Haunted.| ✓

The November breeze, though mild, had already driven Katie, Lucy, and Emily from their planned swim. Lucy, ever sensitive to the cold, had declared defeat, leading their retreat indoors for a game of cards.
"Brr...it sure is a cold day, today!" Lucy shivered, her teeth clattering.
Emily, with a playful smirk, nudged her. "Oh, Lucy, you are one cold bird, I have to say."
Lucy, the perpetual soft boy of the trio, responded with a smile that was enough to rile Em up. As always, their banter was on the verge of escalating into a full-blown argument, a familiar dance that would inevitably lead to Katie, the calm and mature anchor of their inseparable bond, stepping in to mediate. Their friendship, forged since their miraculous shared birth on March twenty-second, was a force that no storm, natural or otherwise, could break. Yet, as they settled in for cards, an unseen chill, far deeper than the November air, was beginning to stir, unnoticed by all but a faint tremor in Lucy’s gut.
