After that afternoon of torrential rain, the tall and imposing figure of Travis completely vanished from St. Jude.
The new contact method added to the messaging app on Maya's phone sank into absolute silence. The chat window bearing Travis's name lay motionless in the corner of the screen — not a single reply message, not a single update notification. Maya's brief report messages about Mark's academic progress and psychological state were like small pebbles thrown into the depths of a vast ocean — disappearing without a sound.
The disappearance of the powerful father brought along strange changes around Mark.
The boy was no longer picked up and dropped off by the familiar luxury car or the elderly, courteous butler. Instead, each day a completely unfamiliar driver appeared at the school gate. Today it was a muscular man with a long scar on his neck fumbling to present a pickup card; tomorrow it was a dark-skinned guy wearing black sunglasses with tattoos covering both arms, his manner swift but brimming with vigilance. They arrived very quickly, picked up Mark with cold, curt nods, then vanished into the busy stream of traffic.
Mark became visibly anxious. The boy no longer smiled radiantly as before; his small hands constantly clutched the cloth robot toy tightly, his eyes continuously glancing back toward the school gate every time he heard the sound of a car engine.
"Your dad... has gone on another long business trip, Mark?" Maya knelt down and gently asked him during pickup hour.
Mark lowered his head deeply, his gray eyes brimming with a remarkably melancholic gloom. He nodded slightly and murmured in reply: "Dad said... he has to go do big work. Dad told me... not to go with anyone except the people wearing the eagle badge."
The child's unease unconsciously spread to Maya as well. But she simply thought that for a tycoon heading a massive corporation like Travis, having to go on a sudden business trip abroad for a few weeks was perfectly normal. She reminded herself to pay more attention and comfort Mark more to fill that void.
However, that fragile peace did not last long.
The abnormalities did not stop at the school; they began to creep and intrude into Maya's own private life.
Everything started from the late afternoons when Maya finished work and returned home.
Her boarding house was situated in a narrow, deep alley on the outskirts of the city — a place where the streetlights always flickered dimly and the air was perpetually damp with the smell of garbage. Normally, this was the familiar road she had been walking back and forth for the past two years.
But recently, every time she stepped off the bus stop, Maya always felt a sharp, cold gaze pinned firmly onto her back.
The sound of footsteps — thud... thud... — maintaining a distance of about ten meters behind. When she walked faster, the footsteps quickened to match. When she suddenly stopped and pretended to answer a phone call, the sound also instantly vanished into the silent space. Many times Maya turned her head back with full alertness, but the dark alley held only the long shadows of electrical poles and a few mangy cats rummaging through trash.
The feeling of being followed planted in the young woman's heart an extreme fear, like a ghost. She began walking faster, burying her head and running desperately every time she turned into a dark alley, her heart pounding relentlessly as if it wanted to leap out of her chest.
The situation escalated in a terrifying manner.
On Wednesday afternoon, when she returned to her cramped rented room after a long, exhausting day at St. Jude, Maya inserted the key into the lock.
Her hand froze.
On the metal surface of the old iron door lock appeared brand-new scratches, deeply gouged as if a sharp metal object had been violently prying at it. The lock cylinder was slightly loose, producing a faint rattling sound when she turned the key.
The pit of Maya's stomach turned ice cold. She pushed open the door and stepped inside, darting her eyes around the fifteen-square-meter room. The belongings in the room appeared to be still intact, but the keen instincts of someone who had been living alone since childhood told her that something was not right.
The glass cup she always placed on the left side of the gas stove, turned upside down... was now sitting upright on the right edge of the table. The wall calendar was tilted to one side, and the cardboard box containing several spools of thread for sewing Mark's robot seemed to have been opened by someone and then closed again without being properly sealed.
Someone had broken into her room!
All the beads of sweat on Maya's forehead poured down. Her entire body trembled violently with fear. She dashed to the room next door, knocking frantically on the door seeking help from the landlady and a few neighbors nearby.
"Auntie! Someone is following me! The lock on my door has been pried open, and the things inside have been moved!" Maya was panting, her voice trembling and sobbing.
The landlady — a middle-aged woman — yawned widely, glanced at the old lock, then waved her hand with utter exasperation:
"Oh come on, this lock has been in use for over ten years now; of course it's loose! Those neighborhood cats jump through the ventilation opening and knock things over — what else could it be? You're making such a fuss. This area is dirt poor; what kind of burglar would bother breaking into your room?"
"It's not the cats, auntie! I swear someone has been following me from the bus stop..."
"Enough, enough!" The neighbor across the hall cut in, looking at Maya with a mocking gaze. "Working as a teacher at that rich kids' school has been too stressful lately, so you're hallucinating, huh, girl? Next time you have free time, just go to bed early; stop knocking on doors and bothering other people!"
Clack. The neighbor's door slammed shut right in her face.
The coldness and indifference of the people around her extinguished Maya's last hope. She stood there all alone in the dark hallway, realizing she was completely isolated. No one believed her. No one protected her.
That night, San Francisco welcomed the first cold wind of the season.
In the cramped rented room, Maya did not dare turn on bright lights. She switched off all the electricity, leaving only the faint light filtering through the crack of the window.
Her entire body was trembling from cold and fear. Maya used all her strength to drag the heaviest wooden chair in the room and wedged it tightly behind the iron door. She carefully placed a stack of empty glass bottles on top of the chair — if the door were even lightly disturbed from the outside, the pile of bottles would topple down and produce a loud warning sound.
Maya pulled both knees up to her chest, sitting curled up in the corner of the bed against the wall. Gripping the sharp fabric-cutting scissors tightly in her hand, her eyes were wide open, fixed firmly on the dim iron door.
Outside, the sound of wind howling through the gaps of the ventilation opening sounded like the eerie wailing of spirits. The sound of cat paws running across the tin roof with a clattering noise was enough to make her heart jolt up a beat in terror.
Silence enveloped the room, but it was a heavy, suffocating, and threatening silence.
Maya hugged her knees tightly, tears of self-pity and fear silently rolling down her cheeks. She did not know who the person stalking her was. Was it some perverted thief? Or did this have something to do with Travis's mysterious disappearance and the hidden disasters surrounding the ultra-wealthy clan of that powerful father?
Not a single answer. Only thick darkness engulfed the small, helpless girl.
Maya stayed awake the entire night. Her bloodshot eyes were fixed on the iron door lock, her hand gripping the fabric scissors so tightly it drew blood, tensely waiting for the faint light of the new day to pierce through the crack of the door.
