Rohan stopped, watching the fourth pass unfold with the same unnerving precision as the previous three, his stomach twisting with a dread that had nothing to do with any threat he could properly name or fight.
That's not a coincidence. People don't walk the same route with that level of exact, repeated precision. Not naturally. Not unless —
He tested it further, moving to a different street, watching for similar patterns, and found them everywhere once he knew to look — a car passing at intervals too regular to be genuine traffic, a group of children playing in a yard whose laughter looped, subtly but unmistakably, on some kind of repeating cycle he could time almost to the second.
This isn't a neighbourhood. This is a stage set. A very good one, detailed enough to fool anyone who wasn't specifically looking for the seams. But a stage set regardless.
