I entered Ms. Hale's office, nervous yet trying to maintain composure. Her polished wooden table hosted two hot tea cups their owners would never touch. Their owners would never connect. I sat there, hugging myself as tightly as possible, feeling vulnerable and helpless in the face of such a tragedy.

"I saw her," I whispered grimly. Ms. Hale leaned closer and asked whom I was referring to.

"Claire Donovan... She worked at Blockbuster down Franklin Street... I talked to her..." My voice trailed into a groan as my head lowered in grief and despair.

Ms. Hale's sharp voice cut through the air like a blade. "They should have closed the school when Thomas Chang died."

I lifted my head slowly and cautiously. My eyes narrowed in agreement with hers, and I whispered, "Yeah... maybe even when Pete died." I fold my arms protectively across my chest, unwilling to bear more painful memories or news.

Ms. Hale sighed heavily, and her compassionate eyes shifted away from me briefly before she spoke again. "It's a shame, but sadly, death is an inevitable part of life."

I looked at her curiously then, fascinated by this older woman's wisdom and understanding of nature. Her lips were painted red like blood, reminding me of something or someone familiar.

I opened my mouth to respond but paused instead. My gaze drifted to the ancient cat clock on the wall behind Ms. Hale's desk, becoming utterly captivated by its hypnotizing ticktocks.

∆∆∆

The two envelopes lay on the bedspread between us, as stark and out of place in our cluttered room as a pair of blank tombstones. They were plain, almost aggressively so, with no return address to hint at their origins—a featureless white that seemed to drink in the dim light filtering through the curtains. My name, "Ezra Klein," was written on one; Hazell's scrawl adorned the other, identical except for the names that summoned us.

"Ready?" I asked, though my voice betrayed the hesitation gnawing at my insides.

"Always," Hazell replied, his tone steady and sure, like he was about to open nothing more consequential than a report card.

My fingers felt thick and clumsy, betraying me with a slight tremble that I couldn't quite quell as I pinched the corner of the envelope. It felt heavier than it should have, weighted with more than a paper-like opening. It might unleash something irreversible. I slid a nail under the flap; the soft tearing sound was a whisper of dread.

Inside, the letter unfolded like a reluctant secret. The paper was off-white, its surface marred by cryptic writing that crawled across it in dark, inky strokes. The letters twisted and turned, an alphabet that danced just beyond the edge of comprehension, taunting me with its strangeness. My pulse throbbed in my ears, a sea-swell rhythm that surged with each line I tried—and failed—to decipher.

"Can you make anything out?" I risked a glance at Hazell, but my gaze was quickly drawn back to the enigma before me.

"Give me a second," I muttered, hunching over the letter as if proximity could somehow translate the text. My mind raced, fragments of thoughts colliding and shattering against the wall of symbols. What did they want from us? Was this some warning? A threat?
The room seemed to close around me, the walls pressing nearer with every moment the meaning eluded grasp. I could feel the weight of Hazell's stare, the pressure of expectation—or was it anticipation?—bearing down on me. But all I had was the letter, the indecipherable message, and a growing sense of unease that pooled in my stomach like ice water.

"Damn it," I whispered, a plea for clarity lost amidst the lines of obscurity.

While my fingers still fumbled with the elusive meaning of the symbols before me, Hazell, with his typical disregard, slipped a finger under the flap of his unmarked envelope. The paper gave way with a soft, almost mocking whisper. He unfolded the letter fluidly, his eyes scanning the cryptic scrawl. The corner of his mouth quirked upward in that maddeningly familiar smirk.

"Looks like we've got ourselves a fan," he drawled, the amusement in his voice jarring against the knot of dread tightening in my gut. "Maybe it's one of those secret admirers from school, eh, Ez?"

I couldn't respond; the words caught in my throat like barbed wire. His levity seemed grotesque, starkly contrasting with the cold shiver that traced my spine as I stared at my indecipherable message. It was as if we were standing on opposite sides of a chasm, and with each moment, the distance between us stretched further.

The room felt colder now, shadows looming as if ready to whisper secrets meant only for dark corners. My mind was a storm, thoughts whirling with the ferocity of a hurricane. What did this mean? Was there some pattern, some message coded within the chaos?

"Isn't this a bit theatrical?" Hazell continued, oblivious or indifferent to the storm raging inside me. "All these secret messages and cloak-and-dagger crap."

Theatrical. Yes, it was all a performance. It is a deadly play where the final act could be written in blood—our blood. And yet, here was Hazell, laughing in the face of an unknown adversary.
"Come on, Ezra, don't tell me you're scared," he said, glancing at me sidelong.

Scared? I was beyond scared. The letters, the hidden meanings—I felt them clawing at my sanity, pulling me down into an abyss from which there was no return. My heart pounded a rhythm of panic, each beat a reminder of the fragility of our existence.

"Something's wrong," I managed to choke out, my voice barely above a whisper. "This isn't right, Hazell. This isn't a game."

But as I looked up, I saw only the reflection of my fear in Hazell's bright blue eyes—the same eyes mirrored mine but showed none of the torment that flooded my soul. How could he not feel the weight of our sins, the crushing burden of our shared history?

"Everything's a game," he said with a dismissive shrug, folding his letter with a carelessness that felt like a betrayal. "You just gotta know how to play."

As he strolled away, the letter crumpled in his grasp; I was left alone with the enigmatic script and a terror that seemed to seep into my very bones. Alone, with the truth that one of us was playing with fire... and the other was already burning.

Hazell chuckled, the sound jarring in the tense silence of our shared room. He flicked the letter with a finger, its cryptic message no more threatening to him than a crossword puzzle. "You think this is about us? About... what we've done?" His smirk widened as he leaned against the edge of our bunk bed, amusement dancing in his eyes. "Looks like someone's trying to spook the big bad killers. A warning to stop, or else—how quaint."

"Quaint?" I echoed, the word feeling sour on my tongue. I glanced at my letter again, the strange symbols mocking me. "This isn't a joke, Hazell. This could be serious."

"Serious?" he scoffed, tossing the paper onto his cluttered desk, where it landed with an inconsequential flutter among his scattered tools of mischief. "Let them come then. We're not some low-budget horror movie villains who get scared by an anonymous note. You need to chill, Ez."

"Chill?" I stood up, gripping the letter so tightly that the edges crumpled. The tremor in my fingers betrayed my anxiety. "You don't get it, do you? Whoever sent these knows—"

"Knows what, Ezra?" Hazell interrupted, his tone sharp now, cutting through my fears. "That we're different? That we have a hobby most people wouldn't understand? So what? They can't prove anything."

I looked away, feeling a chasm opening between us—one that had always been there but seemed unbridgeable now. "It's not about proof," I murmured, more to myself than to him. "It's about consequence. It's about the fact that maybe... just maybe, we shouldn't be doing this anymore."

"Speak for yourself," Hazell retorted, his voice cold and dismissive. "I'm not losing sleep over this, and neither should you. Whoever sent this doesn't know us. Doesn't know what we're capable of."

"Maybe that's the problem," I countered, my voice barely above a whisper. "Maybe we've been too careless. Maybe it's time to face what we've become."

"Face it?" Hazell snorted, pushing off the bed and stepping closer to me, his gaze challenging. "We are what we are, Ezra. Regret's a waste of time. And fear? Fear's for the prey, not the predators."

I met his stare, seeing the ruthless resolve that set us apart, even as twins. "And what if, one day, we end up being both?" I asked, letting the question hang heavy in the air between us.

"Then we'll deal with it," he said, his tone final, as though that settled everything. "Together."

"Right," I replied, the single word laden with doubt. But I knew arguing was pointless. Hazell would never see things the way I did. He was a force unto himself—relentless, unrepentant, a storm that acknowledged no shore.

"Good." Hazell clapped a hand on my shoulder, a gesture meant to reassure me, but it felt hollow, a pantomime of brotherhood amidst our growing discord. "Now, let's forget about these stupid letters. We've got better things to focus on."

"Like what?" I asked though I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer.

"Like living," he said with a grin, the kind that never reached his eyes. And with that, he left the room, leaving me alone with the weight of our secrets—an anchor dragging me down into the dark waters of a truth I was afraid to acknowledge fully.