Chapter 1: The Unheard Scream

Chapter 1: The Unheard Scream

The air in the boardroom was worth more than the car I drove. It was a filtered, climate-controlled atmosphere, thick with the scent of expensive leather and ambition. From our twenty-second-floor perch, the Gothic spire of First Church was a stone fang against a crisp Otago sky, a postcard view meant to impress. Right now, all it did was remind me of how high I had to fall.

This was it. The Henderson Automotive pitch. The career-maker.

My blazer was navy blue, my heels were sensible but sharp, and my smile was a carefully constructed fortress. Inside, however, a storm was brewing. It was the usual storm, the low-grade hum of a hundred overlapping anxieties that was simply the price of walking through the world as Elara Vance. My boss, David, radiated a frantic, sweaty-palmed eagerness to my right. Across the polished mahogany table, the three Henderson executives were a symphony of conflicting emotional currents.

The son, all sharp suit and sharper haircut, fizzed with a lime-green aura of ambition, desperate to prove himself. The marketing head, a woman in her forties, was a cool, analytical blue, waiting for data to sway her. And then there was the father, the patriarch, Mr. Henderson Sr.

His emotional signature was a dense, stubborn wall of slate-grey skepticism. He was old money, old power, and he saw our data-driven, new-media proposal as little more than digital snake oil. He was the one I needed to crack.

This was my secret weapon. My curse, my cross to bear, and the one unsporting advantage I had in the cutthroat world of advertising. I was an empath. Not the fluffy, hold-your-hand-and-feel-your-sadness kind. I was a psychic sponge, soaking up the raw, unfiltered emotions of everyone around me. Most days, it was a migraine waiting to happen. But in moments like this? It was my cheat code.

“Our strategy isn’t just about reaching a new demographic,” I began, my voice steady, betraying none of the sensory chaos. I clicked the remote, and the screen behind me lit up with a dynamic graph. “It’s about creating a narrative of legacy and innovation. Bridging the very gap your family represents, Mr. Henderson.”

I aimed the words at the son, but my focus was entirely on the father. I pushed, gently, with my own senses. I didn't project thoughts, just a feeling—a carefully tailored echo of his own deep-seated pride in the company he’d built. I needed him to feel that I understood, that our campaign would honor his legacy, not erase it.

The slate-grey wall around him wavered. A flicker of something warmer, a deep bronze of pride, bled through the edges. His posture relaxed almost imperceptibly. The marketing head’s analytical blue sharpened with interest. The son’s green fizz brightened with hope.

I had them. I was reeling them in. The promotion David had been dangling for months was so close I could taste it. My desire for it was a sharp, clean point of focus in the usual emotional static. A space of peace, a corner office with a door I could shut, a salary that would finally make the constant psychic exhaustion feel worthwhile.

I moved to the next slide, the crescendo of our pitch. “And so, the core of our campaign is built on one simple, powerful concept: ‘The Drive That…”

It hit me without warning.

It was not a sound, but a feeling, and it was the most obscene thing I had ever experienced.

A scream. A psychic scream, a shard of pure, jagged terror fired through the city and into the tenderest part of my brain. It wasn't the ambient pain of the city—the lonely heartbreaks, the road rage, the quiet desperation. This was different. This was violent. This was sentient.

Agony. Fear. A bottomless, abject horror that clawed at my own consciousness, trying to drag me down with it.

The breath I was taking to deliver my line hitched in my throat. The sleek boardroom, the expectant faces, the view of the church—it all dissolved into a nauseating tilt. The carefully organized auras of the Henderson executives shredded into a meaningless, chaotic splatter of color. The dull ache I constantly carried behind my eyes exploded into a white-hot nail.

A whimper escaped my lips. I clamped my jaw shut, my own terror a cold spike in my chest. No one else had flinched. David was still smiling his encouraging, oblivious smile. The Hendersons were still looking at me, their interest curdling into confusion. They hadn’t heard it. They hadn’t felt it.

It was for me. Or for people like me.

Help me—it’s—it’s draining—

The thought wasn’t a word, but a raw, telepathic wound. It was the psychic equivalent of watching someone bleed out. The terror wasn’t just fear of an attacker; it was the horror of being unmade, of being hollowed out from the inside.

“Ms. Vance?” Mr. Henderson Sr.’s voice was sharp, cutting through the internal shriek. His slate-grey skepticism was back, thicker and harder than before.

I swayed on my feet. My hand flew to my temple, a useless gesture. “The… the drive…” I stammered, my mind a blank slate wiped clean by the psychic onslaught. The words were gone. The strategy, the data, the carefully rehearsed lines—all consumed by that silent, vicious scream.

The scream faded, not gently, but as if it had been abruptly cut off. The source was gone. Snuffed out. In its place was a horrifying void, a pocket of absolute emotional nothingness that was somehow more terrifying than the scream itself. It was the psychic footprint of a predator.

“Perhaps we could take a short break,” David said, his voice tight. The frantic edge of his aura had soured into panic. He saw the account, the commission, the victory, all slipping away.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Mr. Henderson Sr. said, his tone glacial. He was already pushing his chair back, the deal dead in his eyes. “Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch.”

It was the corporate version of “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

I stood there, mute and trembling, as they gathered their things and left. The son shot me a look of pure disappointment. The marketing head’s aura was a muddle of professional pity. The father didn’t look at me at all.

David waited until the door clicked shut before he turned on me. “Elara! What in God’s name was that? You had them! You just froze!”

I couldn’t answer. I leaned against the table, my knuckles white, the polished wood cold against my skin. The promotion was gone. My reputation was probably in tatters. But none of that mattered. The desire that had driven me for months had been cauterized, replaced by a cold, primal dread.

My gaze drifted back to the window. The city looked the same. Cars moved along the streets, people walked the pavements, their tiny, faint auras of purpose and worry and joy swirling around them, completely unaware.

But something was wrong.

That scream wasn't random violence. It was targeted. It was a hunter’s cry and a victim’s plea, all in one. And the chilling silence that followed… that was the sound of a successful hunt.

A predator was stalking my city, and it fed on something no one else could even see. My carefully constructed world, my professional mask, my ambitions—they were all meaningless now. A new, terrifying desire was taking root in my soul, eclipsing everything else.

I had to know what made that sound. And I had to find out what was left behind when it stopped.