Scene: Pearl Investigates
Pearl couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. She had tried to ignore it, but the words from love_peace clung to her like a second skin. The warning, the threat—it felt too real to brush aside.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, she stared at the phone screen, her mind reeling. She glanced at the time—late, too late to be thinking about this, but she couldn't stop herself. Something was off. The pieces of the puzzle weren't adding up, and the more she thought about it, the more she realized there were things about Vansh she didn't know—things he wasn't telling her.
Without another thought, she pulled up his social media profile. Her eyes scanned the page quickly, looking for any hint of something dark or suspicious. His posts, his friends—they seemed… normal. Too normal. Everything was curated, just like anyone trying to hide a part of themselves would do.
Then she spotted something—a photo she hadn't seen before.
It was an old picture, taken in a dimly lit room. Vansh was standing with his back to the camera, but the shape of a shadow loomed behind him. The photo had a grainy quality, but Pearl's stomach twisted as she stared at it. Who was in the shadow?
She clicked on the image to enlarge it, but as she did, her phone buzzed again.
New Message from: love_peace
"You're looking in the wrong places. You can dig all you want, but the truth will come for you. Don't make this harder on yourself."
Pearl's breath hitched.
Her eyes darted around the room, the feeling of being watched settling in, heavier now.
They're watching me. They're always watching.
Scene: Vansh Past Unraveling
Determined to confront the truth, Pearl decides to head to the one place she can get some answers—the library. She couldn't shake the thought that the key to everything was in the books, somewhere between the dusty pages. Maybe Vansh had left something behind.
As she enters the library, the air feels different, heavier. The silence here is thicker than usual. She walks through the rows of books, her footsteps echoing off the cold stone floor. And then, a flash of movement catches her eye.
It's him.
But before she can call out to him, a loud crash rings out from behind a row of books. Pearl's heart leaps into her throat. She spins around, eyes wide, but there's no one there.
The hair on the back of her neck stands up.
Suddenly, a message buzzes in her pocket.
love_peace:"Get out of the library. You won't find what you're looking for. He's already here."
Pearl's heart slams in her chest as she looks around. She doesn't know if she's more terrified of the text or the fact that someone else might be lurking in the shadows with her