Our leader whispered something—his voice tight, almost shaking—but the words slipped past me unheard. I couldn't pull my eyes from the boy, from his small, unassumingstature. He didn't look dangerous, but there was something in the way he moved, in the way the shadows seemedto ripple subtly around him. He wasn't controlling them—I knew that much—but somehow, it felt as if they bent to him. As if they welcomed his presence.
Someone in the squad muttered nervously about him being too young, too small. But the tremor in their voice betrayed them. I could see it, feel it—The panic seeped into us, slow and suffocating, like shadows pooling at our feet, dragging us into their icy depths. Their weapons trembled in their hands, their stances faltered. It didn't matter that he was a child.
He was a Wraith.
The lamp in the corner sputtered violently, its weakglow stuttering like a dyingheartbeat. The boy vanished, swallowed by the flickeringshadows.
A scream tore through the room as one of ours fell, his body crumpling over the blood-soakedfloorboards. The lamp flickered again, and for a split second, the boy reappeared—his goldeneyes glintingcoldly beneath the brim of his hat. His knife flashed before plunging into another soldier's chest. The Wraith yanked his rope-wrapped hand back, and the blade torefree from the blood-covered torso, whipping through the air before landing in the boy's grip once more.
The light sputtered again, then he was gone.
"Run!" someone shouted, their voice breaking as panic overtook them. The squad scattered, boots slipping on the blood pooling beneath the corpses. One man tripped, his body crashing into the lifeless form of a fallen comrade. He scrambled to his feet, but the boy was already there. His blood-streakedivoryknife struck again.
The lamp flickeredfaster now, the room plunginginto darknessandlight in rapid succession. Each burst of illumination revealed another horror—another body falling, as the boy moved through them.
I turned to run, my boots slipping on the slick floor, but the flickeringlight betrayed me. The Wraith appeared ahead, stepping out of the shadow near the staircase. Goldeniriseslockedontomine, and for a moment, I couldn't breathe.
Then the light sputtered and died completely, leaving us in suffocating blackness.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. But he was watching me. I could feelit.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and an icychill crawled down my spine. A faint sound—the creak of a floorboard—came from directly behind me.
I didn't need to turn around. The weightof his gaze waslike a blade pressingagainst theback of my neck. And heknew I wasn't going to look. He knew I felt him there.
The light downstairs flickered weekly, throwing a faint glow across the staircase. But it didn't matter.
The room plunged back into darkness. And so did we.