.

Work had kept it away.
Inside the hospital—under fluorescent lights, buried in alarms and checklists—there was no space for anything else.

But tonight, the moment she stepped outside, it hit her.

The hum.

It surged through her chest so suddenly she stopped short, breath catching like someone had pressed a hand against her sternum. Stronger than it had ever been.

She tightened her grip on the strap of her bag and forced her legs to move, heading toward the side lot where her car waited. Every step made the ache sharper, as if the ground itself was humming beneath her shoes.

She paused under a broken streetlight, its bulb buzzing, sputtering, then flaring back to life in uneven bursts. The mist pooled heavier here, curling around the edges of the buildings. Ravenwood had always been strange at night, but tonight it felt watchful.

And that was when she saw him.

At the mouth of the alley, half in shadow, a man stood perfectly still.

Tall. Composed. Watching.

Heat flared sharp in her chest, too sudden to be adrenaline, too deep to dismiss. Instinct told her to look away, to keep moving. But her body stayed rooted, breath caught. The ache inside her pulled tight, like recognition without memory.

Headlights swept past. For a second the alley was washed white.

When her vision cleared—he was gone.

Just slick pavement. Just mist curling into the dark.

The apartment lobby door thudded shut behind her, cutting off the damp night air. In the cracked mirror by the mailboxes, her reflection stared back—gray eyes shadowed, auburn hair frizzed into a halo. For a second, it looked like something flickered behind her reflection, a half-second delay. Then it was gone.

“Get it together,” she muttered, climbing the stairs.

Inside, Titan shifted under the glow of his heat lamp, the bearded dragon lifting his triangular head as she set her bag down. “Hey, buddy,” Isla said softly, pressing her forehead to the glass. The steady warmth of the tank, the scratch of claws against rock, the familiar blank stare—routine. Comfort.

Routine. That was the plan. Feed Titan. Shower. Wine. Sleep. Normal.

Outside the kitchen window, rain softened Ravenwood’s edges—the lamps haloed, the streets bleeding into watercolor. The walk home replayed in her mind: the broken lamp, the shadowed alley, the man standing too still.

Not what he did. Just how it felt—like the night itself had turned to watch her.

She told herself the street was empty now. Just wet pavement and rain.

But under the lamplight, where he had stood, a single footprint blurred slowly into nothing.