Alex stirred awake to the uncomfortable realization that his face was pressed into a pile of paperwork. His eyes opened slowly, dry and unfocused, the soft yellow glow of his desk lamp making the room look more tired than it was. He blinked hard, groaned under his breath, and forced himself upright with stiff arms and a dull ache in his spine. He glanced at the small digital clock wedged between files and empty coffee cups—6:42 a.m. Still early.
"Damn it," he muttered. "Slept off."
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he stood and stretched, joints popping. He winced slightly and rolled his shoulders. The sheriff's office was quiet in that eerie way it always was before the morning shift fully kicked in. That stillness between darkness and duty.
He looked over to the couch in the corner of his office. Jade was still curled up beneath the blanket, sound asleep. The kid hadn't shifted once during the night. His breathing was steady, face relaxed. Peaceful.
Alex watched him for a long moment. Something about the boy reminded him too much of himself at that age—the guarded way he carried silence, like he expected the world to punish him for every breath. There was a weight behind his stillness, and Alex recognized it far too well.
I see your scars, Kid. Not the kind that show up in reports. The kind no one asks about. The ones that live deep and stay quiet until something stirs them up again. He sighed, folding his arms. They say only the wounded can recognize another. I don't know if that's true, but it feels right. And you didn't deserve this—not any of it.
He turned and paced lightly across the room, trying to shake off the grogginess in his muscles. Maybe it was just the stiffness making him uneasy. Or perhaps the creeping feeling in his gut hadn't faded overnight like he'd hoped.
Then his eyes landed on the window.
He stopped.
Drawn across the inner pane, clear and unmistakable, was a crescent moon. Not drawn in the fog or dust. Carved.
He walked toward it slowly, eyes narrowing. The curve was precise, but rough-edged, like it had been scraped with something. His fingers brushed the inside of the glass, following the groove lightly.
"This wasn't here yesterday," he murmured. "And this wasn't done from the inside."
He leaned in, studying the cut more closely. There were no cracks, no fractures—just a deliberate etching. It didn't look like it was made with a knife or any tool he recognized. A blade would've risked shattering the glass, and if anything had made that kind of noise in the middle of the night, he would've heard it.
He glanced back at Jade, still asleep. Then to the window again.
Without a word, he opened his office door and stepped out into the hallway. Outside, one of the night-shift officers was making his way toward the breakroom with a coffee mug in hand.
"Hey," Alex called, voice low but sharp enough to cut through the quiet. "Come with me. I want to check something outside the station."
The officer turned, eyebrows raised but compliant. "Sure thing, boss."
The two stepped out into the cool morning air. Fog still blanketed the lot, thick and unmoving, pressing against the building like it didn't want to lift. They moved around the side of the station, boots scraping over damp concrete until they reached the window outside Alex's office.
Alex pointed. "Right there. Tell me what you see."
The officer leaned in, squinting at the crescent mark. "That's… weird," he muttered. "Looks like someone cut into the glass."
Alex nodded. "From the outside. Clean, but not perfect. Too shallow to be a vandal job. And too quiet."
The officer ran his fingers along the groove. "Feels like claw marks, almost. Could've been a tool, but…" He trailed off.
Before either of them could say more, a sudden, heavy sound broke the silence—a thud, close enough to make them both turn and instinctively reach for their sidearms. They scanned the area, breath tight, eyes sharp. Then, from behind the row of parked vehicles, a bird flapped up in panic and vanished into the fog.
Alex exhaled through his nose and lowered his weapon. "Just a bird," he muttered.
"Jesus," the officer muttered. "Too early for this shit."
But something still felt off. He turned back toward the wall—and stopped.
There in the ground, half-obscured by the mist, were footprints. Larger than any human print, oddly shaped, and spaced far too wide to be natural. Each step was at least twelve feet apart. Whatever made them didn't walk—it moved like it wasn't bound to gravity at all.
The officer stared down at them, voice hushed. "Those two footprints can't be from the same... thing right?"
Alex crouched beside the nearest print, eyes scanning the spacing. "Anything's possible," he said quietly.
"Should we call in the forensic girl to come take a look?"
"She has a name," Alex replied, already standing again. "It's Kelly. Yeah. Get her down here as soon as she clocks in."
Alex's eyes caught something near the far end of the window. A faint glimmer in the grass, almost like spiderweb silk catching the dawn. He walked over and bent down, lifting it carefully between his fingers.
It was a clump of hair—silver, not like aged gray or dyed blonde, but pure silver, almost metallic. Smooth to the touch, unnaturally soft, and faintly luminescent. Under the morning light, it shimmered faintly like silk spun through glitter.
Alex turned it over once, twice, then looked back at the window.
Something had stood here last night. Close. Calm.
He stood still, hair in hand, and stared at the fading crescent on the glass.
"Something deeper happened here," he muttered.
And for once, he knew it wasn't paranoia talking.