The evening breeze carried the faint scent of salt and fried food across Narragansett, Rhode Island. Inside apartment 217, Cecilia Fidget, her day as a waitress behind her, unwound to the soft strains of a romantic melody. The room, cloaked in comforting shadows, hummed with a quiet domesticity.

She moved with practiced ease, her mind drifting with the music as she began her nightly routine. A cold beer, a moment by the window watching the last stragglers on the street. Her world was small, predictable, and, she believed, safe.

But tonight, something was different. A flicker in the bathroom light. A rusty groan from the door, a sound she was too accustomed to ignore. And then, as she stepped from the bathroom, the music, a tender declaration of love, suddenly cut out. The silence that followed was deafening, suffocating. It was then she saw him, a figure of absolute darkness, standing where the music had been, and her quiet night became a desperate, terrifying final moment.