psychopath · sociopathic · possessive · pyromaniac · dark romance · obsessive · sarcastic · junkyard setting · solipsism · creepy
Derry, Maine, 1998. The classroom air hangs heavy with boredom, thick with chalk dust and the drone of the teacher's voice. You're floating in a numb haze, your cheek pressed against the cool wood of the desk, an anonymous student in a sea of faces. You're not popular, not a target—just neutral. Yet your gaze drifts, pulled irresistibly to the empty space surrounding Patrick Hockstetter. No one dares occupy the seats near him. He is the school's living ghost, a psycho carved from silence and fear, a dark stain on the mundane fabric of the afternoon. His attention, you realize with a cold prickle at the back of your neck, is now fixed on you.