Shadows around mary-ann
805 Words
The morning sun did little to chase away the unease lingering in Mary-Ann’s chest. She moved through the quiet apartment like someone walking in a dream, her mind replaying fragments of the night before, the door breaking, Draven’s voice, the sudden darkness.
But when she woke up on the bedroom floor, everything was silent.
No broken door.
No intruder.
No Draven.
It was as if the night had been swallowed whole, leaving only uncertainty behind.
Stephen had left for school early, leaving a note on the table:
“If you’re okay, text me. You looked… scared last night.”
She didn’t text him back.
Not yet.
Instead, she forced herself to dress and head to class. Being alone in the apartment felt unbearable.
By the time she walked into the university hallway, her heartbeat had finally begun to slow. Students moved around her, laughing, talking, busy with normal lives she felt painfully distant from.
She stopped at the notice board, pretending to read the flyers just to center herself.
“Mary-Ann?”
She turned and found Dr. Edmund standing behind her.
The man looked exactly the way the entire department described him calm, warm, and impossible to dislike. His silver-framed glasses rested lightly on the bridge of his nose, and his tone carried the soft authority of someone who had seen far more than he ever said.
“Oh Dr. Edmund,” she said, trying to smile. “Good morning.”
He studied her for a long moment, his eyes kind but undeniably sharp.
“You look tired.”
“I didn’t sleep much,” she admitted.
He nodded slightly. “Nightmares?”
The word hit her harder than it should have.
She forced a shrug. “Something like that.”
Dr. Edmund didn’t push further. Instead, he gestured down the hallway.
“Walk with me a moment?”
Mary-Ann hesitated, but followed him. His presence was oddly comforting grounding, even the opposite of Draven’s cold intensity.
Students passed them in waves, chatting, rushing, laughing. But Dr. Edmund lowered his voice to something only she could hear.
“There’s a certain… heaviness around you today,” he said. “As if you’ve brushed against something you weren’t prepared for.”
Mary-Ann stopped walking.
His words were too accurate.
Almost frighteningly so.
“Dr. Edmund, what do you mean by that?”
He turned to face her fully. The soft morning light from the hallway window illuminated the subtle lines around his eyes, the lines of someone who watched more than he ever spoke.
“I mean,” he said gently, “that some encounters leave marks on the spirit, even when the body seems untouched.”
Her stomach tightened.
He knows.
Not exactly but somehow, he knows.
Dr. Edmund continued, “There are… stories. Old stories. About things that walk at night. Most people ignore them, of course.” He gave her a small smile. “But sometimes those stories brush a little too close to reality.”
Mary-Ann’s throat felt dry. “Are you saying I saw something last night?”
“I’m saying,” Dr. Edmund corrected softly, “that if you did, you should be careful who you trust. And what you allow into your life.”
Mary-Ann’s mind raced.
This wasn’t a normal conversation.
It wasn’t even an academic one.
It felt like a warning.
A quiet, deliberate warning.
“Dr. Edmund…” she whispered, “what do you know?”
He looked at her for a long moment, longer than was comfortable.
His eyes, normally warm, carried something deeper now. Something almost ancient.
“I know enough to recognize danger when it clings to a student of mine.”
A chill ran down her spine.
Before she could ask more, Dr. Edmund’s expression softened again, returning to its usual calm.
He gently placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Mary-Ann, listen to me carefully.”
She nodded, heart pounding.
“If you ever feel watched… if you ever feel something is following you… do not walk home alone. Come to me. Call me. Knock on my office door at any hour.”
“Why?” she whispered.
His smile was sad, almost regretful.
“Because there are things in this world that do not ask permission before stepping into our lives. And those things… can be very patient.”
She inhaled sharply.
The hallway felt colder.
Dr. Edmund stepped back, straightening his glasses.
“Class begins in ten minutes. Try to breathe, hm?”
Then he walked away, leaving Mary-Ann standing frozen in the middle of the hallway, pulse racing, the unspoken truth hanging between them.
Dr. Edmund knew something.
And for the first time since meeting Draven, Mary-Ann felt a fear that wasn’t about monsters.
It was about secrets.
Secrets that seemed to be circling her from all sides.
- Writer
