I’ve been thinking about Sarah a lot. Not that I know anything about her. I’ve tried looking for her. Discreetly. I don’t want to upset Cassie. I tried asking someone else on our floor if they remembered her, someone that I thought wouldn’t go talking to anyone else. While my hunch as to her silence was right, it also turned out to be a dead end because she informed me that she was a freshman and didn’t know anyone from last year.

lol rip why am I so bad at names and faces

(if you’re new, start here, and if you’re totally lost, this might help)

Grayson said that I might be projecting. If I can figure out what happened to Cassie’s roommate, then maybe it’ll make me feel better about not knowing what happened to my dad.

Yes, I finally talked to Grayson. He made it unavoidable by waiting outside my classroom. I suppose I could have ignored him and kept talking to my classmate about putting together a study group, but I knew I couldn’t keep avoiding him forever. I might not want to confront my problems, but I’m not so bad that I’ll pretend they don’t exist when they’re standing right in front of me.

Grayson is not a very big person. He’s only a few inches shorter than me and he looks kind of scrawny. Despite all this, his presence is hard to ignore. It’s like he’s actively engaged with the world around him. He notices everything around him and so by the time I saw him, he’d already noticed me and everyone else around me and was calculating the perfect time to cut into the conversation. There was no avoiding him.

I know that seems like a lot but I don’t know, it’s kind of endearing. Grayson is a bit quiet in conversations, but he doesn’t miss anything. He’s interested in what everyone has to say, too. He doesn’t just politely listen. He engages.

Today, however, that light in his eyes was dim. He looked tired.

“Are you okay?” I asked as we walked together out of the building.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

He sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Well, one of the few friends I have has been avoiding me. That’s kind of hard on a person, you know?”

I felt too guilty to reply for a moment. But wasn’t this a bit unfair, I thought. He was the son of the university president. After what he’d seen with me, shouldn’t he expect me to be a little wary?

“I don’t have many friends,” he continued. “You know what that’s like, right?”

“I’m not going to let you make me feel guilty,” I finally said through gritted teeth.

There we go. Standing up for myself. It made my heart hammer and I wanted to crawl into a hole or apologize or run away as soon as the words were said.

“You asked,” he said, running his hands through his hair in exasperation. “No, I’m not fine. You got washed into my dad’s office via a flood that came from his closet. I just want to know what happened.”

“I want to know what’s happening too.”

That wasn’t quite the truth. I have my theories of what’s happening and I don’t think Grayson is going to confirm them. Honestly, I’m not sure if he can. He might have been left in the dark. It’s impossible to tell without knowing more about his family and how much they told him while he was growing up. And that’s what I really want to ask. Did he know? Was he playing dumb this whole time? Making a fool of me?

I just don’t know how to say that.

“Let’s just start small,” he suggested. “I honestly don’t know what happened with the flood… thing. Can you at least tell me how you got caught up in that so I can stop wondering? I won’t tell anyone else. I especially won’t tell my dad. I promise.”

He seemed so earnest that I believed him.

But… I also believed my ex-boyfriend when he said he loved me.

I told him about the traveling river. That I’d fallen into it and found a way out through the bottom. I didn’t know why it’d dumped me out in that particular location, though. There wasn’t much more to it.

I didn’t tell him about the laundry lady’s help or the eyeball. Certainly not about the devil and the pencil. I haven’t even told Cassie or Maria about that, I’m not about to tell Grayson now that I know whose son he is.

I keep veering between if that’s wildly unfair and I’m a bad person or if I’m just taking reasonable precautions. I feel like it’s the latter, but I can’t help but feeling like the former.

“I guess the president’s office is a place of significance,” Grayson said, his brow furrowed. “Maybe you got dumped out there because it was the closest place, symbolically?”

“You do know some things about all this stuff!” I snapped.

“Well, yes, I grew up around here,” he replied tersely. “You hear things. Doesn’t mean someone sat me down and explained everything about the campus though.”

I can’t say I agree with his theory. I don’t know if a river would associate itself with that sort of symbolism. Still, it was good to have someone else suggesting ideas, even if I didn’t think they were correct.

We were almost at my dorm. He paused and stopped, taking a deep breath before turning to face me.

“Do you want to come over for dinner some night?” he asked. “I live on campus to get the full college experience, but I can tell my dad I’m coming home for dinner and bringing a friend.”

Is it a date? Is it because I’m finding out too much about the college? Is he as in the dark as I am and is trying to get someone else to assess how deep his father is involved?

I don’t know.

So I panicked (as I always do) and told him I’d think about it.

Anyway, pick which of those reasons scares you the most, because I’ve got mine already figured out and yes it absolutely is option number 1.

At least we’re talking again via text. I told him about my hunt for Sarah and that’s when he advised me that maybe I might be obsessing over it a little unhealthily and I dunno, I didn’t like hearing that, but ngl it’s kind of nice to have someone to talk to again.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to tell him about the flickering man, though.

There’s something that’s been going on since the start of the semester that I think I haven’t wanted to notice. I’ve been breaking my own rules and going out in the rain because I think I’m starting to get a feel for when it’s dangerous or not. It rains enough around here that it’s not possible to always stay inside when it rains and I’ve found that being in a group helps. But there’s also the kind of rain it is - light drizzles don’t seem to pose much threat.

There’s also something that just feels wrong about the rains that are going to have something dangerous out in them. It’s not something I can point to quantitatively. It’s just a feeling.

So when the rain feels safe, I ignore rule #1 and go to my classes or wherever else I need to be.

I’m being overconfident. I thought that before and I certainly know that now. Because even when it felt safe to go out, I felt a faint unease the entire time. I’d check over my shoulder, as if I were being followed. I kept glancing at movement in the corner of my eyes and each time nothing was there.

I wondered if the flickering man was tailing me. I began to think that was the case. Yet he never drew close enough for me to see clearly, so I began to think that perhaps he was limited by the strength of the rain. Unless it was a downpour, he couldn’t get close to people. That was what I thought.

This is why I don’t want to add rules until I’m very certain on what they should say. I was wrong about so many things.

I was walking along a less traversed path across campus. It was only drizzling, so I didn’t feel like I needed safety in numbers. Arrogance on my part? Making bad life choices? Turning into Chicken Tenders 2.0 just because I melted a giant eyeball? Yes.

Anyway, I was walking along thinking I had it all figured out, nbd, the next three years are going to be easy, and then I notice that the thing in the corner of my vision is happening again. Fine. Whatever. The flickering man is my personal stalker. He did seem weirdly interested in me when Steven and I got caught out in the rain but he hasn’t done anything about it, so maybe I didn’t have to be so panicky all the time.

Incorrect. I have so many reasons to be panicking all the time.

The flickering was getting nearer. This time, I caught glimpses of him, upside down, between the raindrops. This was the closest he’d ever come since that first encounter. My confidence faltered and I began looking around frantically for shelter. I was near the art building. I began to pick up my pace. There was an overhang that ran all along one edge and I thought that if I followed that I’d find a door.

I blinked. There was an impression in my sight, of a man directly in front of me, his face even with mine, his eyes staring directly into mine, the rest of his body hovering somewhere above my head.

Then it was gone when I opened my eyes again. My nerve broke. I ran. Something brushed my arm as I did, like a moth’s wing. Then another touch against my face. It felt like he was all around me in glimpses and flashes of impression, a dark shape, darting all around me like sparks. Was he trying to grab me? Was that what I felt?

My breath burned in my lungs. I feel I should take up running, except I’m kind of terrified of the gym ever since someone told me the swimmers sometimes show up in the pool.

I reached the overhang. I kept going, around the corner, and I found the doors.

Loading dock doors. Doors that were currently locked.

And I was out of overhang to follow.

I stood there, frantically rattling them in the hopes some student was on the other side, working on their sculpture, and would hear me and let me in. No one responded.

But nothing touched me, either.

Slowly, I turned back around. If the flickering man was still there, I couldn’t see him. Nor was he trying to grab me.

I was elated. This was it. I’d figured it out. I knew how to beat him. There, safe from the flickering man under the overhang. I stepped to the edge of it and stared out into the rain.

“You can’t hurt me, can you?” I demanded into the rain. “You’re stuck hopping between the raindrops and you aren’t able to be still long enough to touch us. And you can’t go where there isn’t rain.”

A moment passed and I reveled in my victory. Another rule for the list. Doing great at this whole surviving college thing.

Then he answered me.

“You got part of that right,” he said and his voice was mere feet away.

And he stepped out of the rain and into the dry space beneath the underhang.

He was no longer flickering. He was as solid as anyone else, his feet firmly on the ground and his body rightside up. He was dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt, but they were soaked through and plastered to his body. Average build and dark brown hair that stuck to his neck.

He looked… ordinary. I suppose the worst monsters always do.

“I was going to keep leaving you alone,” he hissed. “But I can’t stand your smugness.”

He lunged at me. An arm struck me in the chest and he kept going, tumbling me backwards until my back hit the brick of the art building’s wall. The impact knocked my glasses loose. They hung onto one ear for a moment before falling free and clattering to the ground. Unfortunately, I’m near sighted, so I could still see his face clearly as he loomed over me. He was smiling, but it didn’t have any playfulness or even arrogance. It was a cruel smile. He leaned forward a bit, putting his weight into the arm holding my back to the wall.

I didn’t try to push him away. I just… stood there, pinned, my arms limp at my sides. I felt numb.

“I’ve seen you before,” he hissed. “Over and over and over.”

More pressure against my chest. My world narrowed to my breathing, to keeping my chest rising and falling. His gaze was hard, studying my face.

“You’ve been following me,” I gasped.

“You and all the ones that came before you and all the ones after. I think they shouldn’t bother. It always ends the same way.”

He seemed to be talking more to himself. Examining me as if I was just an insect to be studied, absently musing over his own thoughts while he did. I felt a thin sliver of hope, though. I didn’t think the administration knew about me, specifically, but perhaps there’d been other people like me in the past. Students that dug a little bit deeper than the others.

“You’re not allowed to kill me, are you?”

His focus snapped back to me.

“Allowed? Not quite. It’s more a… preference. An appeal to our self-control.”

“Then… would you let me go?”

“You should have asked that earlier. I’ve been waiting for you to reach the limits of my restraint,” he hissed. “And here we are. I’m far too hungry to back away now.”

He shifted his grip. His hand slid up, no longer pushing against my chest, but now it was wrapped around my throat. He tilted his head a moment, considering as I took in sharp, panicked breaths while I still could.

“You’re not much of a fighter, are you?” he mused. “You’ve had your moments, but this isn’t something you can just fix. You’ll always be like this. You’ll always be afraid.”

He’s been watching me. Just how long has this been going on?

“Do you disagree? Go on. Answer me.”

He patted the side of my cheek with his free hand and smiled. Like I was a child.

“I-I don’t disagree,” I managed to stammer.

“I know, that was hard.” His patronizing smile widened. “You can barely speak to me, much less defend yourself. I know! Why don’t you try begging instead?”

He wasn’t going to let me go. Not even if I begged. I felt tears sliding down my cheeks and the grip on my neck tightened.

I couldn’t breathe. This time, I reached for his hand, prying at his fingers in desperation. I felt the bite of my own nails in my skin, desperately clawing for some crack in his relentless grip. He laughed and watched in bright interest, reveling in my growing panic.

Then a hand closed on his shoulder. The flickering man’s eyes widened for one brief instant, then he was yanked violently backwards. He spun around in fury to confront his assailant -

- and caught a fist to the face instead.

The flickering man fell backwards, landing sprawled on his ass. He stared up at my rescuer in undisguised loathing.

“You!” he spat. “Still lurking about?”

“Always,” the devil replied, shaking his hand out. His knuckles were red from the impact. “Gotta fill my quota of souls to steal.”

“You do not. You’re just here because you like causing trouble.”

“Why can’t both be true?”

The devil took a step forward and the flickering man didn’t hesitate in throwing himself back out into the rain. He vanished into the raindrops and it was just me and the devil. I sank to the ground, leaning back against the wall, sobbing and coughing. I was shaking violently. The flickering man was right. It wasn’t going to get easier. I’m always going to be like this.

“Did you see his face though!” the devil exclaiming, sliding down to sit next to me. “That look of dumb surprise right before my fist connected with his face. Beautiful.”

He handed me my glasses. I couldn’t help but laugh and somehow that broke the hold over me. After a few more moments I found I could take a single deep breath, then another, and then I was wiping my eyes on my sleeve.

“Why didn’t you just kill him?” I asked.

He was quiet for a moment, watching the rain.

“You can’t,” I said.

“I can’t in a way that matters,” he corrected.

These creatures can’t change themselves. That is a right reserved for humans. Perhaps the devil could destroy his corporeal form, but the idea of the flickering man would remain and he’d return the moment someone on campus wondered if the glimpse of movement they saw in the corner of their eye was more than just a raindrop falling past their field of vision.

“Anyway,” the devil said, jumping to his feet and clapping his hands together brightly. “I think I see some people approaching, so I’m going to be on my way.”

“Wait!”

He paused at the edge of the overhang, hesitating just before entering the rain still falling hard onto the pavement.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” I asked. “I did what you asked, so-”

“Protecting my investment,” he replied grimly. “My end of the bargain was that you’d graduate, wasn’t it?”

Then he stepped out into the rain and hurried away. I waited under the overhang until the handful of students he’d seen were close enough that I could walk behind them until our paths diverged. Then I ran the rest of my way to my dorm.

Strength in numbers. I guess I’m not ready to abandon it just yet. Maybe not ever, after what happened out there in the rain.

The devil said he’d help me graduate. Does this mean that I have the devil protecting me for the next three years?

I wish I could say I was reassured. I mean, that is one hell of a bargain, right? I get the devil - and okay, he’s more the metaphorical devil than the actual devil because this shit is complicated, but whatever - I get the devil protecting me. Doesn’t matter if my survival instincts crawled off and died in the gutter somewhere. The devil will just show up and suckerpunch whatever is threatening me, right?

Except… that’s too good of a bargain.

I should have expected this. There’s always a catch when dealing with an entity like this. Something unknown. Something unseen.

And the devil is protecting me because he’s waiting for the trap to spring.[x]

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