"She thought she was alone. Until the letters began."
(Elara'sPOV)
The scent of old paper always calmed me.
There was something sacred about it — like the ghosts of stories long gone whispering between brittle pages. In this library, surrounded by dust and silence, I didn't have to be anyone. I could disappear into the stacks, the words, the quiet. And for me, disappearing wasn't a curse. It was survival.
I sat behind the reference desk of the Langmore Rare Archives, clicking through returned entries like I had a hundred times before. The routine soothed me.
Click. Stamp. Slide.
Click. Stamp. Slide.
The rhythm made sense. People didn't.
The next book was a beautiful, timeworn edition of The Collected Works of Poe. I ran my fingertips gently over the embossed leather cover before opening it, already imagining that faint, musty smell that made me feel safe.
That's when I saw it — nestled between the pages, like a secret meant just for me.
An envelope.
Not the kind people used for bookmarks. This was deliberate.
Thick, cream-colored paper. Black wax seal. A strange symbol pressed into it — a snake devouring its own tail.
My heart stuttered.
I glanced around. The library was nearly empty. A man coughing in the genealogy wing. A student sleeping face-down in his laptop. The guard half-dozing by the front doors.
Nobody looking at me.
Carefully, I picked it up. The envelope had weight, intention. And my name — written in perfect calligraphy on the front.
I shouldn't have opened it.
But of course I did.
Elara Wynn,You read to forget.I watch to remember.You flinch when the wind touches the back of your neck.You lock your apartment door twice — then touch the handle one more time, just to be sure.You haven't cried in thirteen months, but last night, you almost did.
Why didn't you let yourself?
I would've held you.I would've made you scream.
You pretend to love quiet, but I know it's just the only thing that doesn't hurt.
Soon, I'll send you another letter.When I do, wear that red scarf you never take out of the drawer.
I want to see you in it.I want to know you're reading me back.
Don't be afraid, Elara.You're exactly what I've been looking for.
– Me
I didn't move.
The letter trembled in my hands, but the rest of me had gone completely still — like my body didn't know what to do with the chill sliding down my spine.
The red scarf.
No one knew about that. I hadn't worn it in years. It was folded in the back of my closet, under things I never touched. I hadn't told anyone about the crying, the door checks, the way silence was the only thing that didn't cut.
No one knew. No one could know.
But someone did.
I stared at the handwriting — flawless, elegant, like a calligrapher's. The kind of writing that belonged in a love letter or a eulogy.
No name. Just Me.
Every instinct screamed to tell someone. Go to the police. Show the letter to the guard. Call my mother — no, not her. Anyone.
But I didn't move.
I couldn't explain it. I should've felt afraid. I did feel afraid.
But beneath it, tangled somewhere deep in the back of my mind, was something else.
A throb of adrenaline.
A flicker of heat.
The way my heart pounded reminded me too much of the moments just before I used to cry — or come.
I folded the letter and slipped it into the inside pocket of my coat, fingers numb.
Outside, the first snowflakes of the year drifted past the tall windows.
Inside, I sat frozen behind the desk, pretending I was still in control, pretending the quiet hadn't changed. That I hadn't changed.
But I had.
Because now, I knew this wasn't silence anymore.
It was breathing.
And it wasn't mine.