Chapter 3

I shoved her back against the chain-link fence of the track, refusing to let go. Tears stung my eyes, but I pushed them back.

"If you don't tell me what is going on right now," I warned, "I am marching into Coach Miller's office tomorrow morning and dropping out of the Top Flyer selection."

"No!" Sarah gasped, her eyes snapping wide open in sheer panic.

"Then tell me! Why are you and Jessica forcing me to take this spot?"

Sarah bit her bottom lip so hard I thought it would bleed. She looked around the empty track, trembling, before finally forcing the words out.

"Last night... you said you crashed and slept through the morning. But do you know what I saw in your backyard?"

My grip on her uniform loosened slightly. "What?"

"I woke up feeling thirsty," Sarah whispered, her voice shaking. "I looked out the window and saw you standing in the middle of the lawn in the pitch dark. You were marking the routine counts."

"Sarah, I was asleep—"

"I tapped on the glass, but you didn't react," she cut me off, her breathing turning shallow. "Then... you jumped. You jumped straight up, maybe ten, twelve feet into the air. No bases. No spotters. Just straight up from the grass. You hit a perfect heel stretch, suspended mid-air for a completely unnatural amount of time."

A chill ran down my spine.

"Then you fell," she choked out, tears finally spilling over. "You didn't brace yourself. You hit the ground hard. I heard your bones snap. It sounded like thick branches breaking."

I stared at her, utterly speechless.

"I was about to scream for your parents," Sarah continued, frantically wiping her face. "But then you stood up. Your head turned all the way around. Black blood was leaking from your eyes, your nose... And you smiled at me. Then you asked..."

"You said, 'Is my form perfect? Can I go on top of the pyramid?'"

I dropped my hands, taking a step back. "Sarah, are you listening to yourself? Have you been taking Adderall again to keep up with practice? You had a stress hallucination."

"I was completely sober!" Sarah gripped my shoulders, her nails digging into my skin. "The motion sensor floodlights flicked on! I saw her face perfectly. I even saw that exact same tear mole you have right under your left eye."

We locked eyes. The horror in her gaze was contagious.

This wasn't a lie. Sarah wasn't the type to make shit up. But that couldn't be right. I remembered going to bed early. I was sure I did.

If Sarah saw a monster wearing my face, what exactly did Jessica see?

I couldn't just sit there. I dragged Sarah back into the building, straight into the girls' locker room.

Jessica was still there, huddled in the far corner against the metal lockers, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees.

"Tell her," Sarah said quietly.

Jessica looked up at me, her eyes darting away instantly. She was fighting a full-body shiver.

"I don't know what it is," Jessica mumbled into her knees. "But ever since Coach put my name up for the main spot, I felt like someone was constantly watching me. Then, during the partner stretch session two days ago..."

She swallowed hard. "We were facing the mirrors. I looked at your reflection. I saw... a face. Right on the back of your head. It looked exactly like you. Pale. Dead."

A cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck.

"I thought I was seeing things," Jessica cried softly. "I thought you were just turning your head to whisper to me. I walked up and tapped your shoulder. But when you turned around to face me, I realized... the other face was literally attached to the back of your skull."

She covered her face with her hands, sobbing. "I ran to the bathroom. When I finally calmed down, my brain suddenly processed the lip movements the face was making in the mirror. She was saying, 'Give me the highest spot.'"

Jessica looked up at me, absolutely devastated. "I know if I take that spot, whatever that thing is will kill me."

My blood ran completely cold.

Without thinking, my hand flew to the back of my head. I felt my scalp, the elastic of my hair tie, the familiar texture of my ponytail. Nothing else.

I looked at the two terrified girls. To protect them, or maybe to just stop the madness, I nodded slowly. "Okay. I'll keep the spot. I won't drop out."

I left the locker room, my mind racing.

We were three teenage girls under unimaginable physical and mental pressure, competing for a life-changing scholarship. This had to be some form of mass hysteria. A shared delusion triggered by stress.

I needed proof. I needed to see reality.

Around 5:00 PM, the campus security guard took his usual smoke break. I slipped into the security office and locked the door behind me.

The room was suffocatingly dark, lit only by the pale, cold glare of a dozen monitor screens.

My hands shook as I grabbed the mouse. I accessed the gym cameras, pulled up the footage from two days ago, and dragged the progress bar to the exact timestamp Jessica mentioned.

There I was. A pixelated figure sitting on the blue mat, facing away from the camera. Everything looked perfectly normal.

'See? It’s just stress,' I told myself.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I zoomed in on the back of my own head, desperate to prove Jessica was completely losing her mind.

Then, the footage glitched. A sharp hiss of static bled from the speakers.

On the screen, my body didn't move. But the head whipped around backward.

A pale face stared dead into the security camera lens. Dead at me.

It was my face. Down to the exact same tear mole under the left eye.

Thick, black blood started leaking from her tear ducts, crawling down her cheeks. Slowly, those familiar lips curled up into a grotesque, ear-to-ear smile.

She wasn't just looking at the camera. She was looking right at me through the screen.

Pure, primal terror short-circuited my brain.

I violently pushed back from the desk. The rolling chair flipped, sending me crashing hard onto the cold floor.

"God—no!"