The writer stared at the post-it sticky note on the wall.

She knew it would change her life for the far, far worse.

It was a plain square of paper—yellow, curling slightly at the edges, barely clinging to the crumbling paint of her office wall. A single sentence was scrawled across it in her own handwriting, but she had no memory of writing it.

"Don't trust him. Not again."

The pen strokes were jagged, rushed. Almost desperate.

Evelyn Mallory hadn’t written a word in days—weeks, if she were honest with herself. Her deadline had come and gone like the tide, dragging her editor’s patience out to sea with it. The screen of her laptop mocked her with its blank, glowing face, a silent testament to every failed idea and false start. But now this note. It pulsed in her peripheral vision like a wound.

Who was him?

She reached for the note, hesitated, then pulled her hand back. Something about touching it felt… dangerous. As if the act would awaken something that had lain dormant in her mind.

And then—her phone vibrated.

A message from an unknown number.

"He’s coming. Be ready."

Her breath hitched.

This had to be a joke. A twisted prank from someone who knew how fragile she’d become. She scanned the room—bookshelves, the corkboard above her desk, the stack of unopened mail—but nothing seemed disturbed. Except that note. And now, the buzzing in her head grew louder.

It wasn't just paranoia. It was memory—something old trying to surface.

She grabbed her laptop and opened her backup folder, the one she never touched unless she was drunk or desperate. Files dated two months ago—strange documents labeled with initials she didn’t recognize. She clicked one.

A manuscript opened. Not one she remembered writing.

“He never knocked. He just walked through the door like he still owned the place.”

Her blood went cold.

Because the sentence described exactly what happened next.

Three knocks.

Then silence.

Then the door handle turning.

Evelyn turned to the yellow note one last time, her heart pounding like a trapped animal.

“Don’t trust him. Not again.”

The door creaked open.

And in walked the man she buried last November.

Chapter 1: The Man in the Doorway

She didn't scream. Not right away.

Her body froze, instincts colliding. One part of her knew it couldn’t be him—*shouldn’t* be him. And yet, there he was: same tired green eyes, same crooked smile that always pulled more to the left, same small scar above his eyebrow—the one she gave him with a wine bottle three years ago.

“Hi, Evie,” he said softly.

Evie.

No one called her that anymore. No one dared.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, voice dry as old paper.

He stepped into the room like a man walking back into a life he hadn’t fully left behind. Rain clung to his coat. His boots were muddy. But his expression… it was the kind of expression she’d written a thousand times and never quite captured: haunted and apologetic and aching, all at once.

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

She laughed once, bitter. “Try a morgue. You’re supposed to be dead, Nathan.”

He flinched. And for a second, so did her heart.

Because seeing him again wasn’t just a mystery. It was a betrayal—of time, of logic, and of her grief.

“I faked it,” he said. “I had to.”

Her hand curled into a fist. “For what? To break my heart more efficiently?”

He stepped closer, cautious. “To protect you. You don’t remember yet, do you?”

Her eyes flicked to the post-it. The scrawled warning.

Don't trust him. Not again.

“I remember you leaving,” she whispered. “I remember the phone call from the police. The closed-casket funeral. I remember how it *ruined* me, Nathan.”

“And I remember the man with the silver ring who said if I didn’t disappear, you’d be next.” He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a second yellow post-it—this one water-damaged, smeared with ink. “You left this for me. Just before they came.”

Her eyes scanned the note.

“Don’t let me remember. It’s the only way we both survive.”

She staggered back.

He caught her before she hit the desk. His hands were warm, steady—too familiar.

“I know this doesn’t make sense yet,” he murmured. “But you and I—we were working on something. Something dangerous. You buried it in your writing. And someone found out.”

Evie’s mind spun. A million pieces rearranging themselves like shards of glass in a kaleidoscope.

“And now?” she asked. “What do we do now?”

Nathan looked at her the same way he did the night he first kissed her—like the world could end and it wouldn’t matter, as long as she was beside him.

“We finish what we started,” he said. “And we figure out who’s still hunting you.”

Absolutely! Here's **Chapters 2–5** of *The Yellow Note*, continuing the **mystery-romance** blend—layered with secrets, tension, and the undeniable pull between Evelyn and Nathan.

---

Chapter 2: The Locked Drawer

The rain hadn’t stopped.

Nathan paced by the window while Evelyn crouched in front of the old mahogany desk she'd nearly thrown out last fall. It was where she did most of her writing—and where she used to hide things she didn’t want even herself to find.

“Did you find the key?” he asked.

“No. But I remember something…” she said, tapping her fingers against her temple. “A drawer. A false back. I thought I was being clever.”

She pried at the edges of the lowest drawer until it shifted, revealing a thin cavity behind it. Inside: an old USB drive, an unlabeled black notebook, and a single Polaroid photo.

Nathan picked it up. His jaw clenched.

The photo showed the two of them—standing outside a cabin in the snow, wrapped in scarves and laughter. But someone else was behind them, half-caught in the frame. A man in a dark coat, wearing a ring shaped like a serpent biting its own tail.

“That’s him,” Nathan whispered. “The one who said you had to forget.”

Evie stared at the notebook. “So what’s in here?”

Nathan hesitated. “Your first draft. The real one. The story you never published.”

She opened the cover. Inside, in her unmistakable handwriting, was the title:

Project Euterpe

And beneath it, in red ink:

“If this is found, he’ll come for us both.”

---

Chapter 3: The Cabin

They drove all night.

Nathan said the cabin in the photo was real—up in the Laurentians, far enough north to fall off the grid. Evelyn had no memory of it. Just flickers. Cold. Snow. Kisses in the dark. Whispers about names not spoken aloud.

“You were researching something,” Nathan said, eyes on the road. “A pattern in disappearances. Writers, journalists, artists—all vanishing without trace.”

“And you were helping me?”

“I was protecting you,” he replied. “Until the night you got too close.”

Evelyn clutched the notebook on her lap. The entries were erratic—some written in her usual style, others like a stranger had hijacked her thoughts. Names like “Anselm,” “The Ferryman,” and “Astra Scriptum” recurred in ink that smeared as though someone had tried to wash them away.

When they reached the cabin, the door was still locked, undisturbed. Dust coated the windows.

But when they stepped inside, the smell of new cigarette smoke lingered.

And on the kitchen table sat a fresh post-it.

“He's lying, Evie. Check the basement.”

---

Chapter 4: The Basement

The air in the basement was heavier, like it remembered screams.

Evelyn descended the stairs with a flashlight, Nathan close behind. The beam swept across old shelves, damp boxes—and then something glinted.

A recorder.

She pressed play. Her own voice crackled through the static.

“If you’re hearing this, you’ve broken the block. You wanted to remember. But you shouldn’t. Nathan isn’t who he says he is. He helped *them*. He was the one who delivered the manuscript.”

Nathan swore and snatched the recorder. “That’s not true. That was from before I understood what they were.”

“Who were they?” Evelyn whispered.

A floorboard creaked above them.

They weren’t alone.

When they got back upstairs, the Polaroid photo was gone. So was the USB.

But in its place: a note scrawled on hotel stationery.

“Room 314. Don’t trust either of you.”

---

Chapter 5: The Hotel

They didn’t speak much on the drive to the hotel. Every silence between them felt like a landmine.

Room 314 was empty, but someone had left something behind: a black envelope tucked into the pillow. Evelyn opened it with trembling hands.

Inside: an invitation.

“Midnight. Hotel Ballroom. Come alone.”

“Don’t go,” Nathan said instantly. “This smells like a trap.”

“So did your death,” she snapped. “And you walked into it without telling me anything.”

They stood there, close but distant, the memory of old kisses and lost trust like static between them.

“I never stopped loving you,” Nathan said quietly. “Even when I disappeared.”

Evelyn looked up, eyes wet. “And I never stopped hating you for it.”

But she didn't pull away when he took her hand.

That night, when the clock struck twelve, Evelyn walked alone into the ballroom—beneath chandeliers that flickered like dying stars.

A dozen masked guests turned to face her.

At the center stood a woman in white gloves.

“Welcome back, Ms. Mallory,” she said with a smile that never reached her eyes. “We've been expecting you. Let’s talk about what you stole.”