Jenna Santos's POV:

The next morning, Keegan Wilkerson's seat was empty. It was the first thing I noticed.

Ms. Harrison made the announcement: "Keegan is out sick today with a high fever." Her tone was flat, trying to downplay the unsettling absence.

A shiver ran down my spine.

Keegan. The first one to touch the bone.

Whispers rippled through the students. "Did you hear about Keegan?" "They say he has a bad fever, but my mom heard it's way worse."

An atmosphere of fear began to spread through the classroom.

I connected all the dots. Keegan's bravado. The bone. The dream. Mr. Mason's story. The Counter's tally... It wasn't a fever. It was the curse. It had begun.

A lingering sense of anxiety weighed heavily on my chest. I couldn't focus on class at all. Every passing minute felt agonizingly slow. Every tick of the clock brought me one step closer to something horrific.

After school, I decided I had to see him.

I grabbed my backpack and headed straight for Keegan's house.

Keegan's dad, Butler Wilkerson, opened the door. He looked haggard, his eyes bloodshot and entirely drained of energy.

The house was dimly lit, the curtains drawn tight. The air inside was stale and oppressive.

A strange scent lingered in the air. It smelled like rot trying to be masked by some floral fragrance. It made my nose wrinkle. The smell was familiar, yet deeply unnerving.

Keegan was lying in bed. He looked emaciated, his face flushed and his eyes wide but unfocused. He was clearly delirious, muttering something under his breath.

The town doctor stood by the bed, holding a clipboard, looking utterly baffled.

"It's a persistent viral infection," the doctor said. "Accompanied by a high fever. We're doing everything we can."

Butler Wilkerson sighed. "His grandmother wants to try some old home remedies. Herbs, salves..."

The doctor cut him off. "Mr. Wilkerson, we rely on proper medicine, not folk remedies."

The doctor scribbled something on his prescription pad. "Keep him hydrated. Continue the fever reducers. Monitor his temperature." He handed the slip to Butler.

Before leaving, the doctor paused and looked at Keegan's hand. "Did he injure his hand?" he asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

He had noticed something unusual.

Butler looked at Keegan's hand. "No, not that I know of. Why?" He looked perplexed.

"There are marks. A bit like scratches, or old scars," the doctor replied. "They're very... peculiar." He shook his head, seemingly troubled by the anomaly.

The doctor left, taking his unexplainable discovery with him.

Butler stepped out of the room for a moment.

It was just Keegan and me left in the room. An unspeakable dread hung in the air. As the afternoon wore on, the room grew darker.

Keegan kept muttering—a hoarse, low, and relentless sound.

I leaned in closer to make out the words. But what he was mumbling sent ice water through my veins.

"One... two... three..." he whispered. "Four... five... six..." His voice was slurred, repetitive. He was counting!

Just like in my dream!

My heart was hammering.

"Keegan?" I reached out and grabbed his arm. I shook him gently. I tried to pull him back to reality.

He seemed to gain a brief moment of clarity, looking at me with unfocused eyes. "Jenna," he croaked, "it hurts. In the dream. Like something's pulling at me, pulling at the numbers."

"The dream," he continued, his voice incredibly weak. "I'm in the dark, counting. He makes me count. He tells me I have to finish it."

Finish? Finish what?

I stared at his hand.

His fingers were twitching slightly. He was tapping his fingers lightly, rhythmically against the bedsheets.

He was counting. Even in his delirium.

And then I saw them. Faint, dark scratches on his fingers. They were exactly like the carvings on the bone!

Tiny, shallow lines. Deliberate.

They looked like miniature tally marks.

The curse. It was undeniably real. And it was manifesting right on his flesh.

I was paralyzed with terror, my mouth open but unable to speak.

Butler walked back into the room. Seeing me staring at Keegan's hand, he followed my gaze. His eyes widened as he saw the marks, and all the color drained from his face.

"What is that?" Butler exclaimed. He looked from Keegan's hand to me, clearly terrified.

"Those weren't there before," he insisted. "I swear. If they had been, I would have seen them."

The marks had appeared out of nowhere.

My mind was spinning.

Grandma was right. Mr. Mason was right. It wasn't a virus. It was something ancient. Something evil. Something far beyond the realm of science.

It was the curse of The Counter! It had come. It was really here!

Jenna Santos's POV:

I left Keegan's house in a complete daze.

Fear gripped my throat like claws. It was a cold, sharp terror, deeper than anything I had ever felt before.

Keegan's terrified face, his endless counting, the scars on his hand—they were all burned permanently into my memory.

I sprinted all the way home. I needed the familiarity and warmth of my house. I needed Nana. Only she would understand me. Only she could guide me.

I burst through the front door. Nana looked up. "Jenna? You're home late. Where have you been?"

I blurted everything out all at once. "Nana, it's Keegan. He's sick. Really sick. And his hand, Nana. There are marks on it. Just like the carvings on the bone." The words spilled out of me in a frantic, rushed panic.

"He's counting, Nana," I continued, my voice trembling. "One, two, three. Over and over. Just like in my dream. Just like that counting man Mr. Mason talked about." I held out my fingers, mimicking Keegan's tapping motion.

Nana went dead pale, her eyes wide with terror. "Stop it!" she hissed, grabbing my arm. Her grip was surprisingly strong. "Don't say such things! Not in this house!"

She was shaking, fear radiating off her in waves.

"You are never to speak of this again," Nana whispered, her voice barely audible, as if terrified someone else might hear. "It's superstition. All lies. He's just a boy with a fever, out of his mind."

She tried to deny it, tried to justify it to herself, but her eyes betrayed her.

"But Nana, the marks," I pressed. "They're just like..."

She cut me off. "Quiet! It's nothing. Just a coincidence. He probably scratched himself."

"Jenna, you have to promise me," she said, her tone desperate. "You cannot tell anyone. Do not breathe a word of this to a soul. Not one word."

I noticed her hands trembling slightly. Her eyes darted around the room. Her usual calm demeanor was completely gone. It was like she was hiding something. She was utterly terrified.

Nana knew. She knew way more than she was letting on. She fully understood the horror of it. I could feel it too. The curse was real. And she knew it.

"Grandma, what about the bone?" I asked softly. "The one Keegan took. What does it actually mean?" I was trying to pry the truth out of her.

She turned away and started fussing with a potted plant on the windowsill. "That bone is nothing. Just an old relic. Let it go." She avoided my gaze.

I retreated to my room and sat on my bed, my mind racing. Nana's fear wasn't for herself; it was for me. She was protecting me, but from what? And why the secrecy?

At dinner, Nana was quiet. She barely touched her food and wouldn't look at me. Her eyes kept drifting toward the window. She seemed to be listening, watching for something.

Outside, the wind howled, rattling the windowpanes like distant, mournful cries, echoing the turmoil inside me. The house felt like a fragile shield against an invisible threat.

"Go to sleep, child," Nana said, her voice raspy. "You look exhausted. You need rest." She just wanted me safely tucked away in my room, far from whatever she feared.

Later, long after I was supposed to be asleep, I heard her moving around. Soft footsteps, the faint rustle of fabric. I tiptoed to my door and peeked out through a crack.

Nana was in the living room. She had lit several candles and set up a small altar. On it sat a crucifix, a statue of the Virgin Mary, and a bowl of water.

She began chanting softly in Spanish. Her voice trembled.

She clutched her rosary, her lips moving rapidly as she crossed herself over and over. Her prayers were devout, but dripping with desperation. Her face was etched with fear, yet illuminated by a fierce resolve. She was fighting against some unseen force.

I remembered the stories she told, her steadfast faith, her "old-school" ways. These weren't just quaint traditions; they were her armor. They were her weapons against things only she seemed to understand.

And I was only just beginning to grasp what those things were.

My heart ached. For Nana, for Keegan, for all of us. I tossed and turned in bed. The air in my room felt thick and heavy, as if saturated with some invisible, crackling energy.

I heard the numbers again. Inside my head. One. Two. Three. Keegan's voice. The Counter's voice.

I drifted into a restless sleep, plagued by fragmented dreams filled with shifting shadows and dark whispers.

I didn't understand Nana's secrets.

She was protecting me. But her denial of the truth was building a wall between us. It left me feeling completely isolated.

My scientific upbringing violently clashed with my grandmother's folk wisdom. I felt torn, unable to reconcile the two. My world felt like it was crumbling.

The worry for Keegan never left me. It was a dull ache that occasionally flared into sharp panic. What would happen tomorrow? What about the others?