Eve didn’t know when the song first appeared in her life. It felt as though it had always been there, a ghostly hum threading through her days. It wasn’t a tune she recognized—no pop song from the radio, no childhood lullaby. Just a strange, mournful melody that clung to her like fog on a winter morning.

At first, she thought it was in her head. She’d hear it in the quiet moments, like when she was brushing her teeth or walking home from work. A low, lilting refrain that made the hairs on her neck rise. She hummed it absentmindedly one day, and her coworker frowned.

“What is that?” he asked.

Eve froze. “You can hear it?”

He nodded. “Yeah, you’ve been humming it all week. It’s… kind of eerie.”

She laughed it off, but her stomach tightened. She hadn’t realized she was humming it. Worse, she couldn’t remember how she’d learned it.