He clicked.

He clicked All Categories .

“Leo. It’s Mara. Mara Zhou. You’re going to find my podcast. You’re going to see the blank episode. And you’re going to want to keep digging. Don’t. I found the other one. And the other one found me. Verlonis isn’t a thing. It’s a door. And behind that door is nothing. But nothing, Leo… nothing is hungry.”

The page refreshed.

He reached for the mouse. His finger found the trackpad. And just as he was about to click on the blank entry—to open it, to see what lay beneath—his monitor flickered.

No. That wasn’t right. The title wasn’t redacted. It was just… empty. A blank space. The category field read Miscellaneous . The status field read Unknown . The description field was a single line, written in a script that looked like handwriting scanned into a computer: “You are not searching for Verlonis. Verlonis is searching for you.” The cursor blinked.