Caroline, the woman I knew, but also didn't. Honestly, I couldn't tell you if she was real or not.
I could never see her face… yet somehow, I always did. The only time she appears is when she's behind me in the mirror.
Even from a distance, I can hear her. I try to listen, but the whispers make my ears hurts.
"Mmm…" I felt her mouth on my ear, nibbling, sucking drawing blood that trickled out.
She gently stickers her tongue into my ear causing a weird sensation of pleasure. And when I did see her face, face to face I forgot it instantly.
Like a reflex.
Like a curse.
It wasn't just blank. It was blurred, like someone had smeared oil across a painting. Familiar, almost but wrong in a way my brain refused to hold onto.
"You haven't gone, have you?" she murmured.
I stiffened.
Her voice was right behind me, warm as breath on a window.
"Still stuck in the same pages, trying to explain me to yourself. That won't work."
"I'm not trying to explain anything," I said, but my voice cracked halfway through.
"You always lie to yourself," she whispered. I felt the edge of her mouth against my ear, then the warmth of her tongue again. A wet sound, followed by the slow trickle of blood as her teeth grazed something delicate.
I clenched my jaw and tried not to shiver. "What do you want?"
Caroline didn't answer right away.
Instead, her fingers slid down my neck, slow and weightless. She rested her chin on my shoulder, and though I didn't look, I could see the smear of her face in my mind distorted, like a figure behind frosted glass.
"I want you to go to the library," she said softly.
"…Why?"
"You'll know what to look for when you find it." Her voice thinned into a breathy hum. "But not before."
"Caroline-"
And just like that, the weight behind me was gone.
No sound. No footsteps. No breath.
I turned slowly. The mirror across the room caught my movement and there she was, again, standing just behind me.
Blurred.
Faint.
Smiling, maybe.
Then I blinked, and I was alone.
---
The alley swallowed her footsteps.
Each frantic step echoed between rusted dumpsters and crumbling brick walls, the cold air slicing across her skin. She didn't dare look back. She didn't have to. She felt him behind her the slow, steady rhythm of his boots tapping like a heartbeat too close to her own.
A voice followed.
Low.
Smooth.
Mocking.
"C'mon now, sweetheart… don't run from me. I was starting to think we had a connection."
She choked on a sob, turned sharply around a corner and dead-ended into a rusted chain-link fence. Her hands scrambled at it, trembling, but it was too high. Too sharp.
She turned back.
He was already there.
Silhouetted under the flickering alley lamp, the man dragged a bat along the concrete behind him, metal grinding against the ground in a slow, lazy rhythm. He looked like he had all the time in the world.
"Now why you gotta make this difficult?" he said, grinning as he tilted his head. "I like difficult... but you? You look like you'd taste better scared."
She tried to scream, tried to move anything.
But her body… stopped.
Her knees locked. Her arms dangled. Her voice died in her throat. She stood like a marionette with its strings pulled taut.
Her eyes widened in horror.
"What's wrong, doll?" he cooed, walking up slow, patient, enjoying every second. "Suddenly shy?"
He stopped just behind her, breath hot against her neck.
She felt him raise her hand her right hand, stiff and cold in his palm and bring it close to his lips.
"You won't be needing this," he whispered, mouth curling into something far too hungry.
She couldn't even flinch as his teeth clamped down.
There was a sickening crunch, followed by the wet rip of flesh and tendon.
Blood hit the alley wall in a fan of red.
The man sucked on the torn-off finger like candy, sighing as if it were the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted.
And she could do nothing but stand there frozen trapped in the horror of it all.
The girl's breath was barely a flicker.
She swayed in place, blood pouring from her mangled hand, eyes glassy with silent panic.
The man Lust smirked lazily as he licked the blood from his lips. "Mmm… always something elegant about silence. You know what I mean?" He leaned in again, eyes half-lidded. "It's like "
SHUNK.
The sound was sudden. Sharp. Final.
Steel pierced clean through her chest, bursting out just below her sternum and punching into the fence with a dull clang. Her body jolted, convulsed once and went still.
Lust stepped back with an irritated sigh, flecks of blood hitting his coat. "Really?"
Behind her stood a figure cloaked in black, motionless. A woman. Pale gloved hands gripped the hilt of a long, thin blade, still impaled through the girl's body and into the metal links of the fence. Her face was completely hidden behind a smooth, blank white mask no eyes, no mouth, no expression. The only sign of identity was her presence.
Grief.
"Stop playing with your food," she said flatly, her voice muffled slightly behind the mask.
Lust rolled his eyes and propped the bat back on his shoulder. "Tch. You're no fun, Grief."
"We don't have time for your dramatics," she said, yanking the blade free with a sharp twist. The girl crumpled like a sack of flesh, still chained in place by death and wire. Blood splattered the ground. Grief didn't look down.
"You're lucky I let you get your bite in."
Lust scoffed. "I was savoring the moment."
"Don't let Owl hear that."
That silenced him. Not completely but enough.
Grief turned and walked down the alley, her heels barely making a sound on the wet pavement.
Lust followed after a beat, swinging the bat lazily at his side. "Fine, fine. Let's go before your morals start leaking into my boots again."
Grief didn't respond. She just kept walking into the darkness, her voice trailing behind her like smoke.
"We wouldn't want to disappoint Owl."