ECHOES
1138 Words
Irene woke before sunrise.
The sky outside her apartment window was still dark, bruised purple and grey, the city barely stirring beneath it. Her room was quiet - too quiet. No cars. No sirens. Just the ticking of the kitchen clock and the slow, unsettled beat of her heart.
She sat up slowly.
Her coat was still draped over the chair, faintly damp from the rain. Her phone had ten missed calls from her friend Jenny. She didn't remember getting home. The cab ride was a blur.
But he was clear.
Liam.
That voice. That face. Those eyes - ancient, unknowable, and yet... sad. He'd looked at her like he knew her. Like he saw her. And when he'd told her to go, something inside her broke a little.
She rubbed her wrists. They ached, though she couldn't say why.
She stood and walked to the mirror. Her reflection stared back, pale and tired. She leaned closer. Her neck looked untouched - no marks. No bruises.
So why did she feel... drained?
And why did she miss him?
The thought was ridiculous. He was a stranger. A mystery man in a dark coat who barely said anything. And yet, something about him clung to her like smoke. Not just attraction - something deeper. Like her soul had recognized him before her mind could.
She shook her head. "I'm losing it," she whispered.
But her eyes kept going to the window.
The night still called her name.
---
Irene told herself she wasn't going back.
All day she'd tried to forget. She went to school, answered texts, smiled when expected. But Liam lingered - in the corners of her thoughts, in the space between heartbeats. She saw him in reflections that weren't his, heard his voice in songs she didn't remember liking.
By the time the city had darkened, her feet were already moving. Coat on. No explanation. She just had to go.
She took the same route, winding through the familiar streets, barely breathing until the alley appeared - quiet, empty, just as she remembered. But colder. Like it had been waiting.
She hesitated.
Then-
"Couldn't stay away?"
The voice slipped out of the shadows.
Her breath caught.
Liam stepped forward like he'd been there all along - coat draped over his shoulders, hands in his pockets, moonlight brushing his face like a secret. His eyes caught hers. She forgot how to move.
"I..." she started. "I don't know why I came."
He tilted his head slightly. "You do."
Silence stretched between them.
Then Irene took a step closer. "You could've hurt me that night. But you didn't."
"You don't know what I could've done," he said, voice quieter now. Regret beneath the surface.
"But I trust you."
He looked away at that. Like the words burned.
"You shouldn't."
"I don't care," she said, stepping closer again. "I haven't stopped thinking about you."
She reached up, brushing her fingers lightly against his hand. He didn't pull away.
"Liam..."
His name felt different
She tilted her face up to his like she already knew what he'd do. Like she'd decided for him.
Liam didn't move.
Her breath ghosted against his mouth, warm despite the cold. It smelled like blood and iron and something sweeter underneath-like a lie dressed in perfume.
He should've pulled back.
But he didn't.
He stood there, perfectly still, while Irene closed the space between them. Her lips brushed his-soft, tentative, human-and for a heartbeat, it was almost enough to forget what he was. What she wasn't.
Almost.
Then he stepped away. Fast. Sharp.
She blinked, lips still parted. Hurt flared in her eyes-raw and real, no mask for it this time.
"I shouldn't have-" she started.
"You shouldn't," he said. Too fast. Too flat. "But that's not why I stopped you."
Irene frowned. "Then what-?"
He looked past her shoulder, into the trees. The mist had thickened, curling around the roots like it was hiding something. Watching.
"You don't know what you're doing," he said quietly. "You think you want this. But you're just chasing ghosts."
"That's not fair."
"No. It's not."
She stepped toward him again, slower this time. "You feel something for me. Don't lie."
Liam's jaw clenched. He didn't answer.
"I'm not her," she said. Softer now. "Whoever she was."
His eyes flicked back to hers. There it was again-that tremble in her voice, like she wanted to break something open and offer it to him. Her trust, her throat, her stupid fearless heart.
"I know," he said.
Then, quietly: "That's the problem."
A branch snapped somewhere in the dark.
Both of them turned.
The woods were watching..
---
Another snap-closer this time.
Not a deer. Not wind. The woods didn't make that sound unless they wanted to be heard.
Liam moved in front of her without thinking. Not protectively, not like some romantic reflex-but like a creature older than instinct, who knew what kind of things hunted in woods like these.
Irene touched his arm. "What is it?"
He didn't answer. His eyes were on the trees.
Then it stepped into the clearing.
Not fast. Not loud. Just there, like it had always been. Like the dark had peeled itself back and made room for it.
Tall. Unnaturally so. Limbs too long. Skin like parchment left in the cold. And eyes-God, the eyes. Hollow pits, black and glassy and wrong. Not human. Not anymore.
Irene's breath caught.
It didn't look at Liam.
It looked at her.
Liam's voice dropped. "Don't speak. Don't move."
"What the hell is-"
"I said don't."
The thing tilted its head, slow and curious, like a predator trying to decide if the thing in front of it would run or kneel.
Liam took a step forward. His voice changed when he spoke again-older, rougher, like something buried deep had cracked the surface.
"She's under my protection."
The creature blinked. Or maybe it didn't. The face didn't move so much as... ripple.
It opened its mouth. No sound. Just a drag of cold air, like a tomb yawning open somewhere beneath them.
"She is owed," it said. The voice came from the trees, not its mouth. From the roots. From the ground.
Liam's jaw tightened.
"No," he said. "Not yet."
The thing smiled-barely. Not with lips. Just with the sense that it could, and chose not to.
"You cannot keep her from it," it said. "She is marked."
And then it turned-vanishing back into the woods, the way a shadow retreats when you strike a match. Quiet. Unhurried.
But the cold stayed behind.
Irene's voice was a whisper now. "What the f**k was that?"
Liam didn't answer.
Because he'd seen that thing before. Long ago. It didn't come for him. It never did.
It came for promises. Debts.
And Irene-God help her-had just stepped into the wrong story.
- Writer
