Chapter 1

"Knock on this door one more time, and I will crush every bone in your hand and shove the pieces down your screaming throat!"

Kaelen’s spit sprayed across my face, reeking of sour, cheap whiskey and sickening tobacco.

He blocked the doorway like a rabid grizzly. His massive frame practically blotted out the sickly yellow light of the hallway.

"Could you guys... maybe keep it down at night?"

I heard my own voice trembling. It sounded as fragile as a dead leaf in the autumn wind. Every rational instinct in my body screamed at me to turn and run, but sheer, suffocating desperation kept my heart hammering against my ribs.

"Keep it down? You neurotic bitch!"

Kaelen lunged forward, his heavy leather boot grinding down onto my toes.

I gasped in agony. Tears instantly prickled my eyes.

"My boy Dax is a growing kid. If he wants to practice deadlifts in the middle of the damn night, you are going to sit there and take it! You ever come up here bothering me again, I will shut you up for good!"

Bang. The door was viciously slammed shut.

The violent impact sent flakes of ceiling plaster raining down onto the floor.

I practically scrambled back down the stairs to my basement apartment.

The second I locked my door, deafening heavy metal music blasted through the ceiling. It was immediately followed by the jarring crash of dead weight hitting the floorboards.

Dax was howling with laughter up there. It was deliberate retaliation.

Clamping my hands over my ears in pure agony, I curled myself into the corner of my mildewed couch.

My vision kept blacking out in waves. The ringing in my ears sounded like a thousand bees swarming inside my skull.

Call the cops? I had already done that three times. They would just give some half-hearted warning at the door, and the moment their cruiser pulled away, I would be punished with even more psychotic stomping.

If I moved out now, the six months of rent I had paid up front would be totally gone. I wouldn't even have enough cash for instant ramen next month.

With trembling hands, I pulled out my phone. The screen’s cold blue glare stung my tired eyes.

I navigated to that hidden webpage deep within the dark web. My finger hovered over a listing titled: Abyssal Silence Incense.

The description from the seller, Morpheus, was just a single line:

[Guaranteed to eliminate all noise at the source, providing eternal, absolute silence. Price: $500.]

Five hundred dollars. It was every last cent in my bank account.

But I was completely past my breaking point. In a sudden rush of pure impulse, I hit the purchase button.

The package arrived the very next evening.

It was a small black box with no return address. Inside was a chunk of black, waxy substance that let off a sharp, bitter almond stench.

At ten o'clock sharp that night, the upstairs carnival began.

The sound of shattering glass bottles and filthy, guttural cursing bled through the ceiling. The vibrations were so intense that the water glass on my desk visibly rattled.

I took a deep breath. Striking a match with shaking fingers, I lit the black incense.

A wisp of eerie blue smoke curled upward.

I couldn't tell if I was imagining it, but the exact moment that bizarre, bitter scent filled the room, the racket from the ceiling abruptly paused.

That brief pause was followed by a heavy, muffled thud of a body hitting the floor.

And then, dead silence.

No music. No cursing. No footsteps.

It wasn’t just a normal quiet. It felt as though someone had taken a massive vacuum pump and instantly sucked every ounce of air and life out of the apartment above.

I sat frozen on the couch, my heart pounding erratically.

Eliminate at the source?

I swallowed hard. Pure terror and a twisted, secret ecstasy mingled in my veins. I put on my headphones and fell into a deep, heavy sleep.

Three days.

For three entire days, not a single decibel leaked from upstairs. I soaked in this hard-won peace, genuinely starting to believe the incense was some kind of dark magic.

That was until the morning of the fourth day, when a frantic pounding at my door shattered my good dreams.

I opened the door to find a man in a gray trench coat. He had grizzled hair and eyes so piercing they felt like they could flay my skin.

"Ms. Vesper?" He flashed a police badge. "I'm Detective Gideon. We need to talk about Kaelen's family upstairs."

"Did... something happen to them?"

I feigned the grogginess of someone just waking up, even as my fingers unconsciously dug into the doorframe.

Detective Gideon held my gaze. His voice was ice-cold.

"They are dead. The coroner’s preliminary estimate is that they have been dead for exactly three days."

A deafening static exploded in my head.

Three days?

That was the exact night I lit the incense.