She's standing on the bridge again, watching the manor burn again. Burn and burn and burn. She begs for someone to take her hand, to stay with her through the pain. Perhaps whisper to her as she passes. But, like always, there's no one. Just the darkness. The darkness and the ashes and James's red eyes glowing in the orange tinted sky. As she kneels on the stone, she uses her remaining red eye to cry. To cry and weep in an attempt to wash away all those long afternoons spent playing chess with her brother on the veranda. Laughing with him. Loving him as her hero. Now she doesn't know what he is. When she looks up, she sees it. A boy, about her age, with eyes like jewels and hair like rich soil. There's a string between them, a tether, but she can't work out why. Tears fall again and this time it's because she knows he can't save her. To her, he's just a figment. Maybe a shadow of what her brother could've been. If he hadn't set it all on fire. She doesn't know who he is, but she cries for him. She needs to be with him, needs him to hold her hand until the pain finally fades. But she knows it never will. Slowly, she turns her head towards him and tells him to let her go. Strangely enough, he listens. But as he does, as he lets her go, she sees a chess piece clenched tightly in his hand. A white pawn.

"No" she whispers softly. So softly that even she isn't sure she still has a voice.

"I do not want another to suffer. This is my pain. Mine". Her cries are drowned too soon.

When Jake fell awake and rolled out of bed onto the floor, it took him a while to realise that he wasn't dead. Just lying face down on the floorboards in a position that made him look like a corpse. Brilliant. Reality sank in. New house. New neighbourhood. Creepy manor instead of a park. He groaned and curled up, reaching for the corner of his covers that were still hanging off the side of the bed. After deciding that there were no creepy girls with one eye waiting to stab him in the back, he sat up. Checking his phone, he'd received another miscall from Max. Sighing, he pressed on Max's contact and waited for him to pick up. The phone went straight to voicemail.

Typical, he thought. When you don't want to talk him, he won't leave you alone. But when you do, he completely vanishes. Blinking, Jake let the phone clatter onto the wood beneath him. Then Mum rushed in, carrying a—

"A rolled-up newspaper? Really? What kind of murderer were you expecting to find? A giant fly?" he said. Mum sagged and lowered a three-week old edition of The Times, eyes darting rapidly around the room.

"There was a thud. I thought...". She broke off, shaking her head. "I don't know what I thought. Were you having a nightmare or something?" Jake thought for a moment and if he was being honest with himself – and he rarely made a habit of that – he couldn't remember. He could pick out a few flashes of blackness and smoke and the girl with one eye, but nothing else. Just darkness.

"No, I'm fine. It was nothing," he lied. "Sorry for waking you". Mum carefully unrolled the newspaper, tip-toeing like a toddler back out of the room. Wondering if this was how a slug felt, Jake crawled from the floor back into bed. As he looked out of the window, he noticed that it was still dark outside. He winced. Given Mum's outburst yesterday, the last thing he'd wanted to do was worry her. Even now, he could still picture the pain, the anger in her face. He could still hear her shouting. She'd never shouted like that before. She'd never even raised her voice at him before. Not ever. As he turned onto his side, his head roiled, bursting with the image of that girl, the smoke surrounding her. He could almost feel it choking him. There wasn't much point going back to sleep at this rate. He wished he could text Lilly, but he hadn't gotten her number. Maybe she was still awake, maybe he could talk to her. It was terrible idea sure, but it was an idea. After all, Lilly had told him he could come round sometime. She just probably hadn't expected that time to be now. Creeping out of bed, he slung a hoodie over his white shirt and yanked on some tight-fitting jeans. As he slunk across the landing, he nearly tripped over one of the moving boxes by the entrance to his Mum's room. Carefully, he peered inside and saw that Mum had managed to go back to sleep. She was hanging at a childlike angle off the side of the bed, the newspaper still clutched tightly in her hand.

All flies beware, Jake mused and moved down the stairs to the front door. Despite it being August, the early morning air was cold, so he wriggled into his trainers and an extra layer before heading out into the wind. He couldn't have done this in Manchester; it was too crowded – even at night. But out here, there was nothing expect the silence and the black sky overhead. As he opened the gate that fed into Lilly's front garden, he started to think that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. What had he been planning to do anyway? Knock on her door and expect her parents to offer him a cup of tea? Or was he supposed throw stones at her window and recite Romeo and Juliet? Maybe her parents wouldn't be the ones to answer. Jake crept forward and was just about to knock on the door when he saw that it was unlocked. Not just unlocked, in fact, but open. The door handle hung off the frame. He wanted to turn back, but his common sense had deserted him. Without warning, he pushed against the door, and was greeted by a shell of a house. The wallpaper was covered in flecks of— Actually, he didn't want to know. The floorboards were scratched by...were those claw marks? Jake sucked in his breath and held it. There was no Lilly. Had she been attacked or something? What if she had? He had to do something, had to call the police. Turning on his heels, he threw himself back out of the door towards the house. As he slipped in through the gate, he felt—

He is here. Here, in her house. No, in this house, this damn trap. The trap she let her son fall into. The trap she made him fall into. She realises in that moment how she's been used, and she finally remembers him. She finally remembers everything. She remembers being his pawn and she remembers vowing to keep her son from his mind games. But now she is consumed. And, for some reason, she finds that she doesn't mind. As long as her son is safe. If he stays away, if he forgets her, he'll be safe. She tries to struggle, but a thousand eyes surround her. Orange eyes. His lackeys, of course. He was never one to get his own hands dirty. She claws and screams and kicks the lamp from her bedside table. It smashes by her feet and she watches her blood sink into the carpet. Those eyes seem to smile, and their shadows throw a chess piece onto the floor. A castle. Always the poet. The piece is split down one side, the line diaphanously snaking from turret to base.

Don't Find me, Jake, she begs. She prays, screams.

I can't protect you anymore.

Felt light headed. Blood dripped from his nose and he wobbled – nearly fell – but righted himself on the garden wall. The noise he'd heard had come from his mother's room; of that he was certain. She was going to kill him. But he had to tell her about Lilly, get her to call the police. He ran into the house, swearing that he'd shut the door before he'd left. Jake frowned. Something in the air felt different. Colder. Maybe Mum had woken up to turn the heating off. He slowed to a walk, still managing to trip up the stairs anyway. That was what made him see the blood. It was just starting to dry on the wooden staircase, but it shone that unmistakable red. Still fresh. And most likely... His mothers.

"Mum?" Jake called out experimentally. He half expected to her call back, telling him that he was in a lot of trouble for wandering off at stupid o' clock in the morning, but there was no answer. Only the silent drifting of dust mites from one room to another. Moving further up the staircase, he stole a quick glance in the direction of her bedroom. The door... The door was broken in two places, the hinges bent to one side like circus performers.

"Mum?" he asked the darkness, hoping, praying that it would answer back. He needed to hear her voice, to know that he wasn't alone.

"Mum!" He screamed and dashed into the room. Papers were scattered everywhere, dancing in the wind that flowed through the open window. The bedding was ripped and...and there was a lot of blood. Blood on the carpet, on the bed, on the walls. Jake fell back against the doorframe.

"Mum" he whimpered. His voice was foreign even to his own ears. It didn't sound like the son who'd grown up too fast. It sounded lost. Looking down, he noticed a small slip of paper with a chess piece sitting on top of it. It was a white chess piece, a castle, with a large crack that split down the middle. As he lifted it up, the paper it had been holding down threatened to blow away. Jake weakly reached out and grabbed it. Written on that paper was one word. Just one.

Checkmate.