The world had always hummed with a different frequency for me. Even as a child, silence was my constant companion, a muteness that came with an uncanny ability to see beyond the veil.

Today, the quiet hum was a low thrum of impending danger. My new neighbors, the Wyatts, had arrived, bringing with them a palpable tension that vibrated through the very air between our houses.

From my window, I watched as Aiden, the son, stormed out of his house, his face already bruised and swollen from a fight with his father. A dark, swirling presence, almost imperceptible to others, hovered above him, a silent predator waiting to strike. I knew that darkness. I had seen it before.

He slumped onto the porch steps, lighting a cigarette, his gaze distant. A fresh trickle of blood seeped from his broken nose, staining his white shirt.

Our eyes met across the short distance, and in that fleeting moment, I felt a jolt, a cold splash of recognition. He saw me. He remembered. The girl who had somehow stopped time, the girl who was now his neighbor.

His expression shifted from irritation to a dawning, unnerving awareness, as if he, too, sensed the invisible threads that now connected us. I held my breath, the world around us momentarily fading, until the familiar rumble of my mom's car broke the spell, pulling me back to the mundane reality of school and unspoken secrets.