Chapter 02 THE VOICE THAT HAUNTS#

Win couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t the coffee or the buzzing city lights outside his dorm window—it was her. That voice. That girl. Prim.

He replayed it over and over in his head, the way her voice cracked softly in the middle of a lyric, like it had gotten caught on some invisible wound. It wasn’t just beautiful—it was real, and it clung to him like a song you hum without knowing why.

He had met her once. A few words, a single glance. But it had been enough to shake something loose inside him.

Now he was restless.

The next day, Win skipped his afternoon lecture and went back to the east wing. The piano room was empty. He waited for nearly an hour, strumming silent chords on the edge of the bench, but Prim never came. Just dust motes and silence.

The day after that, he searched the campus—library, music department, the quiet corners near the art building—but she was nowhere. It became a habit. A search. A quiet obsession.

Then one afternoon, he saw her.

Across the courtyard, sitting alone on a bench beneath the old cherry blossom tree. Headphones on, notebook in her lap, hair tucked behind her ear. She looked peaceful, but distant. Like she was here, yet somewhere else entirely.

He started to walk toward her. Five steps in—she looked up.

Their eyes met.

And just like before—she stood and walked away.

Not fast. Not rude. Just… quiet. Like she didn’t want to be followed but knew he would try.

And he did.

But by the time he rounded the corner, she was gone.

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It became a pattern.

He’d catch a glimpse of her near the rehearsal halls. Once, at the little café near campus. Another time by the river path where musicians liked to practice late in the afternoon.

Each time, he would try to catch up. He would call her name once—twice. But she would disappear like smoke in his fingers.

She was always just a few seconds too far.

It drove him mad, the way she moved through the world like a ghost with a song still stuck in her throat.

He started writing again. Songs about missing people you barely know. About voices behind doors. About chasing something your heart already thinks it belongs to.

His bandmates noticed the shift. His melodies got softer, his lyrics darker.

“Who's the girl?” they asked one night after practice.

Aiden just shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “But I’m trying to.”

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That night, he dreamt of her—standing in the hallway, barefoot, her voice rising in slow, aching waves. But when he reached for her, the sound vanished.

He woke up breathless, heart pounding.

Lena Rivers wasn’t just a girl anymore.

She was a mystery.

A song unfinished.

A shadow he couldn’t stop chasing.

And the more she slipped away, the more he needed to hear that voice again.

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