The Softest Kind of Ruin

y began lik

She stretched lazily, silencing her phone's gentle alarm before it could disturb the quiet. The routine was familiar

forting scent of ink and paper, she found stability. Here, she wasn't exceptional-just another

ed nothing in return. Her hair, still damp, was swept into a loose ponytail, a few strands framing her face. She caught her

e, she wasn't so

ashes were long and dark, casting shadows that made her gaze seem distant, unknowable. There was a softness to her lips, the kind that made her smiles feel like secrets. Her voice, when she spoke, had a hush to it,

hought of herse

hen table, idly scrolling the news on her phone. Most of the headlines blurred together-celebrity dr

Linked to Elusi

r a heartbeat too long before swiping it away. Her thou

Colonel Street, about wounds

a

ookshelves. But it wasn't just the name. It was the silence beneath it. The unnatural stillness in the story. She remembered

nly dies-don't move. That's whe

another ghost story traded between half-mad old me

a

nd then someone was gone. Some said he didn't walk-he glided, like a shadow released from a bod

nife. Not because it was clea

ou close enough to

f. Just one more name stitched into the fraying quilt of a dy

partment, in the boo

hat's what

ont window. The street below was still. Morning traffic had

ng un

ing

dewalk. She didn't see the man standing motionless across the

move. Di

watch

ght caught the edge of something beneath