Chapter 2: A Town That Refused to Change

The train slowed as if it were reluctant to arrive.

Ethan watched the fog thicken outside the window, swallowing trees, fences, and finally the tracks themselves. His reflection hovered faintly in the glass—older, sharper around the eyes, but unmistakably the same person who had once sworn never to come back.

The conductor announced the stop.

“Blackwood.”

The name landed heavily in the quiet carriage. Only Ethan stood. No one else was getting off. That, too, hadn’t changed.

The platform was small, damp, and cracked in places where weeds had pushed through concrete. The station building leaned slightly to one side, its paint peeling, its clock still stuck at a time that meant nothing. Three seventeen.

Ethan noticed it immediately and looked away.

The air smelled the same—wet earth, rust, and pine. He pulled his coat tighter as he stepped onto the platform, half expecting someone to be waiting. A police officer. An old friend. A stranger holding another letter.

No one came.

The train hissed, doors closed, and within seconds it was gone, swallowed by the fog it had arrived through. The silence left behind was complete and suffocating.

Blackwood hadn’t welcomed him back.

It simply watched.

Ethan walked into town along the narrow road that curved past the trees. The houses appeared slowly, like shapes forming in a dream. Same roofs. Same porches. Same fences leaning just enough to suggest neglect without collapse. Even the streetlights glowed the same dull orange, fighting unsuccessfully against the mist.

Time hadn’t moved forward here.

It had stalled.

He passed the old grocery store first. The sign still read MORRIS & SONS, though Morris had died years ago and his sons had left shortly after. The windows were dark, dusty. A “For Sale” sign hung crookedly, its edges curled from years of rain.

Farther down the street stood the diner.

The bell above the door chimed as Ethan stepped inside, and conversation stopped.

Not all at once—but enough.

He felt it instantly. Eyes flicked toward him, then away. Cups paused mid-air. Someone coughed. The air tightened.

“Coffee?” the waitress asked after a moment.

Her voice was neutral, practiced. She didn’t say his name. But her eyes lingered just long enough for him to know she recognized him.

“Yes,” Ethan said. “Please.”

He took a booth near the window, back against the wall—another old habit. The vinyl seat creaked beneath him. On the opposite wall hung photographs of Blackwood’s past: parades, fishing contests, smiling faces frozen in better years.

He scanned them without really looking.

The coffee arrived, steaming, bitter. He took a sip and winced. It tasted exactly as he remembered.

Across the diner, two men spoke in low voices. Ethan caught fragments.

“…thought he’d never come back…”

“…after everything…”

“…bad idea…”

Their words dissolved when he glanced up.

No one confronted him. No one welcomed him. Blackwood didn’t do either. The town specialized in something worse—quiet observation.

After paying, Ethan stepped back outside. The fog had lifted slightly, revealing the river at the edge of town. It moved faster than it should have, swollen from recent rain. The old bridge loomed above it, dark and slick.

He didn’t go that way.

Instead, he walked uphill, toward Blackwood Hill.

The house waited there.

The path grew narrower as he climbed, gravel crunching beneath his boots. Trees leaned in close, their branches arching overhead like ribs. When the house finally emerged from the mist, Ethan stopped.

It looked smaller than he remembered.

And more damaged.

The windows were dark, some cracked. Ivy crawled up the sides, claiming the walls inch by inch. The porch sagged, its railing broken where it had been torn away years ago.

His house.

No—his parents’ house.

He hadn’t expected it to still be standing. Part of him had hoped it wouldn’t be.

Ethan stepped onto the porch. The wood groaned beneath his weight, protesting his return. He unlocked the door with the key he’d never thrown away.

Inside, the air was stale, thick with dust and old memories. Furniture sat beneath sheets, shapes frozen in time. The clock on the wall was stopped.

Three seventeen.

He closed his eyes.

Don’t start this, he told himself.

He moved through the house slowly, touching nothing. Each room whispered fragments of the past—the corner where his mother used to sit with her books, the doorway where his father had once stood in silence too long.

Upstairs, the hallway felt narrower than before. His old bedroom door was closed.

So was the door at the end of the hall.

The one that had never been used.

Ethan didn’t open it.

Instead, he went back downstairs and set his bag by the door. He needed air. Space. Distance from the weight pressing against his chest.

Outside, evening had begun to settle. Lights flickered on across town, dim and uneven. From the hill, he could see most of Blackwood laid out below him—small, contained, trapped in its own outline.

As if something had drawn a line around it and said nothing escapes.

His phone buzzed.

No signal.

Then, suddenly, it vibrated again. One bar appeared.

A message came through from an unknown number.

Welcome home.

Ethan stared at the screen, pulse pounding.

He typed back.

Who is this?

The message showed as delivered.

No reply came.

The fog rolled back in, thicker now, swallowing the edges of the town. Ethan looked down the hill and felt it then—stronger than before.

He wasn’t just being watched.

Blackwood knew he was here.

And it had been waiting far longer than he realized.