WHAT IF

DRAWN TO DEATH

Aira sat cross-legged on the cold floor of her bedroom, the sketchbook open on her lap. Her hands trembled, but the pencil didn’t. It never did.

The first line always felt like slicing skin.

The last one? Like stitching it shut.

Tonight, the pencil moved without hesitation—scratching, carving, dragging black lead into death.

She didn’t know the man she was drawing. Wrinkles like claw marks across his forehead. A scar under his right eye. The kind of face you forget in a crowd but never in a nightmare.

Peter.

She didn’t choose the name. It came to her—like a whisper in a locked room.

In her mind, it played like a film.

He walked his dog through the park at 9:42 PM. Fog clung to the trees like ghosts not ready to let go. The leash was taut in his hand, the dog sniffing at something in the grass. Then—

Footsteps behind him. Light. Careful.

A rope slipped over his head in one silent movement.

His eyes bulged.

The dog barked—frantic, furious.

The rope bit into Peter’s neck, lifting him slightly off the ground. His legs kicked against nothing.

His final breath hissed like a tea kettle, sharp and pathetic.

Aira didn’t blink. She couldn’t.

She added the detail of the crushed larynx.

And the blood from his bitten tongue.

She woke up with the sketchbook stuck to her chest, graphite smeared across her arms. Her mouth tasted like metal.

By noon, it was on the news.

"Peter Hale, 47, found strangled in Northbridge Park. Dog seen barking beside the corpse. No leads."

Aira vomited in the sink. She hadn’t eaten.

She clawed at her scalp, digging her nails into her skin as if she could scratch the images out of her skull.

Her mother knocked on the bathroom door.

“You okay in there?”

Aira stared at the mirror. Her eyes were ringed with black.

She looked like she hadn’t slept in a year.

“Fine,” she lied.

That night, the bathtub called to her.

The water was too hot. Her skin was flushed red, steam licking her neck like a ghost. She stared at the ceiling.

Blank.

Boring.

Safe.

But the thoughts were never safe. Not for long.

What if someone just died right now?

The image burst into her brain like a scream—

A woman, red curls, eyeliner perfect, sipping iced coffee in a small café. She laughed at a message on her phone.

And then—

The door opened.

A man with no face, just smooth skin where features should be, walked in with a clear bottle in his hand.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t hesitate.

He tilted the bottle forward—and liquid hell splashed across her face.

The scream tore through her throat. Her skin bubbled. Her eyes burst like eggs in boiling oil. She fell to the floor, writhing, melting, crying for someone—anyone—to kill her.

Aira gasped, water sloshing in the tub.

She was soaked in sweat. Her fingernails had dug crescents into her thighs.

The next morning:

"Rebecca Lyons, 24, brutally attacked with acid in a local café. Died before paramedics arrived. Police say suspect wore a mask."

The photo on the screen was blurry, but Aira recognized the earrings.

She had drawn them.

Every curve. Every gem.

Her mother screamed when she found the sketchbook open on the floor—Aira’s newest drawing burned into the page like a confession.

Aira sat alone that night. No lights. Just the moon creeping in through the window.

She whispered to herself, hugging her knees.

“What if I’m the killer?”

She shook her head.