Episode 14 – "Whispers"
The next day, tension hangs over the farmhouse like a storm cloud.
Archor Freeman whispers low, his voice gravel on old lips:"We need to put him down… end his suffering."
The words barely leave his mouth before—CRASH.
John kicks the door in. Silence detonates across the room. His shadow stretches against the wall, body filling the doorway like a specter.
"You wanna what?" John growls.
Nobody answers. The air turns to ice.
"Ain't no one in this house capable of that."
His eyes lock on Freeman, steady and sharp. The group stiffens, certain he's about to crush the old man where he sits. But John's voice softens, almost wounded:"Why? …Why would you even think of doing that? I caused no harm to any of you."
Cainen stammers, trying to speak—"Shu'up." John snaps, his tone cutting like glass.
He points. "He shot me. I could've killed him quickly."
His head tilts. Ember eye flashing. The group freezes—none dare move.
"Y'all can leave," John mutters. Nobody moves.
Then—BANG! John's fist drives through the wall, splinters flying."THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
He storms out, leaving them in a coffin-quiet room.
The group exhales like they've been holding their breath for hours. Freeman's hand shakes around his cane."That… ain't a man no more," he rasps.
But Kelsey whispers, almost trembling:"...But what if he's right?"
The silence after that is heavier than the gunfire from last night.
Later, in the barn.
John sits alone on a hay bale, journal open in his lap. His handwriting scrawls like it's trying to outrun his thoughts.
"Yesterday, I been kilt. But I'm alive. Don't know how it happened. The group thinks I'm a damn demon or something. Maybe they're right. This world keeps getting colder."
He closes the book with a sigh, rubbing at the shotgun hole in his shirt. His chest itches where the wound had been—itching harder, deeper, like something under the skin wants out.
The barn creaks. For a split second, in the shadowed rafters, two tiny crimson eyes gleam back at him. Watching. Tilting.
John blinks—nothing there. Just dust and dark.
He exhales. Low, ragged. Almost a laugh. Almost a sob.
Fade to black.