Ezra tried not to mind her.
The girl in the red coat.
Always at the edge of things—reflections, windows, crowds. Always standing just a little too still. Eyes a little too open. Not blinking enough.
He told himself it didn't matter. That maybe she was just one of those people who stared and didn't realize it. Some people were strange. That didn't mean anything.
So he went back to his routine.
Café. Corner seat. Headphones in.
No music.
He flipped through his notes, traced spirals into the margins, stared past his own reflection in the glass. It was habit by now, a form of stillness masquerading as peace.
But even habits started to fray.
Because the silhouette was back.
Not in the glass this time. In the quad. Behind the professor. In the trees that lined the walk between lecture halls. Always tall. Always faceless. Always just standing.
Ezra didn't react. Didn't flinch.
He brushed it off. Again and again. Told himself it was stress. Lack of sleep. Lingering residue from his old dreams.
But by the end of the day, he couldn't pretend anymore.
So when his last class ended and the sun began to dip behind the university's bell tower, Ezra didn't go home.
He waited.
Sat in the Mustang with the engine off, parked along the far edge of campus, where the cars thinned and the trees pressed closer to the lot. Head down. Eyes on the dash.
He watched people leave.
One by one.
Groups of students filtered out, laughing, arguing, spilling into the golden light of evening.
Eventually, the parking lot grew quiet. The windows on campus went dark, one by one.
He waited twenty minutes longer than he needed to.
Just in case.
Then he stepped out of the car, coat zipped, backpack left behind.
And started walking.
Mina wasn't sure why she followed him.
Maybe it was the way he moved—slow, deliberate, like someone who'd already decided something dangerous. Maybe it was how he looked over his shoulder, not to see who was there but to make sure no one was.
Whatever it was, she'd seen him slip behind the old greenhouse path near the edge of the faculty lot. She knew that route—it led behind the main science building, toward a stretch of overgrown woods the university never touched.
She hesitated for only a second.
Then followed.
Kept her distance. No footsteps. Careful breath.
Ezra passed the edge of the pavement and stepped onto the worn dirt path. Trees lined both sides like sentries, bare branches reaching inward to clasp above his head.
The sun was almost gone now.
The sky an oil-slick gray.
He walked deeper, past the old security fence where ivy had chewed through the metal, past the rusted utility shed no one used anymore.
And then he saw her.
The girl in the red coat.
Standing in the clearing, back to him, hood down.
Still.
Unmoving.
Ezra slowed.
No breath. No sound. Just the thudding in his chest.
She turned, as if she'd felt him think her name.
But she didn't speak.
Didn't blink.
Just looked.
Her face was clearer now than it had ever been. Pale. Young, maybe. Eyes too wide, whites too bright. No smile this time.
Ezra opened his mouth—but his throat locked. Words didn't come.
Instead, he took a step forward.
She mirrored it.
And then—without warning—she lifted her hand and pointed behind him.
Ezra froze.
Turned.
And saw nothing.
No one.
Just trees.
When he looked back—
She was gone.
Mina crouched behind a low wall of tangled brush, heart hammering.
She'd seen it too.
The girl.
And how she disappeared.
One blink—gone.
She pressed a hand over her mouth to keep quiet, but a twig snapped beneath her foot.
Ezra's head snapped toward the noise.
"Mina?" His voice was low. Sharp.
She stood slowly, hands raised. "Don't—don't freak out. I didn't mean to… I just—" Her breath caught. "Who was that?"
Ezra stared at her, not with anger—but something worse. Like she'd stepped somewhere she wasn't meant to.
"You followed me," he said flatly.
"You were sneaking around behind the university at night," she shot back. "I thought you were gonna do something stupid."
He didn't answer.
Didn't deny it.
"You saw the burn," he said quietly. "Last semester. On my wrist."
She blinked.
Nodded slowly.
"I thought it will keep you away but you keep seating next to me, it was sufficient to keep people away from me." He said looking down as he continue. "I was five," Ezra said. "My house got caught in fire and my parents didn't make it but i did somehow. They said it was a miracle."
His hand curled slightly. "I remember… something carrying me. But i don't even really know if that thing is real."
Mina's voice was barely above a whisper. "And the girl?"
"I don't know her nor expected to see her here."
Ezra stepped forward, scanning the shadows, the edges of the trees.
"She began to appear, as the same time i strated to seeing this tall things, could they be connected?" he murmured to himself.
Mina crossed her arms, rubbing warmth back into them.
Lightning flickered far off. Distant thunder rolled a few seconds later.
Ezra grabbed Mina's wrist.
"Come on, we should'nt stay here"
They ran.
Back up the path. Back toward the parking lot.
The rain started slow—just a hush against the canopy overhead—but it was enough to make the mud soft under their feet as Ezra and Mina sprinted back toward the edge of campus.
Branches clawed at them. The trees no longer felt like passive watchers. They leaned, somehow. Breathing. Listening.
When they burst out onto the cracked pavement near the faculty lot, the last sliver of sun was gone. Just electric orange glow from the far-off stadium lights and the dull hum of campus security floodlamps.
Ezra didn't let go of Mina's wrist until they were within view of his car.
"Do you want to explain what that was now?" Mina asked, breath short.
Ezra didn't answer at first. He dug into his pocket, keys jangling with shaking fingers, and unlocked the car. The headlights blinked. A dry chirp from the Mustang's tired alarm system. Something mundane in the middle of all this strangeness.
They slid into the car. Silence thick between them, windows fogging slowly from their breath.
Ezra stared at the wheel for a long moment before saying, "I don't think she's a menace."
Mina looked at him. "You mean the girl?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
Mina's brow furrowed. "So what's this all about...?"
"I don't know yet, im not quite sure myself."
He looked at her.
The rain picked up, pattering harder against the windshield.
Mina ran a hand through her damp hair. "Okay. So let's say you're not crazy. That...this silhouette is real, and it's somehow back. Why now? Why here?"
Ezra's gaze flicked toward the rearview mirror. Shadows shifted in the dark beyond the parking lot.
"I don't know evrything is confuse in my mind" he whispered.
"And the girl in red?"
Ezra was quiet.
Mina leaned back in the seat. "So what do we do? Go home and pretend this didn't happen?"
Ezra shook his head.
"I want to go back."
Mina's head snapped toward him. "What?"
"Not tonight. But tomorrow. I need to know what is it. And why it's showing itself now."
"That's insane. You don't go toward the haunted part of the woods when a ghost stares into your soul."
Ezra half-smiled. "Maybe not. But I've been running for so long, every time I close my eyes, it's there. Every time I look in the glass, it's standing behind me."
Mina swallowed.
"You think it's after other people now?"
"I don't know…" He let the sentence drift.
Mina exhaled slowly. "I can see no matter what i say you'll still go back there tomorrow."
She reached into her jacket and pulled out her phone. Her fingers trembled slightly as she type a text on her phone.
"Someone have to keep an eye on you in case you doing someting reckless."
Ezra arched a brow. "Keep an eye on me?"
"Yeah i'll spend the night at your place if anything happens to you, at least someone should know about it and be able to help you or warn you in case of danger."
Ezra's hands tightened on the wheel.
Ezra nodded slowly. "Fine."
The rain was still falling outside.
Elsewhere
Behind the campus, a young woman in a red coat stares at the ground.
She stopped, traces of blood drying on the ground.
She leans forward and murmurs to herself. "I hadn't excepted a beast of that size around here."
She stared at the ground.
I should find out about any cases of disappearance or murder around this campus.