Unsurprisingly, I added another chapter to my sleep-sketching saga—and I had the battle scars to prove it.
Broken fingernails. The uneven, notched slivers were the tragic casualties of my subconscious’s creative aspirations. Apparently, my sleeping self had channelled its inner cat, clawing desperately at the locked drawer where I kept my chef’s knives. When the lock wouldn’t yield, my nails had splintered against the steel latch, scraping the white paint to gouge into the pale wood beneath. It looked like a small, manic predator had tried to dig its way into my cutlery.
Giving up on the sharp objects, my sleeping self had turned to the pantry instead.
An abstract, thick ring of coarse sea salt surrounded my desk. The unbroken perimeter circled with an eerie precision, too deliberate for the shape or placement to be accidental. Inside the mineral barrier, a secondary shape was dusted onto the floor—distorted, but distinctly geometric. The empty salt shaker lay abandoned on my keyboard, leaving a trail of white crystals across my notes, a dusting of chaos in my pencil holder, and a generous scattering over the tangled cords beneath my desk.
If only I cleaned in my sleep instead of redecorating with condiments.
The mess was too much to process at 6:00 AM. That was a to-do for tomorrow. I left the salt, filed my ruined nails down to the raw quick, and fled to the office.
The Daily Grind was now an official no-go zone, making the putter and chatter of corporate life a welcome asylum from the disorder of my apartment. But hiding the evidence of my nocturnal escapades came at a cost. Typing with newly blunted, tender fingers felt gawky. My stylus grip was as awkward as a toddler clutching a crayon. I’d spent years perfecting the art of design with long nails, and now I was re-learning the basics.
One of my fellow graphic designers—Becca, a senior designer whose aesthetic sense was channelled only by her terrifying ability to spot a flaw from across the floor—caught sight of my bandaged hands as I passed her an HDMI cable. Artists noticed details.
“Yikes, what happened there?” she asked, wincing at my stubby, raw fingertips. “Have a fight with a paper shredder?”
Jordan, our perpetually stressed project coordinator, looked up from his tablet, both of them staring and expecting a story. I’d always kept my office persona cordially detached—no oversharing, no messy personal drama. No one at the company knew about my sleep-sketching, and they absolutely weren’t going to find out in the narrow beige square of Meeting Room C.
“Just misadventures in home decor,” I lied, crafting a careful mix of self-deprecating humour and nonchalance. “Sandpaper 101 gone horribly wrong.”
“What were you sanding?” Jordan asked, gazing back at his laptop screen as a dozen alerts chimed for his attention.
“I was trying to refinish an old drawer,” I lied. “Tried to strip the paint myself. It was a hard-fought battle, and I lost.”
“I avoid DIY furniture for exactly that reason,” Becca said, shaking her head. “Get a guy with power tools to do the rough prep next time so you don’t ruin your hands. You always have such pretty nails.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said with a light eye-roll and a polite smile.
Still, as I sat back, my mind traitorously drifted. Would Kay be the handy type? Doubtful. His gloved-protected, trust-fund hands probably hadn’t touched a tool in his life. But Corvus—the blue-eyed peacoat knight from my dreams… An inexplicable image painted behind my eyes: long, calloused fingers holding a fine needle file, meticulously smoothing the edge of a silver pendant. I felt a weird certainty that he liked working with his hands.
“Seriously, Dani, you look exhausted,” Becca added, squinting at the dark circles not-quite hidden under concealer. “When was the last time you took a day off? You’re single-handedly the reason the rest of the team got summer vacations. Maybe your hands are telling you to use your time off.”
“Design never sleeps,” I joked weakly, pulling my laptop closer.
The truth was, work was the only place where the world made sense. Hex codes stayed in their lanes. The rule of thirds balanced chaos. If I stopped working—if I actually took a vacation and sat alone in my apartment—I’d have to confront the fact that my daytime visions were getting as unpredictable as my nightmares.
So I gave my accumulated time off no more thought, bottling my imaginary musings and focusing fully on the real-world demands of my job. The afternoon dissolved into a blur of client revisions, resizing assets, and taking on the last-minute tasks. I kept my headphones on, eyes on the screen, ignoring the soreness in my fingers and the nagging reminder that I’d be going home to a salt-deficient apartment.
By 6:00 PM, the office had emptied. I was the last zombie on the floor. Exhausted, shoulders knotted, my phone screen flashed a reminder that I had somewhere to be in an hour. With a stifled groan, I picked up my things and headed for the elevator. The fading embers of September daylight met soft, early shadows crossing the city streets. There was no time for a salt detour. I had a date.
Dating Kevin was part of my self-imposed rehabilitation program—an apathetic effort to prove to myself that I could be normal.
Forty minutes later, I sat across from him in a dimly lit bistro, the rich scent of cabernet and roasted garlic compounding my headache. I’d shed my oversized, chunky-knit cardigan over the back of my chair, leaving me in just a square-neck floral tank top. Ditching the cardigan and freeing my apricot-blonde waves from my messy ponytail felt exposing. But I needed to look like I was trying.
Kevin was objectively fine. He was attractive in a safe, corporate-casual kind of way, his short hair combed back sensibly, his polo collar open by the respectful amount of one button. But there was zero connection.
As he cut his salmon and droned on about how modern art was underappreciated, I nodded in all the right places, playing the role of Normal Girl on a Normal Date. Beneath the table, my restless fingers smoothed the lace trim of my vintage denim shorts just to keep myself tethered to the room.
But behind my attentive smile, my brain was running a mental highlight reel of men who had no business existing in Kevin’s safe little world.
There was Kay, the Adonis from the coffee shop, whose gaze felt like a warm summer day. Probably rich and definitely too quirky to be safe. And then there was the man from the train—cold, piercing blue eyes, more shadow than reality. Compared to them, Kevin felt like a black-and-white movie in a world suddenly bleeding in high-definition colour.
“It’s all marketing, right?” Kevin said, leaning forward, his fork hovering mid-air. “More people would give it a try if they didn’t think modern art was all made by pretentious avant-gardists.”
“Right,” I responded tactfully, playing with the silver chain around my neck instead of pushing my risotto around the plate for another ten minutes. God forbid an artist like me be a cliché and find modern art dull.
I glanced past Kevin’s shoulder toward the bistro’s floor-to-ceiling window. Clouds rolled over, bruising the golden light from the downing sun, deep shadows submerging the city block. The humidity of a late-summer thunderstorm added a damp static to the air. Maybe an oncoming storm was a good enough excuse to leave the date early.
My reflection in the glass was an illusion of a girl who had her life together. But even that blurred outline couldn’t hide the out-of-it look in my eyes. The silver chain twisted around my bandaged fingertip as I watched the first raindrops plummet against the glass. Umbrellas popped up. People rushed down the sidewalk.
Except for one dark figure across the street.
My lungs squeezed sharply.
Standing in the shadow of a closed storefront was a man in a dark, tailored peacoat. Even through the steam and distorted reflection of the bistro glass, the intensity of his stillness was magnetic. He wasn’t checking a phone. He wasn’t dodging the rain. He was looking straight through the glass. Directly at me.
It was him.
“Danielle? You okay?” Kevin asked, his fork pausing halfway to his mouth as he noticed my wide-eyed gaze. “See someone you know?”
“I…. I’m so sorry, Kevin,” I blurted, rising so abruptly my chair legs shrieked against the hardwood.
He blinked up at me, startled. “Wait—what?”
“My coworker—there’s an emergency, uh, with the server,” I lied clumsily, snatching my bag and hooking my chunky cardigan over one forearm. “I have to go.”
“Oh. Right. Now?” He looked baffled and pitifully disappointed, fork still poised.
“Yes. Now. I’m so sorry.” I dropped a fifty-dollar bill onto the table to cover my barely-nibbled meal and practically bolted. The thin leather soles of my slingback ballet flats slapped loudly against the hardwood floor as I dashed for the exit.
I pushed out into the cooling evening air, the sudden rain instantly stinging my bare shoulders. Tail lights blurred past in yellowed streaks. A couple walked a whining miniature poodle under a shared umbrella. At the corner, the pedestrian light dawdled, holding me back while water began to pool in my flats.
By the time I crossed the street, the doorway where he’d been standing was empty. Just an unlit display window reflecting the rippling puddles and streetlights.
I stood under the narrow cover of the shop awning, shivering slightly as droplets shook from my damp hair. Rain splashed against my ankles. There were no familiar faces on the sidewalk. Just strangers pushing past, and the bright, warm bistro window across the street where Kevin could probably see me standing alone in the downpour.
You’re full-on hallucinating, Dani, I hissed to myself, shrugging my sprinkled cardigan on for warmth. You need way more sleep. And way less coffee.
I rubbed my temples, feeling the familiar, shameful heat of embarrassment rising. I’d just bailed on a perfectly normal guy because I thought I saw my imaginary saviour. Now I had to figure out how to explain to Heather why I’d sabotaged yet another date with zero intention of a second.
I needed to get out of my head.
Warm water squelched under my flats as I turned toward the train platform. I just wanted to get home, lock the deadbolt, and bury myself under the covers.
The station platform was overwhelmed with noise and motion—a sea of damp, exhausted commuters all vying for a spot on the crowded train. Sliding into an open seat was a small relief. I pulled out my phone, the lock screen stacked with incoming notifications. Heather asked how the date was going. Kevin asked if I wanted to reschedule. Mom announced that my sister had gotten another promotion. Notifications from another dating app I barely remembered downloading.
Looking at the glowing text, I felt completely disconnected from it. It belonged to some fictional version of me—a normal girl with a normal job who cared about the endless routine of normalcy. I shoved my earbuds in, tapped my playlist, and dropped the phone into my shorts pocket.
A moment later, a dark figure slid into the empty seat beside me. So much for the peace of having the seat to myself.
His thigh brushed mine. A deliberate intrusion into my personal space. I defaulted to the unspoken rules of transit etiquette, staring straight ahead and trying to gauge my seatmate out of the corner of my eye. It was an artful surveillance technique honed over years of transit journeys.
Then I saw the coat. An electric jolt of recognition straight up my spine.
I turned and gawked openly. Corvus. My peacoat knight.
He was staring directly at me, his glacial blue eyes catching mine with an intensity that offered zero pretense of being strangers.
“It’s you,” I stammered, my voice barely a breath.
I yanked my earbuds out, the sudden loss of music amplifying the quiet hum of the train car. It was instantly too hot. A tin sauna. Heat pricked at the back of my neck and made my palms clammy. I tugged my cardigan away from my neck, trying to force air down my back. The evidence of bruises and scratches had been taken by Kay in my dream. But if Corvus was sitting beside me—if he was real—then the attack wasn’t a psychotic break.
“I needed to see that you were recovered,” Corvus said. The measured calm of his tone made the event seem ordinary. Like checking if I’d received his email rather than survived a monster.
“Recovered?” My voice came out too loud.
Heads across the aisle turned, their eyes lingering on us with cautious curiosity. My cheeks burned. Facing the dark train window to hide my face, I pressed a clammy palm over my mouth, trying to choke down the rising panic. In the glass reflection, I caught him watching me, indifferent to the gawkers.
I waited a breath, giving the other passengers a moment to lose interest and return to their screens. I dropped my hand, my eyes meeting his reflection in the glass.
“That was all real,” I said. It was half-question, half-accusation.
He hesitated, the slightest downturn of his mouth. “Yes,” he murmured, low and even.
“How is that possible?” I whispered, my voice straining against the lump in my throat.
He said nothing, his silence weighing my mind with impossible thoughts. He was dressed in all black again, except for the Oxford blue of his peacoat. He should’ve been sweating, not looking as cool as an autumn evening. Resting against his chest was a long black leather cord holding a small, silver hammer-textured locket—a detail that drew my eyes before I looked back at his face.
The tightness in my chest competed with the hot flush of my skin, both embarrassing signs that I was five seconds from an anxiety meltdown on public transit. In the window glass, I looked wired—like someone who’d downed shots of espressos by the dozen.
“That goblin thing that attacked me…” I swallowed hard, working to shove down the panic. It was hard to look sane with my heartbeat drumming in my ears. “That was a redcap, right?”
Corvus didn’t answer, but the slight tightening around his eyes was a clear confirmation.
“So you knew what it was when you… When you saved me?” I stared at him directly now, my restraint failing.
“Yes,” he said. His composure was starting to irritate me.
“Where did it come from? How did you know I was there? It was like everyone disappeared—like I was trapped in another dimension. How did you force that door open like it was made of tinfoil?”
Corvus let the wave of questions crash over him, listening with a patient intensity that made it too easy to spill my anxieties honestly.
“Do you always carry a sword?” I stared at the dark, structured fabric of his coat, searching for the shape of it.
“Usually,” he said.
“Is another one of those things going to show up today?” I asked weakly, a plea for reassurance.
“No,” he said firmly. His eyes dropped to the silver chain around my throat, his gaze sharpening, hardening with bitter cold. The sudden chill wasn’t aimed at me, but at whatever threatened to appear in the dark.
“You’re not just checking on me, are you?” I guessed, my breath hitching as the dots connected in my head. “You’re guarding me. So it won’t happen again.”
Corvus breathed deeply, turning his head away as his jaw set in a tight line. It was a tiny, controlled gesture—the mark of someone fiercely disciplined. I envied it. My own emotions were always too loud, too chaotic, an open book I had practised hiding.
“Why is it after me?” Panic would kill me before another redcap could ambush me. I pulled at my cardigan collar, exposing more of my shoulders, struggling to draw air into my lungs. “It can’t just be a coincidence—it can’t. What did I do—?”
Corvus raised a hand, hesitated, then placed his cool palm gently against my burning cheek.
His touch was refreshingly cool—a sharp, pleasant shock against my feverish skin. It didn’t slow my racing pulse—my heart stuttered faster—but the anxiety storm in my mind hushed. For the first time all day, I didn’t want to run away.
“Your hands are cold,” I murmured.
The rigid line of his mouth softened, his lips shifting into the subtle outline of a smile. It was so fleeting, so slight, that anyone else looking at him would have seen impenetrable stone. But I caught it.
“It’s nice,” I said softly. I placed my hand over his, anchoring myself to the calming coolness of his skin, trying to steal a second of peace.
We stayed like that as the city blurred past the window. He didn’t pull away; he held my gaze with a solemn gentleness. I completely forgot to be embarrassed—until the train screeched to a halt at the next platform, the grinding steel shattering the fragile quiet between us.
I cleared my throat and gently turned my head, letting his hand slip away. The panic had paused, but the questions were restless.
“Sorry. Thank you. For that,” I mumbled, my cheeks warming again for a very different reason.
“I can’t answer all of your questions,” Corvus said. His voice was quiet, tight, and a subtle tension locked his jaw. The restraint didn’t feel like defiance. More like he wanted to cooperate, but couldn’t. “But I can answer some.”
“Okay, why can’t you answer all of them?” My eyes narrowed, letting a sharp suspicion leak into my tone.
His icy eyes flicked toward the dark train window, refusing to hold my gaze. “My silence is necessary for your safety. I swear it.”
Stillness that settled over him. He moved like a predator and carried a sword hidden under his coat, yet there was a gentle, sincere weight to his words. I believed him.
“Are you going to ride with me all the way home?” I asked, trying to sound neutral and not really pathetic.
“If you allow it,” he said, glacial eyes meeting mine.
“I’ll allow it,” I agreed, trying for a begrudging shrug, though relief eased the tension in my chest. Having a sword-wielding knight on transit was a massive upgrade over riding alone. At least, I hoped he was a knight—and not something far worse waiting for his turn to strike.
“Can a redcap follow me home?” I asked, leaning in closer so my voice wouldn’t carry.
Corvus’ brow furrowed, the shadows beneath his cheekbones deepening as his eyes darkened. To the rest of the train, he probably looked intimidating—a looming, dangerous stranger. But I saw the protective focus behind his dark brow.
“It could,” he admitted, his low voice as steady as the rumble of the tracks. “Which is why protections have already been placed over your home.”
I blanked. All my busy thoughts silenced. “What?”
“After that creature hurt you…” His eyes shut for a breath. “We reasoned getting more involved was practical,” he explained softly. “I promise it has no effect on your home, other than preventing redcaps and similar creatures from entering uninvited.”
“So it can follow me, but it can’t get in,” I summarized flatly, a thin cover slapped over a mess of boiling panic.
He nodded, his gaze unwavering.
“Who’s ‘we’?” The question left my throat sharp and bitter.
A tiny muscle in Corvus’s jaw twitched. A twitch of narrowed eyes. Whatever I’d asked, it struck a nerve.
“Is that a question you can’t answer?” I pressed, my voice rising slightly.
“No,” he said quietly, his nose wrinkling with reluctant irritation. “Kay.”
Air rushed out of my lungs. The blood drained from my face.
Kay. The charming coffee shop meet-cute who’d bought my painting and believed in magic. The trust-fund boy who flirted with me. He was in on this.
My stomach sickened into a tight knot. Oh God, how could I be so stupid?
Kay hadn’t been flirting. He’d been keeping an eye on me. The charming smile, the playful banter, buying my art—it was all calculated. But worse than the deception was the terrifying realization of what this meant: Corvus and Kay were just as much threats to my fragile normality as the redcap and my sleep-sketched night terrors.
These two strangers had compromised the one safe bubble I had left.
“How long have you both been watching me?” I whispered, trembling.
Corvus’ expression softened, a flicker of remorse surfacing in his pale eyes, though his mouth remained a tight, firm line. “I can’t answer that.”
I’m losing my mind, I thought through a growing swell of anxiety. This is a trap. Or I’m having a complete nervous breakdown.
I couldn’t tell which was worse: that Corvus could be lying to me, or that he was telling the truth and my carefully curated, predictable life was completely fake. I needed to escape. Before this surreal nightmare ruined the normal life I’d tried so hard to create.
The train jerked to a stop. Adrenaline surged amid the loudness of chatter and passengers shifting through the crowded space, stepping through the open doors. The doors sealed again, lurching us back into motion.
This was real. Normal, uninteresting reality. I was the same ordinary as every passenger here—just a part of the background noise. Not the visions I couldn’t control. Not the slugs and goblins and dreams. Believing Corvus and Kay risked blurring the line between normal and imaginary. I had to get off this crazy ride.
“I think you should stay away from me,” I said, my voice sharp and choked as I tried to claw back control. “You and Kay. Whatever game you’re playing, I’m not interested. Pretend you never met me, and I’ll do the same. Go back to whatever secret society you came from.”
“That isn’t possible,” Corvus said. A firm declaration of intent.
Cold sweat chilled the back of my neck. I glared at him, my panic turning to anger. “What?”
“They know about you now,” he explained quietly, his tone even but urgent. “They won’t leave you alone. Kay and I are the only two beings who want to keep you safe and are capable of protecting you from them.”
They know about you.
It was a chilling certainty that I felt in my bones, a primal instinct that he was telling the truth. But accepting his truth meant accepting that I was never a normal girl living a normal life. It meant admitting I was broken in a way no therapist or workaholic routine could fix.
I held my laptop bag like a shield, pulling it tight against my chest, leaning toward the window to force a barrier of open space between us. It didn’t work. Our thighs still touched—he was too big for the seat.
“I’m getting off at the next stop,” I said, watching his reflection in the dark glass. “Let me out.”
He looked at me, confusion and concern flickering across his sharp features. “You don’t live at this stop.”
“I do today,” I snapped, panic making my voice pitch too high. “Don’t you dare follow me.”
Corvus’s eyes widened, a sudden, raw look of desperation breaking through his stoicism. “Please,” he urged, his low voice rough. “Dani, I need to protect you.”
Hearing my name on his lips sparked something—a confusing blend of understanding and longing and terror. He knew my name. He knew my route. He knew how to find me. He knew way more about me than I knew about him.
“I don’t allow it,” I choked out, pushing myself up from the seat. “Go away. Do whatever it is you do when you’re not busy tracking my life.”
The train screeched as it slowed, the platform lights flashing through the window. Corvus was either going to let me go and respect my wishes or prove all my worst instincts right.
Corvus exhaled sharply, clearly frustrated by my decision, but he stepped back into the aisle, granting me a grudging way out.
“You won’t see me, but I’ll be nearby,” he said, his voice a low promise as I squeezed past. “You’ll be safe.”
I ignored him, my heartbeat pounding as I waited for the pneumatic doors to slide open. The second the gap was wide enough, I leaped onto the platform. One quick glance over my shoulder, fully expecting to see him towering behind me—but the space was empty. He was gone.
He said I wouldn’t see him. Maybe he’s invisible. The impossible thought triggered a nervous smile. You’re losing it, Dani.
I turned and practically ran for the exit stairs, flats clacking the same quickened beat of my pulse. The skies had cleared, warmth returning to the night air as the storm rolled away from the city. My mind felt as untethered as Calgary’s mercurial relationship with weather.
Every siren wail, every bag tossed in a trash bin, every rustling leaf jolted me with adrenaline. The shadowed spaces between buildings looked deep enough to hide a lurking monster. Branches twisted, shivering shapes onto my path. Getting off at an earlier stop had given me space from Corvus, but it added ten minutes of company with my own thoughts. Not my best plan.
I hurried down the deserted street, needing to shut myself behind a locked door. And probably a gallon of chamomile tea, brewed with enough honey to sedate a bear.
When my mid-rise building finally loomed ahead, the concrete and brick didn’t steady me the way I’d hoped. I fumbled with my keys, the metal cold against my clumsy fingers, and slipped into the dim, quiet lobby, the heavy door clicking shut behind me. At least the elevator was empty.
Inside my apartment, I threw the deadbolt, fastened the chain, and leaned my forehead against the cool wood of the door, listening to my own ragged breathing.
My small sanctuary of curated chaos felt suffocatingly tight tonight. Keys clattered on the kitchen counter. Drenched slingback flats kicked into the narrow hallway closet. Cardigan tossed over the back of the bar stool, desperate to strip away the evening. Dropping my laptop bag on my desk, I caught sight of myself in the hallway mirror. A wide-eyed ghost, drained and trembling.
I dragged myself into the bathroom, turning the hot tap full blast until steam billowed off the porcelain tub. I dumped a heavy handful of lavender salts into the rushing water, hoping the familiar floral scent would soothe me.
Damp clothes dropped onto the tile floor in a messy heap—a rare act of rebellion for someone who usually kept every corner of her life organized. But as the mirror fogged over with a hazy film, obscuring my wide-eyed reflection, I knew the truth I was running from: No matter how many locks I put on the door, I couldn’t lock out the paradigm shift.
I slid into the scalding water, wincing as heat wrapped my tired muscles, easing the tension in my shoulders. My eyes closed, but my mind refused to let the images go.
The redcap’s claws finding my throat. Corvus’s cool palm against my cheek. Kay’s grounding warmth at the coffee shop. And worst of all, the sketches. Drawings of malicious, ancient eyes, of a creature dressed in skin that didn’t belong, traced by my hands while I dreamed.
I’d run from this my whole life. Ever since I was ten years old, isolation had been my reality. The haze of clinical evaluations. The suffocating shame of a family who just wanted a normal daughter. It wasn’t the night terrors themselves that had disconnected us; what terrified my parents were the detailed, sleep-inspired renderings of faces I’d never seen and events that hadn’t yet happened. The colleague my dad invited over for dinner whom I’d sketched with a monstrous, distorted appearance. The shattered vase my mom accused me of breaking, simply because I’d drawn it in pieces the night before.
The doctors had called it a hyper-reactive imagination coupled with severe dissociation. They gave me prescriptions for daily sedatives with a chalky, bitter taste meant to smother the dreams and keep my pencils still. Nothing stopped the nightmares. But lying—saying the pills were working and that I was finally better—made the medications go away.
Without the haze of sedation, I could think again. I learned that pretending every face was normal and claiming every strange sketch was just a half-remembered scene from a movie stopped my parents from hovering. It stopped them from controlling where I went and who I was with. I learned to smile, hide my sketchbooks, and play the role of a well-adjusted adult because the alternative—the threat of being sent back to those sterile, quiet wards—was worse than any nightmare.
But if I believed Corvus, I was throwing away years of agonizing psychological survival. I was admitting that the doctors were wrong, that the drawings weren’t a symptom of a broken brain, and my family’s shame was built on a lie.
Either I was finally experiencing the full-scale psychotic break everyone had spent my childhood trying to prevent… or everything they told me was wrong.
Humans can’t see magic, Kay had said, his voice entirely devoid of the mocking skepticism I’d spent a lifetime expecting. They know about you now, Corvus had warned, treating my terror not as a delusion to be suppressed, but as a reality to be defended.
Despite everything the ‘normal’ world expected of me—despite the rational voice in my head screaming that I was trusting two delusional stalkers—my body knew the truth. The logical world had labelled me broken and left me to fight my mind alone. Corvus and Kay had looked at my monsters, and they hadn’t run away.
Steam thickened in the small bathroom, swallowing the corners of the ceiling, turning the familiar room into a hazy, lonely void. Sinking deeper into the tub, the hot water swelled all the way to my chin. The rhythmic drip, drip, drip of the leaky faucet echoed against the tile.
My anxious thoughts refused to be drowned. A small, terrifying question surfaced with a building pressure inside my chest:
What if it’s real?
***
When I finally emerged from the steamy sanctuary of the bath, my skin still tingling with the lingering warmth, I remembered the salt circle. I wondered how long I could realistically postpone its cleanup or if I could simply incorporate it into my apartment’s aesthetic. Opting for the path of least resistance, I avoided the salt-strewn crime scene of my desk by diving headfirst into dinner preparation. I dressed in my designated comfort armour—a loose Wicked sweater and silky pyjama pants—and lazily tied up my damp apricot-blonde hair with a scrunchie.
Procrastination was the priority. I donned my noise-cancelling headphones and ignored the mess. I cranked up a Girl Power playlist, using the music as a sonic shield against the relentless onslaught of Kay and Corvus thoughts.
It worked for exactly one song before the siren call of graphite on paper lured me to unleash my angst on a sketchpad.
Kay’s stupid black leather gloves—the hand that held mine with such unsettling tenderness—took shape first. I drew his stupid, charming smile, the dangerous curve of his lips that made my stomach do a chaotic tango. His stupidly handsome face was a masterpiece even with my rushed shading.
Then I flipped the page and drew Corvus’s silver locket. Tracing the worn black cord, carefully defining the hammered texture, I wore my pencil down shorter and shorter. I erased and retraced the metal over and over, fixated on a nagging sense of incompleteness. It bothered me—way more than it should have—that I felt like I was forgetting a crucial detail about that locket. A missing piece of a puzzle I didn’t even know I was solving.
With only one minute until midnight, I finally surrendered to exhaustion. My miniature gallery of half-finished smiles and eyes mocked me from the page. Their incomplete expressions perfectly mirrored the unresolved turmoil in my own head.
In the bathroom, I scrubbed away the graphite dust that clung to my fingertips like tiny shadows. Untying my hair, I combed my fingers through the long, damp apricot strands to tease out the kinks left by the scrunchie. It was a slow, deliberate ritual that usually soothed me, but tonight it just felt like a prelude to unease.
I was avoiding sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream. What monsters and tar-drenched landscapes would visit me after a day as wild as today? But I knew I’d regret the delay tomorrow when my alarm throttled me awake.
I scrolled through my social feed while mindlessly completing my bedtime routine, the phone’s blue light casting a ghostly glow on the walls. I didn’t absorb a single post; I was just losing my mind to memes and trends while brushing my teeth with anxiety-fuelled pressure.
In the corner of the screen, the digital clock flipped to midnight. A self-imposed purgatory of an evening, and I had absolutely nothing to show for it. No answers. No decisions. Just pages of watchful eyes and silent lips haunting my sketchbook.
There was no denying I’d been wide awake during my second train meeting with Corvus. His presence was a tangible reality. And if he was real, then the redcap attack was real, too. Where that left me, I didn’t have a clue. It felt dangerous. Like I teetered over a point of no return.
A sharp rap at the door shattered the late-night silence.
The sound echoed through my quiet apartment. I stared down at my phone, double-checking the time as if the digital clock could be lying. Almost an hour past midnight.
No normal person would be visiting at this ungodly hour. No one had texted, messaged, or sent a carrier pigeon announcing a surprise arrival. There was no good reason for anyone to be at my door.
Maybe I imagined it, I reasoned, my fingers tightening around my phone. Just an old building sighing in its sleep. My nerves were frayed, stretched thin by a historic amount of stress. Sleep was needed. Just go to bed and ignore it like any normal person would.
It was probably a food delivery driver at the wrong door, bleary-eyed and mistaking the apartment numbers. They’d figure it out eventually. It had to be something ordinary.
A second sharp rap struck the wood—louder this time, more insistent. The vibration travelled straight through the floorboards and into the pit of my stomach.
Cold dread sent a rush of pinpricks along my skin. I tried to reason with the creeping paranoia, constructing a rational explanation brick by painstaking brick. Maybe a neighbour was locked out—a late-night casualty of misplaced keys. But I knew the people on my floor. To my left was an aggressively normal family with predictable, seasonal door wreaths. To my right was an identical couple who seemed to share a single, synchronized brain and a disturbing lack of individuality. They were pleasantly, beautifully boring, which was precisely why we’d coexisted in total peace for two years. They weren’t late-night troublemakers. They were safe. Like my life should be.
I shuffled my feet closer to the hallway, my movements agonizingly slow. Every inch of my body begged me to stop, to retreat back to the safety of my bedroom and the familiar scent of pencil shavings and unscented laundry detergent. What if I just curled up under the covers and pretended I wasn’t home?
My brain battled over which inner voice was the saner one: the one insisting that monsters don’t exist, or the chillingly logical one asking, Why would a monster bother to knock?
I stopped an arm’s length from the door, close enough to feel the draft slipping beneath the frame. My fingers trembled when I reached for the door.
When the knock came again, I jumped, cursing myself for being terrified, for letting the silence amplify something as entirely mundane as a visitor.
The knock was a triple beat, small but insistent, a rhythmic intrusion that shattered the thin barrier between me and the hall. I held my breath—as if breathing would welcome disaster, as if silence could somehow make the impossible disappear—and lined my eye up with the peephole.
Nothing. The hall was empty, a blank, featureless expanse of beige carpet and yellow fluorescent lights. For a moment, that seemed the more terrifying option—the absence of anything more unsettling than the presence of something. But then I let myself believe it. Nothing.
Maybe it had been a neighbour hoping I’d spare some salt for some midnight baking. They’d given up and assumed I was asleep, a reasonable assumption for an unreasonable hour.
Exhausted and paranoid. Classic Dani. I mentally patted myself on the back for such astute self-diagnosis.
Just because my life had taken a detour into the bizarre lately, and a familiar stranger had murmured a cryptic warning—they know about you now—didn’t mean monsters made midnight house-calls.
I was safe here. It was just a late-night knock.
But the anxiety was a persistent itch I couldn’t scratch. I looked through the peephole again. Show me normal. Show me a friendly face. A misplaced flyer. Anything to banish the creeping unease.
Nothing. The hallway remained stubbornly, unnervingly empty. Who does that? The three-knock-and-vanish routine? It didn’t feel like a prank. It felt… deliberate.
Maybe just one quick peek. I needed proof that everything was normal. Because everything had to be normal.
My hand trembled as I turned the lock, the metallic click sharp in the silence. My fingers wrapped around the cold handle, the smooth metal suddenly strangely slick. I was about to unlatch the bolt when a wave of nausea hit me. My throat constricted, choked by a sudden, acrid stench—damp earth, the metallic tang of copper, and the unmistakable sting of sulphur. It was the smell of decay. Of something terribly wrong.
I yanked my hand back as if I’d touched a hot stove, a reflexive recoil from the unseen threat. An apartment door was a pathetic shield against whatever waited on the other side. And the terrifying truth whispered in the sudden silence: this wasn’t a misplaced pizza.
Another knock. This time, it was followed by a familiar voice—a strained, almost pleading whisper. “Hello?”
I glued my eye to the peephole’s tiny lens.
It was my neighbour from two doors down—Mrs. Gilbert. She and her husband were empty-nesters in their early sixties, known for gifting questionable guava experiments to the building’s younger residents. She was a small woman, looking extra thin and tiny through the curved lens.
A perfectly normal neighbour. Nothing unnatural here.
I turned the handle, a sharp prick shooting up my palm. I immediately dismissed it as static from the building’s dry air. I cracked the door.
Mrs. Gilbert stood there in a pastel nightdress, her usually neat grey hair a tangled, limp mess.
“Hello?” she whispered, her voice thin and reedy. She smiled—a wide, unsettling curve of her lips that didn’t reach her eyes.
Uncanny valley. Like a poorly rendered digital face, almost human but deeply, disturbingly off. Her skin seemed stretched too taut across her cheekbones, leaving her features sharp, angular, and alien.
A creature dressed in skin that didn’t belong. The horror from my sketchbook popped into my head, a cold bucket of ice water poured down my spine. You’re seeing things, Dani. It’s just Mrs. Gilbert. Maybe she’d lost weight.
“H-hi, Mrs. Gilbert,” I stammered, forcing a brittle smile. “Is everything alright?”
“Let me in,” she said. The words were polite, almost a sing-song, but it wasn’t a request. She stood entirely still, like a wax mannequin with a voice-box.
“Oh, I was just heading to bed,” I said, gesturing vaguely at my oversized sweater and pyjama pants. “Did you need something? Is Mr. Gilbert around?”
“Let me in,” she repeated, her voice gaining a hard, guttural edge. The polite mask was fracturing. She still hadn’t moved—not a breath, not a blink. She was unnaturally, inhumanly still.
“Really, it’s late,” I said, my voice trembling. Keep it normal. Keep it neighbourly. Just a confused old lady.
Her smile widened, the corners pulling back too far—splitting. The lines around her mouth deepened into grotesque, tearing creases. It wasn’t a smile anymore. It was a baring of teeth, a predator’s grimace. My stomach lurched as her skin cracked.
Desperate denial still clawed at my sanity. Maybe she’s sick? Sleepwalking? Anything but what Corvus warned me about.
“Do you know where you are, Mrs. Gilbert?” I whispered.
I stepped a fraction closer, peering past her into the hall. Every inch closer felt like stepping toward the edge of a diving board. The fluorescent lights, usually blinding at all hours, were completely dead, leaving the empty corridor shrouded in a deep pocket of shadow.
Mrs. Gilbert’s eyelids stretched wide, revealing twin voids of shiny, light-absorbing black. Pupil and iris were entirely indistinguishable. Malicious, ancient eyes.
It was the eyes I’d traced in a trance.
I scrambled backward, my heart pounding against my ribs with the blunt force of a wrecking ball. She hadn’t blinked. She hadn’t breathed. The realization twisted knots in my stomach. She wasn’t alive.
“Mrs. Gilbert,” I choked out, a pathetic plea for normalcy. “Your eyes…”
“Let me in,” she commanded, her voice a guttural rasp. All false politeness vanished. Her hand shot forward, hitting the doorframe with a sickening crack of bone against drywall. The wood splintered, revealing the raw plaster beneath and painting it with red splatter. Her hands—long, bony fingers with serrated nails sharp enough to carve flesh—were slick with a dark, oily black-red, the viscous substance. The force of the impact had caused a few fingers to jerk into odd, broken angles.
But she didn’t cross the threshold.
Even with her hand on the frame, her body stayed completely outside, held back by an invisible, rigid vertical line.
Corvus promised no creature could come in uninvited. The logic hit me with a terrifying, grounding clarity. The protection ward was real. Magic was real.
The supernatural world wasn’t a psychological evaluation or a symptom of a broken brain. It was standing on my welcome mat.
“No,” I whispered, shuffling another step back. “No, definitely no. You can’t come in. I’m not interested in guests. Go away. I’m safe here.”
The thing wearing Mrs. Gilbert smiled, a grotesque parody of a human expression, the corner of its mouth splitting further into a ragged gash. Thick fluid like congealed tar oozed from the split, tracing a slick path down its distorted cheek. A black tongue swirled forward, licking the dark sludge across its teeth.
It traced a long, jagged nail—black and sharp as obsidian—along the door trim, scraping against the wood like bone on stone. Shards of fibreglass and drywall were embedded in its pale, stretched flesh, weeping that same dark fluid. The smell of decay and sulphur prickled in my nose.
“Safe for you,” it agreed, the rumble vibrating through the floorboards beneath my bare feet. “But I’ll be lonely waiting. Maybe someone else will invite me in.”
Those bottomless black eyes flickered to the door to my left—the aggressively normal family. “I hear the children sleeping. Their innocent minds are so… open. They won’t hear me creep in. But they will see me.”
The acidic taste of rising nausea coated my tongue. Every muscle tightened, a vise around my chest, leaving me breathless. “Don’t you dare,” I whispered.
It laughed, a high-pitched, staccato sound, like a hyena on the prowl. “Or maybe the sweet couple next door,” it suggested, gesturing toward the right with its clawed hand, fingers twitching with sickening eagerness.
The entity eyed the large wood splinters embedded in its own flesh, turning its hand to examine the gruesome damage with detached curiosity.
“Only one of them, I promise—so the other can understand how lonely I am.”
It raised its hand to its lips, bringing a particularly large splinter, thick as my pinky, to its torn mouth. Peeling lips closed around the wood—and the tip of its own index finger.
Crunch.
The sound of bone and wood splintering echoed in the quiet hall. Its blackened teeth dug into the damaged finger, tearing at the flesh with a wet, ripping sound. It spat the splinter and a mangled chunk of flesh and blood onto the carpet with a wet thud. The white bone of its finger protruded from the shredded, dripping meat of its hand.
“W-why don’t you go m-make friends with someone else?” I asked, my voice a strained whisper, barely audible over the wild pounding of my heart. My eyes were glued to the grotesque display of self-mutilation, a wave of nausea churning in my gut.
My fists clenched, my nubby fingertips pressed into my palm. I was angry. Sickened. Trapped in a macabre standoff with a creature that wore the skin of my neighbour. “Isn’t that redcap I met your friend?” I asked.
Her black, bulbous eyes widened, the pupils dilating until they swallowed the last vestiges of white. “A friend? Hardly,” it said with disdain. “We have the same queen. Nothing more.” Its hand pressed firm against the open space of my doorframe like a grotesque mime. The black ooze had dribbled over its lips, chin, a slick trail that glistened in the dim light. “I need someone to have fun with.”
“No one here is—fun,” I said awkwardly, laced with a desperate sarcasm that felt hollow even to my own ears. The exposed, mangled finger kept drawing my gaze. “Maybe go see… Corvus. He seems to have time to kill.” It was a dangerous gamble, but Corvus’ words on the train—I need to protect you—gave me hope.
The imposter’s head snapped to a sideways tilt, neck cracking with an unnatural pop that made me flinch. “So he placed this protection,” it said, clearly irritated.
Good. I could use that.
“Yeah, he did. H-he’s probably coming home soon,” I lied, my voice wavering slightly. Bluff better, Dani. I pictured his Oxford blue peacoat, the silver locket he wore, and the glint of steel at his hip. “And he always carries his sword.”
Its high-pitched laugh rang again, a piercing sting in my eardrums. The loose-skinned body leaned back against the wall, directly across from my neighbour’s door. Its form was unnaturally relaxed, black eyes gleaming with malevolent amusement, like a predator savouring its trapped prey.
“Silly girl,” it teased, her voice a low, guttural purr that seemed to slither into my very thoughts. “You’re just one of many.”
My stomach dropped.
“Maybe,” I said, not giving myself a second to dwell on the frustrating implication of that statement, “but he still killed that redcap for me.” I crossed my arms, trying to feign swagger, to project a confidence I couldn’t feel, my knuckles white beneath strained skin. “I wouldn’t want to piss him off. He doesn’t like when I make new friends.” A dangerous admission, a desperate attempt to leverage the strange possessiveness I’d sensed in Corvus.
“You’ve spoken—more than once?” it asked, black eyes narrowing, tightening with a sudden, keen interest that sent a fresh wave of terror through me. The imposter leaned away from the wall, its long, clawed fingers straining into wide, skeletal fans. “You know him?”
“Yeah, I know him,” I bragged, my voice cracking under the weight of my fear. I didn’t miss the subtle shift in the imposter’s demeanour, the flicker of surprise that raised its eyebrows, and the dawning realization that knowing his name and truly knowing him were two very different things.
But I hoped I could act well enough to fool the monster. If I could pull this off, maybe, just maybe, I’d survive. Maybe I’d even learn enough to understand the strange, unsettling pull I felt towards the half-sketched faces who haunted my nightmares and now, potentially, my reality.
“You know his name,” it corrected, growling, “nothing more.” It was trying to trick me into giving something away, to reveal how little I knew. The imposter eyed my neighbour’s doors, gaze flickering back and forth, a predatory scan that sent shivers down my spine. Each glance was a threat.
I had to take a chance, roll the dice, and hope for a lucky number. It was do something and risk failure or do nothing and risk my neighbour’s lives, a choice that weighed heavily on my conscience. I thought of Corvus. What details had my artist’s eyes picked up? The silver locket. It was the only thing that stood out. And it had been in my nightmare—one of the many scattered belongings drowned in the tar pit beside me.
With only instinct and a high school improv class guiding me, I said, “I know who he made that locket for.”
The monster recoiled, its inhuman features twisting in a mask of surprise and genuine fear. Somehow, my lie had struck close enough to startle it.
“You can’t know that,” it snarled, lurching forward to brace hands on either side of the door. Its clawed fingers dug deeper into the damaged wood. The black tongue snaked out, licking along its split lips, releasing a venomous hiss that scraped against my eardrums, a sound that promised pain and violation.
“But somehow I can,” I said with a weak smile. Sweat trickled down my back, icy and cold. I was shivering and hot all at once. I wondered if my clammy palms and the sheen of sweat on my upper lip would betray my carefully constructed lie.
“It wasn’t easy to get that story out of him,” I added, embellishing the lie with a hint of fabricated intimacy, a dangerous lure. “He’s not much of a talker. I guess that means I’m important to him.” Another dangerous claim, but it was all I had.
The imposter’s buggy eyes narrowed, the all-consuming blackness intensifying. It was weighing my words, trying to figure out if I was capable of lying well enough to fool her. The more I kept talking, the more likely I’d stumble, say something that didn’t add up, something that would expose my bluff and unleash her full fury.
“If you know all this, then why are you still here?” it asked, her voice laced with a chilling curiosity. Its neck cracked as its chin jutted out at an unnatural angle, its gaze piercing.
Not a good question. My mind went blank. I had no idea how to answer without revealing the truth of my ignorance. Where else would I go if I knew the real truth? A magic cult headquarters? An underground shadowy academy for monster hunters?
“I didn’t want to go,” I said—a clipped whisper, the words catching in my dry throat.
“And why not?” it hissed.
The imposter definitely suspected I was bluffing, its black eyes boring into mine. My skin crawled with a thousand icy prickles, each hair on my arms standing on end.
One name popped into my head. The only answer that felt safe. “Kay,” I said.
Its oozing jaw dropped open, the split widening with threads of skin stretched over muscle, inhuman features twisting in genuine surprise. Its claws crunched through the drywall with a thundering rip, leaving deep, ragged gouges in the plaster, showering dust and debris that stung my eyes. The light inside my apartment flickered erratically.
“You know them both in this life?” it screeched, a high-pitched, grating sound that made my teeth ache. “So soon?”
“This life?” I couldn’t stop myself, the words slipping out before I could stop them, a fatal crack in my carefully constructed facade. It was my doom, a moment of weakness that exposed the terrifying truth of my ignorance.
A cruel smile spread across its disfigured face. Its head tilted left… then right… and finally, ducked her chin and laughed, a chilling, unnatural echo in the hallway. The imposter crossed to my neighbour’s door and knocked.
“Almost,” it said. “Well played, mortal. Now we’ll play my game.”
It knocked again, the triple-beat echoing through the silent hall. “You can let me in…or they can.”
The monster wiped its oozy mouth, leaving a thick, black smear along its arm. “I hear them stirring. The man has stopped snoring. The woman is rolling over to check the time.”
“Don’t hurt them,” I pleaded. My eyes stung with sudden tears, blurring my vision. Behind my eyes throbbed with pressure.
“I promise to leave them unharmed—if you invite me in,” it offered with a tone like venomous honey. “This is the game of choice. So choose. Save yourself. Save them.”
My body was locked in a jittery paralysis, limbs heavy as lead. Conflicting impulses raced through my head. I couldn’t make this choice. Why me? Give this to someone better, wiser, and more selfless. Knots twisted my insides. With a sickening certainty, my indecisive panic brought me closer to the choice I was ashamed to make. I didn’t want to die. I couldn’t let the monster in.
Down the hall, a door creaked open, hinges groaning in protest like a tortured beast. I couldn’t see who, but a voice, thick with sleep and irritation, grumbled, “Shut up out there, some of us are trying to sleep.”
The Mrs. Gilbert imposter grinned, a wide, grotesque display of teeth that gleamed in the dim light. Its movements were unnaturally swift, a blur of motion that defied human limitations.
“Mrs. Gilbert?” my neighbour asked, confused and concerned. “Is that—are you okay?”
The monster said nothing, its all-black eyes fixed on the figure in the doorway. It waved a clawed hand back at me, sending a fresh wave of goosebumps rippling across my skin. Then, with a ghostly grace, it ran down the hall, the pastel nightgown billowing like a shroud.
I don’t know who screamed first—me or my neighbour. But two screams, raw and terrified, tore through the hallway, echoing through the building’s concrete and steel. I heard a door slam open with a sickening thud as the unwanted terror entered my neighbour’s home. I heard someone gasping for air, a choked, ragged sound that sent ice shards down my spine.
“Come in!” I shouted, a pleading, broken cry that tore from my throat. “You can come in!”
The screaming stopped.
Unsettling, sudden silence hung in the air, thick with dread. The whole building seemed to hold its breath. Then, the lights cut out, plunging my apartment into a smothering darkness.
All I could hear was my pounding heart.
Movement stirred in the dark. A wet, heavy crunch. Something limp dropped onto the carpet. Then came a sickening tear of fabric, followed by a slow, dragging sound along the wall. Tap… tap… tap… Closer. I clamped my shaking hands over my mouth, choking back a whimper as a dizzying panic gripped me.
The floorboards groaned right outside the threshold under an immense, unnatural weight, and the thing stepped into the doorframe.
A dark, hulking silhouette filled the space, completely blocking out the faint green glow of the hallway's emergency exit light. It didn’t look like Mrs. Gilbert anymore. The entity had doubled in size, its form swollen and grotesque, limbs lengthening into spindly, clawed appendages that scraped against the doorframe, gouging deep tracks into the wood. Sharp, needle-like teeth grinned at me from the shadows, a malicious rictus that stretched its mouth. A skeletal hand, its serrated nails dripping with a thick, black sludge, snaked through the open door.
Corvus’s barrier was gone. I had invited the nightmare inside.
I stumbled backward—legs tangling in the dark as I tilted and slammed into my desk. A jolt of pain radiated up my spine. The desk chair rattled, its metal legs screeching against the hardwood. As I fell, my bare heel brushed against something gritty and rough.
The salt.
My mind raced, frantically trying to find traction. I had spent the entire evening treating that white line like a joke—a symptom of stress, a sleepwalking quirk. But as the towering shadow tilted its head toward me, an electric realization snapped through my panic. What if I’d poured salt around my desk because I knew this was coming? The sketches of malicious eyes had warned me. Maybe my unconscious mind remembered enough of horror movies to protect me.
I squinted through the dark, my eyes straining to discern gaps in the salt circle. There—a massive gap in the line where my desk chair had rolled through.
A sob escaped my throat. Knees dropped, scrambling across the floor, blunt fingernails scraping against the hardwood to sweep grains back into place. The chasm closed just as the heavy, uneven thud of the monster’s footsteps shook the floorboards.
I curled into a tight, trembling ball inside the salt circle, knees pressed to my chest and chin tucked against kneecaps, desperately trying to become invisible. Teeth chattered as I held my fetal position of terror, listening to the scratching of its nails.
The thundering footsteps stopped right at the edge of the white line.
The grotesque mockery of Mrs. Gilbert loomed over my precarious boundary, backlit in neon green. The overpowering stench of damp earth, rust, and rot overwhelmed my senses, making my eyes sting. Tiny droplets of black sludge dripped from its skin, and the moment they touched the salt, the droplets hissed and sputtered like acid, dissolving into foul-smelling wisps of smoke. The twin obsidian pools of its eyes traced the uneven line with a sharp, predatory frustration.
It couldn’t cross. My unconscious mind had actually saved my life.
The long claws clicked restlessly as the hulking form patrolled the perimeter of the salt, shifting and swaying, searching for a single flaw in the circle.
“Clever,” the monster said. The voice was a guttural rasp, sounding less like a sweet old lady and more like a malfunctioning garburator grinding bones. “But we play the same game, little pellar. You come out, or I go back out there and paint the hallway with your neighbour’s insides.”
The choice was still the same: my life, or theirs. And I was out of clever tricks. No more nightmare premonitions to guide me. I was alone, trapped between a monster and the horrifying consequences of survival.
“Why?” I demanded, my voice a trembling squeak, though I hated myself for showing weakness. “I don’t even know who you are! Why are you doing this to me?”
The creature paused, its distorted neck snapping to a grotesque angle as it stared down at me. It let out a wet, rattling laugh.
“You think this is about you?” it hissed, its split face twisting into malevolent amusement. “How deliciously small. My terrible mistress—the Queen of Rot—does not waste her loyal hunters on stray mice. You are the bait for a much greater prize.”
I pressed myself harder against the desk, my throat so dry it burned. “I-I don’t know anything about a queen. I’m just a nobody—h-hurting me won’t get you anything, really—”
“Your pain is a beacon,” the monster snarled, taking a heavy, frustrated step closer, its slick skin sizzling when it brushed the invisible barrier. “My Queen commands your ruin because she knows your suffering will bring them to their knees.”
“Bring who?” I choked out, the terror bleeding into a desperate, furious confusion.
“What a foolish, wasteful thing you are,” it hissed, black eyes gleaming with cruel triumph, “to have your gift and yet be so blind to the company you keep.” The thing leaned pressed closer to the salt line, its breath hot and foul against my face. “You are so helpless even with such grand protectors. The Lords of Dusk and Dawn—”
A subtle, sharp scraping sound cut the monster short, drawing both our eyes back to the battered doorway.
Another shadow filled the space—but it didn’t hesitate. Blue eyes locked onto mine for a fraction of a second before a broad-shouldered silhouette moved with terrifying, controlled fury. There was a sudden flash of steel in the dark. A brutal, lethal strike drove an unsheathed blade straight through the monster’s chest.
The force of the blow rocked the massive creature back. Sludge splattered, the slimy black fluid erupting from the wound like a geyser; black blood splashed against the invisible vertical wall of my salt circle, sliding down the air with a sizzling hiss, smelling of burnt hair and acidic vinegar.
The monster howled—a raw, agonizing, animalistic screech. It lashed out a clawed hand, but the man moved with impossible speed, a blur of dark fabric and lethal intent. He caught the creature’s wrist, a sickening snap that made me flinch. Without a pause, he ripped the sword from its chest, the steel slick with gleaming, viscous ooze, and stomped his heavy boot into the monster’s sternum, kicking the convulsing body to the floor.
With a swift, merciless arc, he decapitated the monster. The heavy thud of the blade meeting the floorboards signalled the end. The head rolled across the room, leaving a dark, smoking trail of sludge before coming to a rest, its vacant black eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
Corvus flicked his wrist, sending a few stray droplets of sludge sizzling onto the floor, before fluidly sheathing the weapon beneath his peacoat. The sudden, violent storm vanished as quickly as it had arrived, leaving only the sound of his steady breathing.
He knelt at the very edge of my salt circle, his piercing blue eyes locking onto mine. “Are you alright?”
My throat was too tight. I managed a small, rigid nod, the absolute terror slowly giving way to a strange, thumping warmth in my chest. The slight tremor shivering through me was enough to make him exhale, a soft, relieved sound that somehow eased the suffocating tension in the room.
“I’m sorry,” Corvus said, his voice dropping into a softer, deeply apologetic register. “I didn’t know the creature was here until the threshold ward collapsed.”
My lip trembled. He’d placed the protection on my door; of course he felt it break when I invited the thing inside.
He looked around the cramped, shadowed room, his gaze lingering on the smoking patches where the acidic sludge was eating into my hardwood floor. “It isn’t safe for you to stay here.”
I nodded again, a jerky, breathless motion.
Corvus remained on one knee, watching me in the tense silence. Stiffly, my eyes drifted past him to the detached head resting near my kitchen counter—a macabre centrepiece in my small apartment. The reality of the corpse, the smell of ancient rot, and the mind-blowing impossibility of what I had just witnessed made the walls feel like they were closing in.
“I cannot cross the salt,” Corvus murmured. A shadow of self-reproach crossed his features, his low voice laced with a strange hint of regret.
It was a strange contrast. Seconds ago, he had been a force of absolute destruction, a lethal knight in a peacoat executing a monster without blinking. Yet now, he looked genuinely frustrated by his inability to breach a simple line of seasoning on the floor. It showed a flash of vulnerability that surprisingly mirrored my own.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I dragged my heel through the white grains, deliberately breaking the line. An unspoken invitation. A fragile, terrifying gesture of trust.
Corvus looked down at the broken barrier, then up at me. “May I touch you?” he asked quietly.
“Mhm.” My throat was too tight. I was not holding it together. The adrenaline was draining from me, leaving a cold, hollow numbness that made my limbs feel disconnected and rubbery.
He reached out. His hand was strong and cold, but as his fingers gently closed around my arm, the reality of the contact broke something loose inside me. A choked, ugly sob escaped my lips. Corvus leaned closer, his dark hair brushing my temple as he scooped me up with effortless strength.
He pulled me against his broad chest into a solid, unyielding hold. “You’re safe,” he whispered, his breath warm against my scalp.
Those words were enough reason to collapse, hiding my face against the rough, heavy wool of his peacoat. Beneath the scent of leather and crisp air, I could hear the steady, slow thud of his heartbeat. My hand clutched at his shirt as if he were the only solid thing in a world that had suddenly tilted on its axis.
“I am taking you somewhere safe,” he said, his voice a low rumble against my ear. “You may leave in the morning if you wish. But for now, do not panic if you do not… recognize it.”
I barely registered the warning. The desire to shut down, to let someone else carry the weight of my survival, was intoxicating.
Corvus carried me out of the apartment, crossing the ruined threshold into the hall. Over his shoulder, I caught glimpses of movement. Doors creaked open. Neighbours in nightclothes, their faces pale and etched with terror, were finally peeking out.
The fluorescent lights overhead flickered erratically, casting long, jerky shadows across the walls. In the stuttering light, I saw it—the slumped, broken shape of the couple from two doors down. Limbs contorted at impossible angles, a dark stain blooming rapidly into the carpet.
A heaving nausea churned my stomach. Eyes clamped shut, and I pressed my forehead harder into Corvus’s chest, gripping his shirt until my knuckles turned white. Don’t look. Just don’t look.
Corvus didn’t speak. He simply adjusted his grip and took the stairs. He descended the three flights smoothly, his breathing entirely unchanged. Like carrying a feather instead of a trembling body. His even steps became a metronome, drowning out the terrified whispers filtered through the stairwell.
When we hit the street, the night air was brisk and sharp, shocking my lungs. The city lights felt suddenly intrusive—too bright, too loud, completely detached from the nightmare indoors. A shiver trailed down my spine, my arms instinctively tightening around his neck, needing to anchor myself to his steadiness.
The faint, rising whine of sirens cut through the traffic. Reality was coming. Tomorrow there would be police, questions, an abandoned phone on my nightstand, and panic texts from Heather. There would be a crime scene I couldn’t possibly explain without sounding insane.
“We don’t have to take the train, do we?” I whispered, the thought of public transit in my pyjamas feeling unbearable.
Corvus looked down at me, the sharp angles of his jaw softening with a reserved smile. “No,” he promised. “I rarely use human transportation.”
The relief was immense, but the phrasing caught in my mind, drilling through the protective numbness of my shock. Human transportation. It wasn’t the first time he’d drawn that distinct line separating himself from humankind.
“You say that like… you’re not one of us,” I said, my fingers tangled in the soft fall of dark hair around his collar, staring up at the intense, unwavering blue of his eyes.
He didn’t answer. He just kept walking.
“You’re not human,” I repeated quietly.
The realization should’ve worried me. It should’ve made me fight to get out of his arms. But instead, it felt expected. Like finally learning the real lyrics to a song you’ve always loved but never quite knew all the words.
Corvus had never felt human—not with that predatory grace, the terrifying speed, or the quiet, reverent way he held me despite possessing enough power to crush train doors. I felt drawn to him, a moth circling his dark flame.
“So where are we going?” I asked.
“My home.” He turned off the concrete sidewalk, stepping onto the tiny, rectangular patch of grass where the building’s tenants usually took their furry companions for midnight relief.
“Is it far?”I asked, feeling a sudden awareness of the burden I might be.
“It will take only a moment,” he said.
He stopped in the centre of the damp grass. His eyes fixed on a small, pale wild mushroom breaking through the soil. As I watched, a sudden, impossible tremor rippled through the earth. Another mushroom sprouted right beside the first, then another, bursting from the dirt and unfurling with unnatural, time-lapsed speed. Within seconds, a perfect, seamless fungal ring encircled us.
Corvus’ eyes met mine with a sudden, heavy intensity. Then, without a backward glance, he stepped across the ring.
And everything familiar was gone.