It had been exactly one hundred days since the lake.
Since the scream.
Since the shadows.
Since Lilith Aduna spoke her true name and survived.
But healing doesn't always come with survival.
The nightmares were quieter now, but not gone. Sometimes they came in colors, sometimes in silence and other times, they came in the form of him.
The man in the long coat. The one who never moved. Never spoke.
Only watched.
She first saw him outside the bakery.
Then again in the school parking lot.
And just this morning, standing across the street from her window,
facing her house.
At first, she thought it was trauma tricking her.
After all, she'd been through hell and came back with scars she couldn't show anyone.
But scars don't stare back.
Lilith had started college in the city. A new town. New life.
Agatha insisted she move forward that the lake was sealed. The shadows gone.
But Lilith had learned to stop believing in endings.
Some things don't end.
They wait.
And this new beginning? It smelled too much like a warning.
It began with the voice in the walls.
She heard it while unpacking her books.
At first, it sounded like static. Then like wind.
But by the third night, the whisper was clear.
"You brought it with you."
She dropped the lamp in her hand. It shattered.
She spun around nothing. No one.
Just her quiet apartment and her racing heartbeat.
"Get a grip," she whispered to herself. "You're just tired."
But then, the closet door creaked open.
She didn't move.
"Lilith…"
That voice , it was her own.
She grabbed her pendant. It hadn't glowed in months.
But now, it pulsed faint and warm.
Like something inside it had woken up.
The shadows weren't haunting her anymore.
They were calling her.
Outside her window, the man in the long coat watched without blinking.
And this time, she didn't look away.