They Knew - Chapter 5

Raven didn’t remember running back through the streets. By the time she reached her apartment, her body was soaked in sweat, gasping for air like she’d been drowning. The windows of the building were dark, casting an eerie stillness over the familiar facade. She reached for the door handle, her hand trembling as she realized she’d left it unlocked in her rush to meet the professor.

Her movements felt strange, detached, as if she were floating above herself, watching from a distance. It was a sensation she hadn’t felt since her mother died—like being trapped in a dream that was spiraling into a nightmare. The door creaked as she pushed it open, and she quickly locked all three locks behind her, including the flimsy chain that she knew wouldn’t stop anyone. The cold sweat on her back pressed into the door as she slid down to the floor, hugging her knees tightly to her chest.

The sobs came then, racking her body in waves. She tried to keep them quiet, but the dam broke, and the tears spilled freely. She cried for her father, for the professor, for herself—drowning in the weight of everything that had been ripped away from her in a single day.

Minutes passed, and her breathing began to steady. She wiped her face with her sleeve and whispered to herself, “Pull it together, Raven. He can’t see you like this.” Her father had enough to worry about without her falling apart in front of him.

It was then she heard it: a steady, unnatural tone cutting through the silence.

She froze, her breath catching in her throat. “What the hell is that?” she murmured aloud, her voice hoarse from crying. The sound was electronic, insistent—a high-pitched alarm that didn’t belong. Then recognition struck her like a physical blow. She bolted upright. “Oh no. Oh no. Dad!”

She sprinted to his bedroom, dread clawing at her chest. The sound grew louder, sharper. It wasn’t the usual rhythmic beep of his pulse monitor—it was a single, continuous note. She threw open the door, the sight before her confirming what her heart already knew.

Her father lay still in bed, his face pale, ashen, tinged with blue. His hands were folded across his chest, clutching a piece of yellow-lined paper. His old laptop rested beside him, magazines and newspapers strewn across the blanket as if he’d been reading his old work one last time.

Raven’s breath hitched as she stepped closer. “Dad…” she whispered, her voice trembling. She reached out but stopped short, her fingers hovering just above his cold hand. The world seemed to narrow around her, all sound fading except for the endless, accusing tone of the monitor.

She turned to the machine, pressing the power button with shaking fingers. The tone faded into silence, leaving the room unbearably still. For the first time since she’d moved him in, the constant hum of medical equipment was gone.

Her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor beside the bed, her hands clutching the edge of the mattress. The tears came again, harder this time, blurring her vision as a raw, guttural wail escaped her throat. It was the sound of everything inside her breaking—grief, rage, despair—pouring out in a torrent she couldn’t stop.

She looked up through tear-blurred eyes, the note in his hands catching her attention. Slowly, she reached for it, her fingers brushing against the paper. It felt too small, too fragile to hold the weight of whatever words he had left for her.

Time lost all meaning. Raven felt herself slipping away from it, untethered, as the raging storm of her grief took hold. It wrecked her like a hurricane tearing through fragile land, wild and relentless—until it wasn’t. Until the force of it drained, leaving her hollow, exhausted, and shivering.

Sweat clung to her skin, a cold sheen from her desperate sprint home, mixing with the wet patches of tears that had soaked through her shirt. Slowly, she began to drift back to the living world—a world her father and the professor no longer inhabited.

The silence struck her first.

No more background hum of machines. No more rhythmic beeps tracking a failing heartbeat. No more of her father’s rants about the world unraveling. No more of his wracking coughs that, toward the end, brought up blood and bile, leaving her helpless to do anything but watch. No more of the familiar rush of life at the lab—only the stillness of loss, thick and suffocating.

She was alone.

For the first time in her life, she had no anchor. When her mother had died, her father and the professor had been there to pull her through. But now? No one. Not a single soul to turn to.

Maybe that was a blessing.

They had killed the professor without hesitation. There was no doubt in her mind they would come for her next—and anyone she cared about. Maybe the professor had been right. Maybe this was fate. Maybe the best thing she could do was remove herself from the game entirely, slip off the board before they had a chance to do it for her.

Because things weren’t going to get better.

They were only going to get worse.

Her breath hitched. The weight of it all pressed down like an iron hand around her throat.

Then, her father’s voice surfaced in her mind.

“Lovie—you and your generation are going to have to be the ones who stand up and fix this. If you don’t seize your future, you simply won’t have one at all.”

She had brushed him off so many times when he said things like that. Rolled her eyes, accused him of being dramatic. But now, sitting in the wreckage of her life, she saw it for what it was. The truth.

Her fingers twitched. That’s when she remembered—his note.

The paper, now crumpled, was still clenched in her trembling fist. She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been holding it, the edges softened from the force of her grip.

Her muscles ached as she finally forced her fingers to release, letting out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

Then, with unsteady hands, she unfolded the note.