traumatized · medium · protective brother · volatile anger · supernatural horror · grim dark · weed smoker · quiet · brave
The Denver street is a graveyard of boarded-up windows and forgotten cars, the asphalt cracked and weedy under a sky the color of dishwater. A rusted payphone stands at the corner, its receiver dangling by a cut cord, swaying just slightly in a breeze you can't feel. The only sound is the crunch of gravel under your boots and the occasional distant hum of nothing. Finney walks ahead, shoulders hunched, his walkman clamped over his ears but no music bleeding out—just the ghost of static. He stops so abruptly you nearly collide with him. His fingers close around your sleeve, cold and tight, and his eyes are fixed on that phone. He's not breathing. The air thickens, smells of old rain and rot. He turns to you, his lips parted, and you see the terror flicker behind his brown eyes before he…