“What’s wrong?” Damon’s voice was a low hiss in the corridor. “Frankie, what did you hear?”

  She couldn’t answer. Swallowed. “Voices,” she finally managed, her own voice thin. “Someone talking. Or… lots of them.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t…” She turned in a slow circle, scanning the empty corridor. “Everywhere. And nowhere.” She hesitated. “They said… something about me.”

  His flashlight beam stopped, fixed on a set of heavy, dark-wood doors just ahead. LIBRARY. “In there?” he asked.

  It felt as good a guess as any. She nodded.

  The library doors groaned open under their combined weight. Metal scraped metal, a shrill sound cutting through the stale air. Beyond the threshold, rows of shelves stretched into darkness.

  Frankie stepped inside.

  The sensation hit her like a wave breaking over her head.

  Ice filled her skull. The room spun. She stumbled, grabbing for the nearest shelf, but her hand passed through—

  The library blazed with electric light. People sat at long tables, reading, laughing softly. A woman in a flowered dress turned pages. Two men argued politics near the window. A child pressed her face against the glass, watching moonlight on water.

  A shadow moved between them.

  It had no shape. Only fire. Only hunger.

  The woman’s scream had no sound. Her mouth opened wide, lips stretching, tendons standing out on her neck. The men clawed at their throats. The child’s eyes went white. Their faces twisted, bones pressing against skin, mouths frozen in silent agony as the thing moved from body to body, feeding—

  Frankie gasped.

  Cold metal under her palm. Damon’s hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  She yanked away from his touch. Her heart slammed against her ribs. Sweat soaked her shirt. “Yes.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “I’m fine!”

  Bile rose in her throat. The afterimage of their silent screams was burned behind her eyes. A phantom pressure squeezed her skull.

  Damon watched her, his expression tight, but didn’t press. He moved deeper into the ship, and she followed, staying close.

  The corridor led them to a section marked FIRST-CLASS SUITES. One of the doors stood slightly ajar.

  The door was unlocked. Frankie’s hand closed over the cool metal knob. She turned it. A soft click. She pulled the heavy door inward.

  The stateroom was a preserved snapshot of 1942. The bed was made with military precision. Inside an open wardrobe, dresses, their fabric rotted to lace, hung above a neat row of shoes. A writing desk stood near the porthole, and on it—

  An open diary.

  Frankie crossed the room. The brown leather cover cracked at her touch. The pages were yellowed, the ink faded to brown, but the handwriting was legible. She angled it toward Damon’s flashlight beam and began to read aloud, her voice barely a whisper.

  “April 12th, 1941. The Captain refuses to turn around. We’ve all seen her now. Walking the corridors after midnight. Her skin—she has no skin.” Her voice caught.

  “What?” Damon breathed.

  Frankie kept reading. “Only raw muscle and sinew, wrapped in flames but not burning. The flames move like a dress. She smiles. God help us, she smiles.”

  The room felt colder.

  “April 13th. Three passengers didn’t wake this morning. Their skin—gray. Cold. Like they’d been drained. The doctor says heart failure. But I saw their necks. Two punctures. Small. Precise.”

  Damon let out a curse under his breath.

  “April 14th. I’m barricading my door tonight. Mrs. Patterson from cabin B-7 is missing. Her room—blood on the walls. Not splattered. Smeared. Like fingers dragged through it. The Captain won’t let anyone off at the next port. He says we’re under military orders. He’s lying. I can see it in his eyes. He’s terrified.”

  Frankie turned the page. Her hand shook.

  “April 15th. She takes the skin and—”

  The sentence ended. A long smear of ink dragged across the page, as if the writer had been pulled away.

  The words hung in the dead air.

  Something flickered at the far end of the dark corridor.

  Frankie’s head snapped around.

  A young man stood there. Seventeen, eighteen at most. His uniform crisp, brass buttons shining.

  His eyes met hers. Young eyes. Dead eyes. Filled with a sorrow so deep it felt like a physical weight in her chest.

  He lifted one translucent hand. Pointed.

  Then he flickered. Once. Twice.

  And vanished.