The clock on the wall ticked like a time bomb, its every touch magnifying the silence between us. Hazell sat across from me, his gaze fixed on some unseen point in the distance, as if he could will our dad's car into the driveway with sheer force of will. I couldn't help but fidget, the fabric of the couch scratching at my palms as I rubbed them together—a vain attempt to calm the storm of anxiety brewing inside me.

"Sit still, Ez," Hazell muttered without looking my way, his voice a low growl that seemed out of place in the stillness of our living room.

I tried to obey, tucking my hands under my thighs, but my leg started bouncing uncontrollably. The house felt too small, the walls creeping closer each second. My bright blue eyes, usually a source of charm, now darted around the room, seeking an escape from the truth we were about to face.

"Sorry," I whispered, barely carrying over the ticking clock.

We both knew something was off today. There was a heaviness in the air, a pressure that hadn't been there this morning when we'd seen Dad off to work. The fact that he was a policeman only fed the gnawing fear in my gut. I thought about everything that could have happened during the day, every scenario that might prompt an early return home, and none ended well.

Then, without warning, the sound we'd been dreading sliced through the tension. The front door creaked open—a slow, deliberate sound that seemed to echo through the house. It wasn't just the noise of wood against wood; it was an announcement, a herald of news we weren't sure we wanted to hear.

Our heads turned simultaneously toward the foyer, and for a moment, I could see the reflection of my anxiety mirrored in Hazell's eyes. But where mine was tinged with remorse and apprehension, his held a glint of something darker, more detached.

"Boys," came the familiar voice of our father, though it sounded strained, unlike him.

The heavy silence that followed was suffocating. The words we expected him to say next hung unsaid in the air, thickening the atmosphere until it was almost solid. In that silence, the world narrowed down to just the three of us, waiting for the dam to break and for our lives to be swept away in the deluge of truth that was bound to follow.

A shadow eclipsed the threshold as a figure stepped into view behind our father. The uniform was unmistakable, dark blue and pressed, the badge catching what little light filtered through the overcast gloom outside. It wasn't just any cop; it was Officer Daniels, whose stern eyes I'd met more times than I cared to count on my trips to the principal's office.

"Mr. Klein," Officer Daniels began, his voice low and lacking its usual authoritative edge. "There's been a discovery. In the woods. A body."

The world stuttered. I felt my heart skip, not out of guilt—I hadn't touched Claire—but because I knew what this meant for us, especially for Hazell. My gaze flickered to him, searching for some sign that he felt the gravity of the situation, but his face was a mask, betraying nothing.

"Who?" Dad's voice trembled with a vulnerability I'd never heard before.

"Claire Simmons," Officer Daniels said, and the name hung in the air like a heavy shroud, ready to smother us with its weight.

I blinked, struggling to align this new reality with the one I had known only seconds before. Claire, with her vibrant laugh and relentless optimism, is now reduced to a name coupled with tragedy. My thoughts spiraled, tangled in memories of her face, now cold in the unforgiving silence of the woods.

"Can't be," I whispered, my voice breaking. Beside me, Hazell remained eerily still, his bright blue eyes fixed on the officer, reflecting nothing of the turmoil that surely must have roiled beneath the surface.

"Are you sure?" There was a thin edge of desperation in my question, a feeble hope that perhaps there had been some mistake, that Claire might walk through the school halls come Monday, oblivious to the chaos her supposed death had sown.

Officer Daniels merely nodded, his grim expression unyielding, cementing Claire's fate as an indisputable truth. Silence swelled between us again, oppressive and thick with unspoken fears, punctuated only by the distant sound of a siren wailing its mournful song somewhere far away.

Time seemed to stretch, thin and brittle, as the silence in our living room settled over us like a layer of frost. The air grew colder and heavier as Dad's words carved themselves into the walls, the furniture, and my skin. Claire's gone. I could feel the echo of that truth in every corner of the room, the reality of it pressing down, suffocating.

"Excuse us," I murmured, barely recognizing the hollowness of my voice. I reached for Hazell's arm, my fingers trembling as I guided him away from Dad's broken figure and the officer's stoic presence. We stepped around the corner into the narrow hallway that had always felt too cramped and now seemed to constrict around us like a vice.

"Man, you gotta stop," I whispered urgently to Hazell, my heart drumming a frantic rhythm against my ribcage. "You can't keep doing this."

Hazell's face was a mask of indifference, but his eyes—those bright blue windows to a soul I thought I knew—were stormy, swirling with something dark and impenetrable. It was a look I'd seen before, one that chilled me more than any winter's night.

"Look at what's happening," I continued, my voice a desperate hiss, pitched low to avoid being overheard. "Claire... she was someone we knew, Hazell. This is getting too close to home."

He didn't respond, just stared at me, and I could see the gears turning behind those eyes, calculating, cold. Fear clawed at my insides, fear for what might come next for both of us. But there was also fear for Hazell—the twin I loved, even as I no longer recognized him.

"Please," I said, my voice breaking under the strain. "I can't lose you to this... to whatever this is. We need to stop before it's too late."

The hallway felt like a trench, deep and isolating, and the distance between us stretched more exhaustive than the few inches of worn carpet. I waited for a sign of my brother in his gaze, for a flicker of the boy who used to share secrets with me under the covers long after lights out. But I only found an unsettling calm, a sea too still before the storm.

"Think about Dad," I implored, grasping for anything that might reach him. "He's a cop, Hazell. If he finds out—"

"Enough, Ez," he finally said, his voice low and steady, cutting through my pleas like a blade. "Just leave it."

His words landed like a punch to the gut, leaving me winded and helpless. I studied his face, searching for a crack in his resolve, but found none. My mind raced with the implications, the consequences that loomed over us, heavy and dark as storm clouds. And in that weighted silence that enveloped us once more, I realized the terrifying truth: I was alone in my remorse, adrift in a sea of guilt with no lifeline in sight.

The air was colder in the corner, where I dragged Hazell away from the earshot of our father's grief. My hand trembled as it clutched his sleeve, my voice a choked whisper. "Hazell, we can't keep doing this. You have to stop."

His eyes met mine, those bright blue mirrors that once reflected empathy now shards of ice. There was no warmth left in them, no shared twinge of conscience. He stood there, detached, as if encased in an invisible shell where human emotions couldn't reach.

"Stop?" Hazell's lips curled into a smirk that didn't reach his eyes. "Why would I stop, Ez? This is what I'm good at."

"Good at?" I echoed, my heart pounding against my chest. "You're talking about killing like it's—"

"Like it's what?" he interjected, his voice devoid of emotion. "A game? An art? It's nature, brother. Survival of the fittest."

My mind screamed in silence, unable to comprehend the ease with which he dismissed our reality. We were murderers, but where I felt the crushing weight of our sins, Hazell basked in their gravity, unburdened and bold.

"Please," I begged, barely above a breath, "think about what you're saying."

"Thinking is your domain, Ezra," he replied coolly, stepping away from my grasp. "I act. That's the difference between us."

The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly behind him as he walked away, each step a punctuation mark on the finality of his words. In the sad dance of shadow and light, I saw the truth laid bare: Hazell was a killer without remorse, and I, his twin, was powerless to change the chilling narrative he'd chosen to write for us both.

***

I leaned against the cold brick wall, eyes scanning the empty street before turning to Hazell. "We need to figure out who's behind this," I murmured, barely above a whisper.

Hazell's gaze was steel as he nodded, his ruthless nature barely contained. "The diner. It's where people talk. If there's anything to know about the killer, we'll hear it there."

"Okay," I agreed, though the idea of being among a crowd, any crowd, sent shivers down my spine. But I had to push through. For Hazell. For all the victims.
We made our way to the local diner, a fluorescent-lit establishment that buzzed with faint conversations and the clinking of cutlery. I could feel the blood pounding in my ears as we stepped inside, the scent of grease and coffee offering no comfort. We settled into a booth near the back, where we could observe without drawing attention.

"Act normal," Hazell instructed, his voice low but commanding. I nodded, even though 'normal' was a ship that had sailed long ago for me.

We ordered coffee, black, and pie that neither of us touched. Instead, we listened, my bright blue eyes darting from face to face, searching for something—anything—that might give us a lead. But the chatter was mundane, gossip and small-town news that danced around the edges of our grim reality.

After an hour, my anxiety threatened to overwhelm me, the buzz of conversation turning into a cacophony that echoed the chaos in my mind. "We're not going to find anything here," I whispered to Hazell, my voice heavy with defeat.

"Then we keep looking." His determination was as sharp as a knife's edge, but even he couldn't hide the flicker of frustration that crossed his features.

We left the diner and combed through the rest of the town, methodically searching every place where secrets might be shared. The library, the park, and even the high school bleachers held no answers.

People eyed us suspiciously, their whispers trailing off as we passed by. I could feel their gaze like a weight upon my shoulders, reminding us how far from 'normal' we were.

As the hours slipped by, the town emptied, its residents retreating to the safety of their homes. And we found nothing. Not one clue. There were no whispers of a suspect, no rumors that could point us in the right direction—just silence and the growing realization that we were alone in this search.

"Let's head back," I suggested quietly, the exhaustion seeping into my bones. The sun had long since set, and the streets lay deserted, reflecting our isolation at us. Hazell didn't argue, and together, we walked home through the abandoned roads, the unanswered questions hanging between us like specters in the night.

The night air grew chillier as our fruitless search stretched on, the once bustling streets now eerily silent save for the distant bark of a dog or the rustle of wind through the autumn leaves. Hazell's footsteps echoed with a sharpness that grated on my already frayed nerves. He kicked at loose pebbles in his path, each skittering across the pavement like the scattering of our hopes.

"Dammit, Ezra!" he hissed, stopping so abruptly that I nearly collided with him. "We're getting nowhere with this."

I rubbed his shoulder, feeling the tension coiled in his muscles. "Keep it down, Haz. We can't afford to lose our heads," I urged, my voice barely above a whisper. The last thing we needed was to spook the town further; they were already wary of us – two sixteen-year-olds creeping around in the dead of night.
Hazell shrugged off my touch, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. His bright blue eyes, usually so piercing, now seemed dull under the yellow glow of the streetlights. "I don't get it. There should be something, some rumor, anything!"

"Sometimes there's just nothing to find," I replied, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. The truth of my own words stung. What if we were chasing shadows, desperately seeking answers where there were none?

"Useless!" he spat out, exasperating, throwing his hands up. "All of it. This whole damn town is useless."

"Let's call it a night, okay? We're both tired, and we're not thinking straight anymore." I could feel the weight of defeat pressing down on me, heavy as the darkness that shrouded the town.

Hazell stared at me, his jaw set stubbornly, but after a long moment, the fight seemed to drain out of him. "Fine," he conceded, and we turned our backs on the town's secrets that refused to reveal themselves.

We walked home side by side, our footfalls in unison but worlds apart in our thoughts. The town's unease clung to us, an invisible cloak that whispered of suspicions and judgments. I couldn't shake the feeling that every window held watchful eyes, tracking our retreat, their curtains twitching with untold stories.

It's a hard pill to swallow, walking away with nothing but the echo of your doubts about company. But sometimes, in the search for truth, the quiet tells you more than the noise ever could. And for tonight, silence would have to be enough.