The Plot Calls #32 : "Eden's Fallout"

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and/or Ai-assisted-content-generation. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

____

Eden Wolfe wasn't angry at Connor for disappearing. She was livid. Livid at him. Livid at Carla. Livid at the silence. The ambiguity. The cowardice.

Connor didn’t leave a note. No voicemail. No “we need to talk” text. Just vanished.

Carla followed a week later. Her cousin. Her best friend. Her confidant.

Gone.

Together. They had to be.

The police called it circumstantial. “They were adults,” they said. “People ghost each other all the time,” they shrugged. “No signs of foul play,” they insisted.

But Eden knew better. She could feel the rot under the story. The lies no one else bothered to see.

“They stole it,” she muttered to herself for the thousandth time, sitting in the dim glow of her phone screen. “They took Carla’s inheritance and ran off together like little cowards.”

She didn’t know if she believed it. But she needed to.

Believing in theft made more sense than believing in abandonment. Rage was easier to carry than grief. And suspicion? That was armor. Thick, steel-lined, and impossible to pierce with pity.

Her world, once predictable in its dysfunction, now existed in a vacuum of "what ifs" and "how dare theys." The house Carla left behind—half theirs, in theory—sat quiet and empty, shadowed by overgrown trees and unspoken conversations.

Eden stayed anyway. She had nowhere else to go. And even if she did, she wouldn’t leave. Someone had to claim what was hers. Even if it meant rotting there, brick by bitter brick.

When the hunger started, it was subtle. Easy to dismiss. A gnawing ache in the chest. A craving for something to fill the space Carla left behind. The space Connor carved out.

She downloaded dating apps, not for companionship but for sport. She matched, charmed, and played perfect. Then she’d ghost them. Drop them mid-sentence. Humiliate them when the opportunity arose. It didn’t heal anything, but it passed the time. Guilt slipped in at night, but the hunger drowned it out.

And the hunger never stopped.

It lingered behind her smile. It curled at the edges of her dreams.

One night, she heard it. A whisper—not in her ears, but beneath them. Not a voice, but a frequency. Low. Familiar. Voiceless, but pulsing with intention.

It came from the woods behind the house.

A place she never walked. A place Carla told her never to go.

Eden grabbed a flashlight, her jaw clenched so tight it hurt. She wasn’t scared. She was furious. Furious at whatever dared to summon her. Furious at the stillness. Furious at the thing that might finally tell her the truth.

The trees pressed in. The air thickened. Brambles tugged at her jeans like fingers.

Then she saw it.

A circle of soil, pulsing beneath the moonlight. Black-violet. Alive.

In its center, a porcelain hand reached upward.

Delicate. Beautiful. Hungry.

Eden didn’t hesitate.

She reached into her jacket and pulled out the one thing she swore she’d never part with—Connor’s necklace. The one he gave her “just in case” before he vanished. The one she wore every day since. The one that stung her fingers now like it was mocking her.

She dropped it into the hand.

The soil exhaled. The ache in her chest eased.

But only for a moment.

Eden slept better that night than she had in months.

No nightmares. No Connor. No Carla. Just silence.

When she woke, her pillow was damp with tears she didn’t remember crying. But the weight in her chest—the bitter pressure that made her clench her jaw until it clicked—was gone.

For a moment, she felt free.

It didn’t last.

The calls from old friends went unanswered. The few who hadn’t already stopped calling grew cold in their voicemails. One accused her of ignoring texts on purpose. Another sent screenshots of unreturned messages with timestamps.

Eden stared at her phone like it belonged to someone else.

“What do you want me to say?” she whispered. “That I’m grieving? That I’m unraveling? That I left something in the woods that meant everything to me just to feel sane for five fucking minutes?”

She dropped the phone on the counter. It clattered but didn’t crack. She almost wished it had.

The ache was returning. The hunger. It was quiet, like before. But more familiar now. Like an old friend pressing its weight against her spine.

She stood in the bathroom, face to face with her reflection.

Her skin looked paler. Not sick—just dulled. Her eyes were darker around the edges. Her mouth always seemed half-formed, stuck somewhere between grief and disgust.

“You look like shit,” she muttered to herself.

Still, she pushed through the day. Made calls. Sent emails. Tried to organize the estate, even though most of it was already signed over to “Carla Wolfe and Primary Trustee.”

Even the fucking paperwork was a betrayal.

At dinner, she picked at a microwave meal and glared out the window toward the woods.

“I’m not feeding it again,” she whispered. “Not unless I have to.”

The whisper returned.

Not loud. Not demanding.

Just present.

Eden shut her eyes and pressed her forehead to the glass.

That night, she couldn’t sleep.

The whisper didn’t leave. It pulsed beneath her bones.

Around 2:13 a.m., she snapped.

She rummaged through her closet until she found the small wooden box where Carla kept their old friendship bracelets. Childhood junk. Nostalgic trash. Eden didn’t even like hers. The colors were ugly. The fit was tight.

But she’d kept it anyway.

At the edge of the woods, the plot waited. Still. Silent.

The soil shimmered faintly. The porcelain hand rose again. Open. Expectant.

Eden dropped the bracelet into the palm.

The hand closed. Sank.

Her breath caught in her throat, not from fear—but from relief.

The ache vanished.

Again.

And so it continued.

She fed it another item the next week. A picture of her and Carla at a high school dance. Then an old journal entry about Connor. Then a hoodie Carla left behind that still smelled like her shampoo.

Each offering felt lighter. Each day after, heavier.

It became harder to focus. Her voice cracked more when she spoke. Her humor was sharper, meaner. Apologies turned to silence. Friendships frayed.

Someone finally said it aloud: “You’re not you anymore.”

Eden didn’t correct them. They were right. She wasn't Eden.

Not fully.

The ache returned. Stronger. Hungrier. Endless.

She didn’t sleep that night. She just sat on the floor of her room, staring at the closet door, as though it might open and show her the next thing she needed to give.

But it didn’t.

So she turned to her screen instead.

She typed in a name: Sam Erriden.

It was a name she hadn’t said out loud before. Just a whisper she’d come across in the corners of conspiracy forums. A voice behind stories that echoed her own. Missing people. Black soil. A figure in the woods. A whisper that had no voice but always called.

Sam's stories weren't fiction.

They were familiar.

She sent a message. Short. To the point.

“Your stories aren’t fake. I think it’s real. I think it wants something. I fed it. It helped. But now it’s worse. I think I’m next.”

She paused before sending a follow-up.

“Can you help me?”

Sam replied three hours later.

“Don’t feed it again. I’m coming to you. Can we meet tomorrow?”

Eden read the message five times.

She didn’t respond. She didn’t need to.

The whisper had already returned.

The ache sharpened.

The plot was already waiting.

By morning, Eden’s face was hollowed. She didn’t notice.

She brushed her teeth, ran a comb through her hair, and smeared foundation over pale skin that didn’t absorb color anymore.

The phone buzzed on her nightstand. Another message from Sam:

“ETA 40 minutes. Gunn’s with me. We’re coming.”

Eden stared at the screen for a long time before setting it down, unread.

She already knew. It was too late.

The ache in her chest was constant now. Not grief. Not guilt.

Need.

Her breath felt thin. Her hands shook when she touched her desk. She couldn’t remember the names of childhood friends she used to write stories with.

Only one name echoed.

Connor.

She once loved him. Or thought she did.

But his name only made her jaw clench now.

He left her. Lied. Stole. Vanished.

And for what?

For Carla.

For the inheritance.

For a life Eden wasn’t invited to.

So she fed the plot. Fed it until her hunger stopped.

And now, the plot wanted more.

At 8:42 a.m., Eden opened her front door and stepped into the chill.

No shoes. No coat.

Just a silk nightgown and a photo in her hand.

She walked barefoot across the frost-bitten yard toward the woods.

The soil was already shimmering.

Waiting.

The porcelain hand rose as she arrived. Slower this time. Hungrier.

Eden knelt beside it, breath fogging the air, her hands trembling. She offered a picture of her and Connor to the soil. Whispering in wrath.

The porcelain hand closed.

Then, it sank.

The soil pulsed. So did Eden. A weight lifted, but it didn’t free her.

It emptied her.

Her mouth trembled. Her legs wobbled. She wanted to scream, but nothing came out.

She stumbled back inside. Locked the door and ran to her bathroom.

Eden slammed her phone on the ground, buzzing with messages from Sam. Then a call. Then another.

Eden didn’t answer.

She grabbed a vintage Crimson Kiss lipstick from the counter.

Her hand shook as she colored her pale lips.

Then she leaned back into the tub and let the water rise. Eden clutched a razor and looked up at the ceiling. Her wrist stung, but the water soothed it. Eden exhaled. An Idle Man looked down at her as her eyes slowly closed.

Sam arrived first.

He burst through the front door, Officer Gunn close behind.

The place was eerily still. The chill hadn’t left, despite the heater running.

“Eden?” Sam called.

No answer.

Gunn drew his weapon.

They moved room by room. Everything untouched. Except for the faint smell of wet soil—fresh, like it had just been turned.

They found her in the bathroom.

Too late.

Pale. Still. Lips parted, as if whispering something.

On the mirror, written in shaky red letters: The Plot Thickens.

Sam backed away slowly.

Gunn just stared. “She was trying to stop it,” he muttered.

“She fed it,” Sam replied. “Until there was nothing left.”

Gunn’s jaw tightened. “That’s the third this month.”

Sam nodded. “It’s spreading.”

Gunn glanced at the door. “What do we do?”

Sam didn’t answer.

He didn’t know yet.

But he looked down at Eden’s hand, loosely curled around something.

Gently, he pried it open.

A single slip of paper. Damp. Faded. Barely legible.

But there were two words written in the corner, in Eden’s handwriting:

“The Plot Thickens."

____

Want to follow my horror, fantasy, scifi, and romance content as I publish it?

Subscribe to my "Mark A Figueroa Presents" Official YouTube Channel for videos.

Join my Official Discord Server for notifications by genre.

Join my WhatsApp Group for easy and simple updates for all my content.