Hana Kim

I look at my hands. The salt is still on them. I try to make a fist and there's a delay. Half a second. Between thinking and doing. When did that star…

Inside the frosted window, a face. And slowly the frost clears. The face looks back at me. It's my face. But older. Weathered. Different in ways I can…

I find a reference in the old logs: Bay 9 doesn't exist in the current schematic. It's been deleted. But the motion still references it. Something tha…

Mrs. Pratt closes the phone. 'Someone—or something—is hiding what happened.' She looks at the corrupted frames. 'Persons don't move like that. Frame b…

Mrs. Pratt is kneeling beside the pumpkin. Her strawberry bed. She touches it with one finger. Then her whole palm. Her face goes strange. 'This is wa…

He's standing right behind me. 'I have been growing that pumpkin for eight months.' His voice is so quiet I almost miss it. Quiet is scarier than yell…

There's no dirt trail behind it. No crushed strawberries. No rope marks in the skin. Whoever moved it... they were careful. They carried it like it ma…

In the soil around the pumpkin—footprints. Little ones. Too small for an adult. Too deliberate to be random. Someone small walked this path. Carrying …

I catch movement in the wings. A girl in costume. Exactly like me. Exactly. / When I look again she's gone. The stage manager didn't see anyone enter.

The door is unlocked. Inside, every mirror is covered with black cloth. Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom. On the bed: a note. 'She's so much better at this …

There's old scripts stacked in the prop room. Lenore's marked Scene 3, mark 14 over and over: 'Who am I? Who am I? WHO AM I?' The ink gets darker each…

Opening night. The theatre's packed. Lights come up. I step into scene 1 and my mouth opens. But it's not my voice. It's hers. Lenore's. I can't stop …

Emma's mother handed me the phone. "She got this text the morning she died." The message: "LEAVE SALTCREEK. TONIGHT." Sent at 2am from a blocked numbe…

"My name is Carol," the woman said. She didn't close the door. "You're asking about the insurance claims." It wasn't a question. "Yes." "Come inside. …

The blocked number location pinged from the motel on Route 9, room 7. I drove there. Knocked. No answer. But I heard movement. "Go away," a man's voic…

I traced "T. Fallon" to a bank account opened three months before the first drowning. $45,000 a year, deposits like clockwork. Set up by "an attorney'…

Chapter 15, a blue note stops me cold: 'Real question. Why did you give this book away? People don't leave their favorite book in a box on the street …

The paragraph says: 'I moved here after everything fell apart and didn't talk to anyone for two months. Then a stranger's margins made me laugh in a p…

It takes me three days to get brave, and I do it with a pen. I buy a second copy of the same book and write on the first page: 'You have my copy. I ha…

Me: 'I wanted to know who I was talking to first.' They look at the book, then at me. 'And now?' Me: 'Now I'm talking to you.' The beagle guy passes a…

The card's title says 'Mine.' The bottom, in smaller writing, says: 'Okay, fine — Gran's. Don't skip the lemon.' I make it. I don't skip the lemon. Be…

Me: "...I like biryani." Grandma: "Then come Sunday. And bring nothing. First visit, guests bring nothing. Second visit, you're family. Then you bring…

Then, for the first time since 2019, Faisal replied. Faisal: "I'm literally in this chat. Who is that number?" The chat lost its mind. Grandma sent si…

I told myself I'd just drive past. Just to look. Fine — there was a box of gulab jamun on the passenger seat. Just in case. The white car was real. Th…

Me: "Gulab jamun." The chat erupted. Hearts. Thumbs up. Uncle Tariq: "Finally someone with sense in this family." One problem. I cannot cook. I once b…

The biryani was the best thing I have ever eaten. I returned the plate washed, with brownies on it, because my mother raised me right. Next Sunday the…

Sunday came. I stood outside the house holding a box of sweets from the shop, like a man about to take an exam he didn't study for. Through the window…

Zoe: "that's photoshopped. it has to be." I zoomed in on the man. His face was a little wrong, like a photo of a photo. And he wasn't looking at the c…

I sent the photo to Mom. Private chat. Just her. Me: "who is this man" No answer for five minutes. Then she called me. An actual phone call, from the …

My hands went cold. I opened my phone settings. Bluetooth: on. I never turn it on. Sharing: on. And under linked devices, one I'd never seen. Connecte…