The city was quiet — too quiet.
I stepped out of the university gates, pulling my coat tighter around me. The air had a strange stillness to it. The kind of calm that pressed against your chest and whispered that something was wrong. The streetlamps flickered dimly, casting long, crooked shadows across the cobblestones. Everything looked familiar… and yet oddly twisted, like I was walking through a painting that had melted slightly at the edges.
The roads forked strangely, splitting into odd directions that made no sense. I didn't remember this corner, or that broken sign. But I trusted my instincts and kept moving, letting my feet lead the way. Until that feeling crept in again.
The feeling of being watched.
I glanced over my shoulder.
Nothing.
Again.
Still nothing.
But the sensation wouldn't go — it only tightened, wrapping around me like a second skin. I picked up my pace, heart thudding louder than my footsteps. Just as I turned into a narrower street, I heard something.
Whispers. No, whimpers.
And then — a voice.
"Please… please, spare me. I have nothing to do with you."
A girl's voice. Soft, broken, terrified.
I moved closer, instinct overriding fear. Tiptoeing to the edge of the alley, I pressed myself against the wall and peeked around the corner.
There they were — a boy and a girl. The girl trembled, hands out in a plea. Her voice cracked again. "Please."
The boy stood still, like a shadow carved out of night. And then he spoke, his tone smooth and spine-chilling.
"I choose who I take with me," he said, tilting his head, "and this time… it's you."
And then — gods.
His head began to shift.
His bones cracked.
Not fully visible, not yet. But it was happening. I blinked, frozen in place, as the shape of him twisted — just enough for the beast within to peek through. His eyes glowed unnaturally, and his mouth stretched, teeth glinting as a low growl escaped his throat.
A howl followed — wild, echoing, unnatural.
The girl screamed.
And then… silence.
I gasped; hand clapped over my mouth. I wanted to run. I should've run. But something stronger pulled me forward — horror, or hope, I don't know.
I stepped into the alley, legs shaking.
Gone.
They were both gone.
All that remained was a pool of blood seeping into the cracks of the stone, and deep claw marks streaked across the nearby wall. Long, sharp, inhuman.
I took a step back, and another.
My stomach churned.
I wanted to run. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to turn around and bolt. The blood was still fresh — the scent of iron clinging thick in the air. My legs felt like they were sinking into the ground, too heavy to lift, too terrified to move.
But then, something shimmered in the corner of my eye.
A glint — faint but certain — near the spot where the girl had vanished. I hesitated. Against all sense, I crept forward. The blood made my breath hitch, but I knelt anyway, reaching toward the gleam.
A ring.
Gold with a dark gemstone — obsidian, maybe. Old, worn at the edges… yet somehow familiar. I stared at it for a long second. Where had I seen this before? My fingers curled around it instinctively.
Then, a voice behind me. A voice I hadn't heard in days.
"Lyra? What are you doing here?"
My heart dropped. I jolted and spun around — Leo stood there, half in shadow. I barely had a second to think. I quickly shoved the ring into my coat pocket before he could see.
"I… I got lost." I laughed, weak and fake. "I was just trying to find the main road and ended up… here."
"Oh. I see." His voice was calm, but his eyes lingered on me — searching. Then he turned, casually looking into the alley. His expression didn't change, not one bit.
But I saw it.
Recognition.
His eyes flicked to the spot where the blood had been. And then, almost unconsciously, they moved to the wall — to the very claw marks I had seen.
And that's when it hit me.
The jacket. The shape. The stance.
He was the one. The boy who had taken that girl.
I was too stunned to move. My thoughts were spiraling, my face paling fast. Leo suddenly stepped in front of me and snapped his fingers close to my face.
"Hey," he said softly, brows furrowed. "You okay? Why do you look like that?"
"I… I'm fine," I lied, blinking too fast. But he tilted his head, watching me like a puzzle he couldn't solve.
"You sure? You're acting off. What are you thinking about?" He took a step closer. "Are you hiding something?"
My heart raced — panic pounding under my skin. I couldn't let him know what I saw. Not yet. I needed time to understand. To be sure.
I forced a smile, straightening up.
"Two things," I said, voice brittle but steady. "One — today was exhausting. Assignments, deadlines, professors. A complete mess. Two — where the hell were you the whole week?"
That threw him off. I saw it — the slight pause, the flicker in his eyes before he composed himself.
He looked down briefly. "Went to visit my mum. She's been sick. I stayed longer than I expected."
I nodded slowly. "Right. Of course."
He smiled faintly, but I didn't return it.
Because now… I couldn't trust him.
Not until I found out the truth. Whether Leo had anything to do with what I saw — or if I was slowly unraveling in a city where everything bled into shadows.
And in my pocket… the ring pulsed like a secret refusing to stay buried.
The walk back to the dormitory was a tunnel of silence. Shadows stretched long beneath the streetlamps, and every footstep echoed louder than it should have. Leo walked beside me, his usual lazy grin absent, his hands buried deep in his coat pockets. There was something unreadable in his profile, a stiffness in his shoulders that mirrored the chill in my spine. His presence — once comforting, once safe — now felt like a question I didn't want to answer.
I clutched my coat tighter, the wind threading its fingers through my hair and whispering things I didn't want to hear. My heart was still thrumming too fast, my mind circling back to the alley — to the way the girl's scream had cut through the night, to the creature's howl that had not belonged to anything human. I kept replaying the blood, the claw marks on stone, and the glint of something metallic falling to the ground. Now, that something rested in my pocket — a ring, small and cool and impossibly heavy. His ring. Or... something worse.
When we reached the dormitory gates, Leo slowed. I didn't meet his eyes. I couldn't. I gave a short, mechanical nod, then stepped inside without a word. The door clicked behind me like the slam of a coffin lid.
I needed to breathe.
That night, I turned to the only place I had left — a small, black leather diary I'd bought on a whim weeks ago, thinking I might sketch in it. It was plain, quiet, unassuming. But now it became something sacred. Its pages drank my pain like parched earth. My pen trembled as I wrote, spilling secrets I couldn't say aloud: Alaric's phantom touch, the suspicion in Leo's eyes, the alleyway soaked in blood and silence. I wrote until my hands ached, until the pages blurred beneath my tears. And after that, I carried it everywhere. Tucked into my bag, pressed to my chest while I slept. It was my sanctuary. My silent witness. My only constant in a world unraveling.