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Chapter One: From Unknown

"Shit—fuck—SHITTT!"

The alarm on my phone was shrieking like a banshee, and I was doing my best to match its energy. I thrashed out from under my blanket burrito, knocking over my water bottle and probably waking the neighbors.

"I'm so late I might as well just drop out" I groaned, stumbling toward my jeans. "Professor Jenkins is gonna kill me! I mean, like, dig-a-hole-and-bury-my-body kill me!"

"Already got your coffee!" Jessica called from downstairs, her voice echoing up the stairwell like she was on cue. "And Smiley's heating up your straightener!"

Smiley. Of course she was.

Most people assumed she was just shy. Quiet. Background noise. But after living with her for two years, I knew better. Smiley was the kind of person who somehow managed to float through rooms like a ghost, eavesdrop without trying, and be ten steps ahead of you without ever leaving the couch. A 22-year-old psych major with dark blue hair and colored extensions that she changed every other day, paper-white skin, and the posture of someone who wanted the walls to swallow her whole. If she blinked more than once a minute, I'd be shocked.

Still—girl was reliable. And borderline telepathic when it came to our morning routines.

I tugged on yesterday's jeans without shame, muttering, "Whatever, they don't smell that bad," as I hopped toward the closet.

"Top's on your dresser!" Jessica yelled again, already two steps ahead of me—bag slung over her shoulder, both coffees in hand like the angel she was.

I spotted the shirt instantly. A black and grey marble crop top with Edgar Allan Poe staring out in ghostly white. Appropriate, since I had to present on him in Jenkins' class this morning. I yanked it on and ran a brush through my hair with minimal effort, praying it passed for messy chic instead of unhinged insomniac.

Smiley poked her head out from the bathroom as I passed. She didn't say a word—just held out my hot straightener like some gothic sword of morning salvation. Her dark eyes flicked to mine for half a second, unreadable. Then she disappeared back inside without a sound.

"...Thanks," I said into the silence. Too late. Too quiet.

The walk to campus was the usual half-conscious shuffle. Students passed us in waves—hoodies, earbuds, iced coffees clutched like religion. No one talked. Not really. Mornings were for survival, not socializing.

I pulled out my phone at the crosswalk outside West Hall, mostly just to check the time and see how screwed I really was.

That's when I saw it.

UNKNOWN

"Do you know how many people die holding their phones?"

Just one line. No link. No signature.

My thumb hovered for a second, and I squinted at the screen. The message wasn't flagged as spam. It didn't look like a phishing scam either. And there was no option to report or block the sender.

Weird.

Still, I had no time for random creeps with an existential text game.

I shoved my phone back in my pocket.

But the words stayed with me.

Do you know how many people die holding their phones?

Something about it stuck—like a pit lodged deep in my throat.

Outside, the usual New Hardon rain had started to mist—soft at first, but constant. A curtain drawn across the morning.

Smiley and I walked together in silence, jackets zipped, boots splashing through shallow puddles. I was walking, but my head was somewhere else—drifting back like it always did.

I was thirteen when my mom baked me a coconut cake for my birthday. It was the last birthday we had together—all of us. The last time my dad made me a handmade card, the last time my baby sister helped me unwrap presents with her sticky fingers and too-big smile. I didn't even like coconut that much at the time, but I ate three slices anyway, just to make her happy.

Now, I'd kill for that cake. For the smell. The quiet hum of our house before it all cracked apart on a highway curve. Metal and light and screaming tires. Nothing after that but silence.

After the accident, Tanya and I were sent to our grandmother's. She was soft-spoken, but she didn't need to say much. She just made sure we ate. That we slept. That we didn't fall completely apart.

She died a few years later. Heart attack in her sleep.

I was fifteen. Tanya was seventeen.

Then it was CPS, new homes, new walls. Tanya aged out first and took guardianship of me. She didn't have to. But she did. We weren't great at talking about it, but we survived those last few years together in a shitty apartment with drafty windows and leaky pipes.

Then I turned eighteen, got into New Hardan University, and moved to Trentonville. Tanya stayed in Rocksteady. It's a 45-minute drive, but it feels longer. She says it's too hard to see me. That it reminds her of everything. I used to fight her on that—beg her to visit. But grief does strange things to people. Sometimes it builds bridges. Sometimes it burns them.

Now we text twice a month. Maybe. Usually, she just likes my posts and ghosts again.

But here, in this rainy little college town, I found Jessica and Smiley.

Jessica, with her loud boots and louder mouth and country metaphors that made no damn sense but still worked. She holds my hair when I throw up, makes me coffee even when she's late herself, and never lets me forget that I'm alive.

Smiley, who barely speaks but always knows what I need. Who always insists on taking revenge on the ones who hurt Jessica or I, and we'd do the same for her. She memorized my favorite order at the café before I even knew it myself.

We were strangers once. Now we orbit each other like stars nobody's named yet.

The message was weird. Sure.

But it wasn't what scared me.

What scared me was how easy it was to push it aside. To get dressed. To sip my coffee in my tore up black boots.

To pretend I wasn't still standing in the shadow of something I hadn't dealt with in years.

It's not the strange things that undo you.

It's the quiet ones.