Chapter Three: The Ink That Bleeds

The bathroom mirror cracked down the center like a lightning bolt.

I didn’t remember it being broken.

I leaned closer, breath fogging the glass. The fluorescent light above me flickered, buzzing like it was arguing with itself. My reflection looked… wrong. Pale. Hollowed. As if something had scooped pieces out of me and forgotten to put them back.

That was when I saw the ink.

It crept from beneath the sleeve of my uniform, black and glossy, seeping into my skin like a living thing. My heart slammed against my ribs.

“No,” I whispered.

I rolled my sleeve up.

The words from my notebook—the ones I swore I never showed anyone—were etched into my arm. Not written. Etched. Each letter raised, dark, and warm to the touch.

Some stories don’t want to stay on the page.

The sink rattled. The lights died.

In the darkness, something laughed.

Not out loud. Inside my head.

I stumbled back, knocking into a stall door. My pulse roared in my ears. This wasn’t panic. Panic fades. This felt permanent.

The lights snapped back on.

The writing was gone.

Only a thin line of blood remained, tracing where the sentence had been.

The bell rang.

I washed my arm like it might erase what I’d seen, scrubbed until my skin burned. When I looked up again, I wasn’t alone.

Eli stood behind me.

He hadn’t made a sound.

“You okay?” he asked.

I jumped so hard my shoulder hit the mirror. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough to know you’re lying,” he said calmly.

I laughed, sharp and fake. “That obvious?”

He didn’t smile back. His eyes were fixed on my arm.

“You’re bleeding.”

I followed his gaze. The cut had reopened.

“I’m fine,” I said too quickly.

He stepped closer. The air between us tightened, charged. “You wrote something,” he said. “Didn’t you?”

My stomach dropped. “What?”

“Last night,” he continued. “In the library. I felt it. Like… pressure.”

“You felt my writing?”

His jaw clenched. “That’s not normal?”

I shook my head.

Neither of us spoke after that.

Somewhere deep inside me, the laugh returned.

Chapter Four: The Story That Watches Back

The notebook wouldn’t open.

I sat on my bed, knees pulled to my chest, staring at it like it might bite me. The cover was warm no, not warm. Breathing.

I should’ve burned it.

Instead, I opened it.

The pages flipped on their own.

My handwriting filled them.

Not just poems or fragments scenes. Detailed. Graphic. Scenes I had never written.

At the top of the page was a name.

Eli Mercer.

My chest tightened.

I read.

It described him standing in the hallway after school, the lockers humming, shadows stretching too long. It described the way fear would bloom behind his ribs when he realized he wasn’t alone.

And then

My phone buzzed.

A text from Eli.

Are you home?

My fingers shook as I typed back.

Yeah. Why?

Three dots. Gone. Back again.

Something’s wrong.

The notebook trembled.

A new line bled into the page.

He will come anyway.

My doorbell rang.

I slammed the notebook shut.

When I opened the door, Eli stood there, breathless, eyes wild. “You need to stop writing,” he said.

“I didn’t—”

He grabbed my wrist. Not hard. Desperate. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s pulling things out. Things that don’t belong here.”

Behind him, the streetlights flickered out one by one.

The darkness crept closer.

Inside my bag, the notebook scratched.

Waiting to finish the story.................