End.

Elliott’s throat tightened. He had rehearsed bravery in a dozen ways: sprinting into the dark, flinging the bike down the stairs, jumping from roofs. None of them included being addressed by a thing that called itself lost. “Are you… alone?” he managed.

The shape spoke, voice like wind through glass. “Lost,” it said. Not a question.

Mara stepped forward. “You can’t be—” Her voice cracked. She kept moving anyway. “We can help. We’ll—”

Elliott found the winding key and turned with all his small, stubborn strength. The clock answered, a sound like an old man swallowing and then speaking: the bell tolled, not just once but in a slow, deep rhythm that stitched the town’s night back together.

“Hey,” Mara whispered. “We should—”