Tethered by Shadows, Chapter 4

The Fractures

Chapter Four: The Fractures

Adrian’s death came quietly, as if the world itself held its breath.

Elara read about it in the newspaper a week after Jason appeared. Local writer and art teacher found in his apartment, suspected heart failure. No drama, no accident, no screech of tires, just a life ending mid-sentence.

She dropped the paper onto the counter, her stomach twisting. Adrian had always been fragile in a way she couldn’t name, as if he lived half in this world and half in another. His words had been his anchor, pages of stories scribbled in notebooks, love letters folded into the corners of her old journals, paintings and drawings as surreal as her current life.

And now he was gone.

That night she dreamed of ink dripping from her hands, staining her palms black. Adrian stood before her, wearing the same frayed sweater he had when they’d first met in college. His eyes, a soft gray, carried the same melancholy that had once both drawn and frightened her.

“Elara,” he whispered. “I tried to stay.”

When she woke, he was sitting in her armchair.

Jason cursed under his breath. Simon only closed his eyes, as if bracing himself.

Elara pressed her hand against her mouth. “Adrian…”

He looked at her with a half-smile, gentle and weary. “I told you once that love is a tether. I didn’t realize how true it was.”

Simon stood, his form flickering. “Three of us now. This isn’t coincidence.”

Jason leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his smirk edged with bitterness. “Great. The brooding writer is here. Just what we needed, another ghost with a claim on her.”

Adrian’s gaze slid to him. “Still as loud as ever, Jason. I’d hoped death might have softened you.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t die to get wiser.” Jason jabbed a finger at him. “I died because life’s cruel. Don’t make this into a poetic moment.”

“Enough!” Elara’s voice cracked through the air. Her hands trembled as she clutched the back of a chair. “I can’t…” She swallowed hard. “I can’t do this. You can’t all just… be here.”

Silence stretched between them. The only sound was the faint hum in the walls, as if the air itself strained under their presence.

Simon stepped closer, his voice low. “Elara, this isn’t your fault.”

Jason scoffed. “Isn’t it? Look at us. One by one, we die, and where do we end up? Tied to her. Maybe she is cursed.”

Elara’s chest tightened. The thought had already haunted her in the dark hours: that somehow she was the common thread, the reason they were gone.

Adrian shook his head, his voice soft but firm. “No curse. No punishment. We loved her. That’s the truth. And when love runs deeper than life…” He let the words hang.

Jason rolled his eyes, but he didn’t argue further.

The apartment grew stifling. Three shadows of her past crowded the small rooms, each carrying their own weight of memory. Jason paced like a restless storm. Simon tried to bring order, grounding her when she faltered. Adrian sat quietly, watching, his presence both comforting and unbearably sad.

At night, Elara dreamed of more. Other faces. Brief, fleeting. A boy she had dated for a month in college, his smile bright before fading. A man she had kissed once under a summer sky, his hand brushing hers. They flickered in and out of her dreams like broken film, never fully formed, but enough to terrify her.

“How many?” she whispered one night to Simon, her voice raw. “How many have to die before this ends?”

Simon didn’t answer.

Jason did. “All of us.”

The words chilled her to the bone.

Days bled together. Elara went through the motions at work, her lectures stumbling, her papers half-graded. At home, she lived with ghosts. Sometimes, if she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend it was simply memories manifesting, but then they argued, clashed, reminded her they were as real as her grief.

The fractures widened.

Jason accused Simon of being too controlling, hovering over Elara as if she were made of glass. Simon fired back that Jason was reckless, dragging chaos into every room. Adrian tried to mediate, his voice calm, but his very calmness seemed to irritate them both.

“You think you’re above it all,” Jason snapped one evening. “But you’re just like the rest of us, stuck here, haunting her, because you couldn’t let go.”

Adrian’s eyes darkened. “Maybe I didn’t want to let go.”

Their voices rose, filling the apartment until Elara clapped her hands over her ears. “Stop! Please!Just stop.”

They froze. For a moment, all three looked at her, guilt shadowing their faces.

Simon’s voice was quiet. “We can’t keep doing this to her.”

But they did.

Because none of them knew how to leave.