Chapter Text
The office windows were fogged over; the dry warmth inside was clashing with the damp cold outside. As Megan stared out at the city lights glowing through the night, the rigid line settled at the corner of her eyes refused to soften. She brushed her fingertips over her lips, the sensation was still there. That strange residue of being shaken by someone else’s voice.
She recognized Sophia the moment she stepped inside. From her footsteps. Her breathing. From the weight of her presence - the kind that didn’t press against your face, but quietly altered the shape of the room. Megan didn’t turn around. She couldn’t. She didn’t want to show weakness tonight. Because Sophia wasn’t like everyone else. She was one of the few who knew Megan before. Her darker edges. And that meant Megan had to be careful. Very careful.
“I need you to find someone” Megan said, her voice too even, too measured. She was hiding something as she always did.
Sophia frowned.
“Again?” she said. “How much do I need to know this time?”
Megan blinked slowly. She wasn’t thinking, she was feeling. She knew it was foolish to attach herself to a feeling this tightly. But the image carved into her mind that night, carried in on the notes played at the bar… it wasn’t even an image of a person, not really.
It was a state. An energy.
And Megan didn’t want to let it go.
“I don’t know her name,” she said. “But I know the bar she played at last night. The location. The date. If you find who was on stage… you’ll find her.”
Sophia was silent for a long moment. When she finally sighed, the tension in the air sharpened.
“All this for a girl from a bar?” she asked quietly. “What did you see?”
Megan lowered her head, her fingers rubbing along the edge of the desk as her gaze fixed on a single point.
“For one second,” she said quietly, “she made me forget...”
“Myself. The noise in my head. And I don’t know who did that to me. But I need to find her.”
Sophia rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide the concern beneath it.
“Megan, this… this isn’t healthy. You have nothing concrete. A stage light, a guitar, a look? This girl might be growing bigger in your head than she actually is.”
“Let her” Megan replied. Her voice carried the fragile insistence of a child asking for a toy - but the resolve underneath was dangerous.
“But I can’t push her out of my mind without knowing what I’m dealing with. This isn’t about me, Sophia. This is… something I need to understand.”
Sophia nodded slowly.
“So you’ve turned it into another problem that needs solving. People aren’t files, Megan.”
“I know,” Megan said immediately. “But you’re still going to help me.”
“I don’t want to.”
This time, Megan turned around. She didn’t take a single step, didn’t raise her voice but the air tightened all the same.
“You’re my childhood friend,” she said calmly. “And you also work for me. Your loyalty can’t get tangled up with your feelings for me. All I’m asking is that you find her. Stay out of the rest.”
Sophia lowered her head, biting her lip. She didn’t want to break but Megan already knew she had. They both knew this game well. Megan always knew exactly how far a boundary could be pushed, and she pressed right up to that edge.
“Send me the name of the bar. The date,” Sophia said at last. “But Megan… if this turns into an obsession -”
“Hasn’t it already?” Megan replied softly.
Sophia didn’t say anything.
Megan turned back toward the window once more. The city outside was cold, but something inside her was burning. Clinging to someone whose name she didn’t know, whose identity she hadn’t even learned yet this was the one weakness she couldn’t bring herself to admit.
Not even to herself.
-
When Sophia arrived at the office early that morning, the first thing she did wasn’t grab coffee which, for her, was a serious exception. The message Megan had sent just after midnight had left a strange unease lodged in her chest. Even after everything they’d discussed face to face, Megan had still felt the need to put it into words.
I need you to find a girl, the message said.
The bar is known. The time is known. There’s nothing else. But you’ll find her.
The period at the end of the sentence carried that familiar sharp silence Megan used when she was issuing an order - the kind that left no room for argument, the tone of a mind that had already decided.
Sophia was used to this side of her. She’d known Megan since childhood. She’d watched the little girl who lined her toys up perfectly, who refused to eat until she found what she’d misplaced, grow into someone whose fixations had only become more elaborate over time. And now, the woman in front of her - her boss, her former confidante, her still-fractured friend - was fixated again.
On someone.
But this time felt different. Sophia could feel it. The find her written in the middle of the night didn’t carry panic. It carried something quieter. Spellbound. And that, more than anything else, was what made it dangerous.
She sighed as she turned on her computer.
“What am I getting myself into this time?” she muttered.
Then she leaned closer to the screen and started where she always did: typing in the name of the bar. Megan had only said, she was there that night.
That alone was enough.
Security cameras. Staff lists. Social media posts.
Sophia got to work.
Sophia knew her job well. When necessary, she knew how to find the right people to talk to and if needed, how to loosen tongues with a few discreet payments. Did she feel ashamed of feeding Megan’s obsessions with Megan’s own money? Sometimes. But inside Sophia, that old, complicated fragment of affection still lingered. She knew Megan’s loneliness, how alien the world felt to her, how she had a way of breaking everything she loved.
“I hope this time… it’s something different,” she murmured to herself as her fingers moved quickly over the keyboard. “I hope this girl heals you instead of breaking you even further.”
Still, she kept going. Reaching out to bar staff. Digging through the past posts of musicians who’d taken the stage. Every small clue.
And Sophia knew, once this game began, Megan never stopped.
She managed to access the bar’s stage schedules. The website was neatly maintained, but information about amateur performances was limited. On the listing for that night, there was only one note: open mic.
Which meant anyone could have gone on stage.
If the person she was looking for wasn’t a regular musician, she might not have even put her name down.
Sophia leaned back slightly, exhaling through her nose.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
And that, somehow, made it worse.
Sophia sent an email to the bar, then moved on to combing through their social media accounts. She was looking for a video or photo tagged from that night. Dozens of stories, clips, scattered uploads… and then she found it. A short video: under the stage lights, a curly-haired girl playing the guitar. Her voice was barely audible through the recording, but even so, it was clear she’d shaped the atmosphere of the room. The footage wasn’t sharp, but it matched Megan’s description.
Sophia paused the video and took a screenshot. She ran a reverse image search nothing. Still no name.
A few hours later, the bar replied to her email.
We don’t keep sign-up lists for open mic nights, but you can contact the volunteer organizer from that evening.
A phone number followed.
Sophia called. The young man on the other end sounded friendly.
“Oh yeah, there was a girl,” he said. “Curly hair, first time there. I remember her name as Daniela - no last name. She played her own song with a guitar. She wasn’t bad. Not someone I know personally, but I think she might be studying at a university nearby. Maybe economics or something like that.”
That small scrap of information felt like light slipping through a narrow window in Sophia’s mind.
She texted Megan.
Her name is probably Dani. More details coming. I’ll go back to the bar tomorrow and talk to them again.
Megan didn’t reply.
As she always did, she chose silence.
Control had to stay with her.
-
The next day, Sophia dressed more carefully than usual and went to the bar. She talked to a server, chatted with the manager. Left a tip.
“I was curious about the curly-haired girl who went on stage Saturday night,” she said. “She was really good.”
She wasn’t lying. Megan’s excitement had been contagious.
The girl’s name really was Daniela. They’d heard she was staying in a student apartment somewhere around Lower East Side - no exact address. But the manager added, “I think she started a small Instagram account recently. Something like @danizini, maybe.”
Sophia searched the name immediately. The account was private, but the profile picture was clear enough. Curly hair. A guitar.
It was her.
Sophia paused. Her finger hovered over the Follow button. She wasn’t going to do it - of course not. But she already knew where this was heading. Megan had written the rest of the story in her head long ago.
Sophia was just a player.
She texted Megan:
Found her account. Daniela. @danizini. The rest is up to you.
The only reply Megan sent that night was:
Good work. Don’t stop watching.
-
Megan lay on her back in bed, phone in hand. Hours had passed since Sophia’s message, yet she was still staring at the same screen.
@danizini.
A small, simple username. Everything was locked for now, but the profile photo was open enough. Curly hair spilling over her shoulders, her face caught in half-light. The neck of a guitar just out of frame, but the position of her fingers captured mid-play.
Megan zoomed in on the photo. Her eyes were the first thing that caught her attention. Not entirely sharp, but there was something there. A hint of defiance? Or a shy kind of confidence? She couldn’t decide.
Her fingers moved out of habit, scrolling - only to be stopped by the wall of a private profile. She took in what she could see: thirty-eight posts. Four pinned story highlights. Their titles were simple.
Guitar.
Me.
Home.
Class.
Class.
So she really was a student. Sophia’s “maybe economics” theory felt one step closer to reality. Megan scrolled to the bottom of the page.
Mutual friends: zero.
That was good. It meant independence. A life untouched by hers. A clean slate.
She scrolled back up.
Daniela
She let the name pass fully through her for the first time. It rolled slowly across her tongue. Unfamiliar, yet warm. Dangerous, but soft.
“Daniela…”
It felt like someone brushing against her deepest wound without realizing it was there.
Megan couldn’t put the phone down. The privacy of the account only pulled her in further. What was inside? Who were the people in those stories? What was in the highlight called Home, for instance? Who did she live with? Was she someone who lay awake for hours? How did she take her coffee in the mornings?
Megan took a screenshot of the profile. Then another. Zoomed in on the photo. Zoomed out again.
Slowly, she sat up and opened her laptop.
The information Sophia had sent was still sitting in her inbox. After Daniela’s performance, she’d apparently told the bar staff it was her first time on stage. So she’d never done this before. That meant something. Courage, maybe. Or escape.
Megan glanced at the empty email draft still open on her screen. She didn’t write back to Sophia. There was no need. For now, all the strings were in her hands. How much information. How much distance. That was all up to her.
She cracked her fingers and leaned back.
“I found you” she whispered.
Her eyes were still fixed on the profile photo. In the depth of the night, she didn’t yet know exactly what she was seeing inside Daniela’s locked account - but one thing was unmistakably clear.
Something had begun.
-
It was three in the morning. When Sophia’s phone vibrated, she was sunk deep into sleep. Megan’s name lit up the screen. She rubbed her eyes, sighed, then answered the call.
“… did something happen?”
Megan’s voice was as precise as ever, but there was tension threaded through it- unsettling, compressed urgency.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” she said. She wasn’t. “But I need your help right now.”
Sophia sat up in bed, leaning back against her pillow.
“At this hour? For what?”
“The account you told me yesterday. The private one,” Megan said. “I want everything. Posts, tags, stories, comments on her posts. Who she sees often, where she goes, which days she’s active. All of it. Send it to my email.”
Sophia swallowed.
“Megan, this is crossing into something else. I found the account, yes. But it’s private. Without seeing the content - ”
“You’ll see it,” Megan cut in. “You know better than anyone how to access accounts like that.”
Sophia’s voice was tired now, edged with anger.
“Listen, doing this makes me feel disgusting. What are you after? Who is this girl exactly? Why-”
“You don’t need to know who she is,” Megan said coolly. “Not yet. But there’s something there. Something that concerns me. I’d advise you not to dismiss my instincts.”
Sophia clenched her teeth.
“Your instincts have taken you to very dangerous places before.”
There was silence for a few seconds. Then Megan spoke again, her tone softer and somehow far more disturbing.
“You know me. You know what I’m capable of. I wouldn’t want to put you in a difficult position, Sophia. That wouldn’t be my doing - it would be the ethical principles you’re so attached to. Don’t forget: you’re not just my childhood friend. You work for me. And I’m giving you an order.”
Sophia lowered her head and closed her eyes. The darkness of the night was broken only by the glow of her computer screen.
“I’ll send it to you before morning” she said at last.
Megan’s voice softened again.
“That’s why I trust you. I don’t trust everyone.”
When the call ended, Sophia took a deep breath. Guilt throbbed in her chest as her hands moved automatically toward the keyboard.
As she stared at the screen, fingers slipping into familiar patterns, scrolling through files on instinct, her mind drifted somewhere she hadn’t expected - to a rainy spring day, behind a broken window curtain.
One of Sophia’s sharpest memories of Megan belonged to a rainy afternoon in spring. They were in their sophomore year of highschool. When the final bell rang, everyone rushed off toward home, umbrellas opening in a hurry. Sophia slung her bag over her shoulder and headed for the bus stop like she always did.
But that day, Megan wasn’t there.
For the first time, they didn’t leave school together. Megan hadn’t shown up to class that morning. And she hadn’t answered her phone.
A sense of unease settled in Sophia’s stomach. They weren’t the kind of people who went a day without seeing each other. Megan was different - she always had been. But she didn’t disappear. She went quiet, withdrew into herself, but she never vanished without a trace.
Sophia turned back from the bus stop and walked toward Megan’s house, that gnawing feeling guiding her steps. When she knocked on the door, no one answered. She peered through the window and that’s when she noticed it.
Upstairs, one of the curtains was slightly drawn.
And from inside, there was a faint sound.
Without hesitating for even a second, Sophia climbed through the back garden and made her way up to the window.
And inside… there was Megan.
She was sitting on the floor in silence. Broken objects scattered around her, torn notebooks, ripped drawings. Her eyes were glassy, unmoving. In her hands, she held an old music box - it no longer played anything, but she kept staring at it all the same.
When Sophia climbed inside, the first thing Megan said still echoed in her ears.
“It’s broken. The more I try to fix it, the more it breaks. But I can’t throw it away.”
That was the moment Sophia understood.
Megan didn’t just hold on to objects like that - she held on to people the same way. Even when they broke, she couldn’t let them go. She tried to fix them, but only damaged them further. And then she swallowed them whole, pulling them into herself.
That day, Sophia had wrapped her arms around Megan, quieting her while picking up the broken pieces from the floor. She hadn’t told anyone what happened. Not even her family. From that moment on, she never left Megan alone. She’d sworn to protect her, to keep her upright somehow.
But now, years later, the broken music box inside Megan was still playing.
And Sophia - knowing she couldn’t stop the melody - kept reaching out anyway.