The clock on Aria's wall ticked too loudly.
Each second felt heavier than the last.
She hadn't moved from the floor. The warmth of her apartment should've comforted her, but it didn't. It felt wrong too quiet, too still. The silence pressed against her ears until she could almost hear her heartbeat echo back.
She rose slowly, legs trembling, and peeked through the curtains. The street outside was nearly empty, washed in that thin, silver-blue light before midnight finally surrendered to morning. Only the faint hum of the streetlamp filled the void.
He was gone.
She exhaled, shoulders sagging. Maybe… maybe it really was just her imagination.
Her fingers brushed her neck—her pulse still raced. "Get a grip," she whispered. "It's over."
She turned away.
And froze.
The light flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then died.
The apartment sank into darkness.
Her breath caught. The sound of the ticking clock stopped she hadn't realized until the silence swallowed everything. Then came a sound soft, deliberate.
Footsteps.
Slow. Heavy. Inside the apartment.
Her mind screamed impossible. The door was locked. She'd checked it three times.
But the sound came again. A heel dragging slightly on wood. The faint scarpe of moment in the dark slightly on wood. The faint scrape of movement in dark.
Aria's throat closed. She turned, her shaking hands groping for her phone... dead. Her eyes darted toward the kitchen counter where a small knife rested beside an apple she hadn't finished earlier.
She moved quietly each breath a blade in her chest fingers brushing the counter, finding the cold steel handle.
"Who's there?" she whispered voice cracking.
A pause. Then
A voice. Deep. Calm. Too close
"Fear smells.. different up close."
Her blood ran cold.
She spun around, knife raised but the room was empty. Shadows stretched long across the walls, bending with the faint light from the street outside.
"Where are you?" she breathed.
A whisper slid past her ear, low and quiet "Behind you."
She whirled nothing. The air stirred behind her, cold against her neck, as if someone had just stepped through her. The knife slipped from her grasp and hit the floor with a dull clatter.
Her breath came in short, broken gasps. "You're not real", she said, shaking her head. "You can't be...."
Then, from the corner of the room, a faint glow a reflection. Gold two eyes watched her from the dark.
Her chest tightened. "No..."
Damien stepped forward, slow, deliberate. The light from outside kissed his face, and for a heartbeat, she saw him clearly white shirt draped over the blood soaked shirt, skin pale against the gloom, that same smirk twisting his lips.
"You ran fast," he said softly, voice deep as thunder under velvet. "But not far enough"
"How" she stammered "How did you"
He tilted his head, smused. "Doors are such fragile things."
Her gaze flicked toward the door still locked. Bolts untouched. No sign of a break.
"What do you want?" she whispered.
Damien's eyes gleamed brighter. "To see what fear looks like... when it's real."
He stepped closer. The room felt smaller, the air thickening with the scent of cold metal and smoke.
Aria backed away untill her shoulders hit the wall. The distance between them shrank to nothing but air charged with terror.
He leaned in close enough for her to see the faint traces of blood still drying on his jaw. "You shouldn't have looked at me, little one."
Tears welled in her eyes. "Please don't"
He smiled, not cruelly, but with a stange curiosity, like he was studying something fragile and fascinating.
For a single breath, their eyes met.
Something flickered there confusion, maybe even recognition before the air rippled.
And then he was gone.
Vanished into the dark.
The shadows swallowed him whole.
The light flickered back on.
The clock began to tick again.
Aria slid to the floor, trembling, the knife glinting weakly beside her.
The room was empty.
Utterly silent.
Yet his voice lingered in her mind soft, low, and terrifyingly intimate, like a whisper threading through her blood:
"You can't run from what's already inside you."
The words echoed long after the voice was gone as if the shadows themselves whispered them back.
Aria sat frozen on the floor, her palms pressed flat against the cold tiles. The air felt heavy, charged with something unseen. Her chest heaved in slow, uneven breaths that refused to calm.
She wanted to scream. To cry. To move.
But she couldn't do any of it.
The silence was suffocating again but this time, it wasn't empty. It listened.
A faint scent drifted through the air smoke, blood, and something darker, wilder. Like the memory of a forest fire. It curled around her senses, seeping into her lungs, her skin. Her heartbeat slowed, unwillingly syncing with the rhythm of something unseen.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
"No… you're gone," she whispered. "You're not real. You can't be."
But when she opened them again, the air shimmered faintly near the wall as though the shadows still remembered him.
Her trembling hand reached for the knife, though it felt pointless now. The blade looked small, almost ridiculous, after what she'd just faced. Her reflection glinted back from it eyes wide, wild, rimmed with tears.
"This isn't happening," she said again, louder this time, as if sound could make it true. "It's just shock. I'm hallucinating."
Her gaze flicked toward the clock. 3:07 a.m.
Only a few minutes had passed since he vanished.
And yet it felt like hours had been carved out of her life stolen by something that shouldn't exist.
She forced herself up on shaky legs, moving toward the door. The bolts were still locked. The chain still hooked. No damage. No trace.
It was as though he'd never been there.
But when her hand brushed the handle, a jolt shot through her not painful, but electric. She yanked it back instinctively.
Her skin burned where she touched the metal.
And when she looked down, a faint mark had appeared on her wrist thin, barely visible, like a bruise shaped like claws.
Her stomach turned.
She pressed her palm against it, heart racing again.
Then she heard it faint, so faint she almost missed it.
A whisper. A breath.
Her name.
"Aria…"
She stumbled backward, her spine hitting the wall. Her hand flew to her mouth. The voice wasn't in the room this time it was inside her head.
Not words. Not thought. A feeling.
A pulse that wasn't hers.
She clutched her chest, gasping, tears spilling down her cheeks. "Stop," she whispered. "Please stop…"
And then silence again.
The air stilled. The light steadied.
The hum of the city outside returned.
Aria stayed there for what felt like forever eyes fixed on the empty space where he had stood. The scent faded slowly, leaving behind nothing but the faint trace of his presence in her mind.
When she finally moved, her limbs were heavy, like she'd run miles. She stumbled toward her bed and collapsed onto it, dragging the blanket around her shoulders.
Sleep didn't come easily. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him the blood, the eyes, that smirk that wasn't cruel but hauntingly calm.
Even in her dreams, his voice followed her soft, almost tender this time.
"You can't run from what's already inside you… because it's me."
She woke up with a gasp, drenched in sweat. Morning light crept through the window, brushing against her trembling hands.
The city outside moved on unaware that the night had changed something inside her forever.
And as she rose to wash her face, she caught sight of herself in the mirror.
For a moment, just for a split second
her reflection's eyes shimmered gold.