Chapter 18: One Year Later

👉 Previous decision: Viktor Kostov cleared your name but gave you a key to a new apartment in Bay Ridge.

Exactly one year after moving into that cursed room in Queens, I sat quietly on a park bench at Shore Road Park in Bay Ridge. The air was cool, carrying the scent of salt and fresh-cut grass.

A peaceful sunrise painted the calm waters of the Narrows in hues of orange and pink. My bankruptcy record was clean. The police charges for arson, thanks to Viktor’s high-priced lawyers, had been mysteriously dropped. I held a steady job at a local building site, the honest labor a welcome balm to my fractured life.

The past year had been one of cautious rebuilding. My new studio apartment, provided by Viktor’s real-estate firm, was small but quiet. A fresh start.

I walked back from the park, the morning light filling the streets. The apartment felt safe. Solid. No hidden holes, no cultists, no mob enforcers. Just me, finally free.

As I lay down to sleep later that night, the city sounds fading into a gentle hum, I heard it.

A soft, rhythmic scraping noise.

It came from behind my closet drywall. Faint, at first, then growing steadily more defined.

Followed by the murmur. The low, familiar chant of midnight voices.

My eyes snapped open, wide and cold. I closed them again, tightly, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyelids.

I thought I escaped the dark when they killed the priestess, but in New York City, cheap rent always demands blood—you just pay a different landlord.

THE END – TRUE ENDING