Darkness and light
970 Words
The window creaked open with a soft, deliberate slide, letting in a gust of cold night air that fluttered the curtains. Mary-Ann’s breath hitched. Fear rippled through her, but her body reacted faster than her mind. She snatched the lamp from her bedside table and held it up like a shield.
A tall figure stepped forward, the moonlight revealing the face she had seen only hours ago on a dark street.
Count Draven Valmot.
He looked different in the confined dimness of her bedroom, sharper, more unreal, more dangerous. His presence filled the space like a shadow given form. His silver eyes glowed faintly, catching the moonlight in a way that no human eyes should.
Mary-Ann tightened her grip on the lamp.
“Get out,” she demanded, voice shaking but surprisingly steady.
Draven didn’t move.
He studied her, not with hunger or malice, but with a strange, ancient sorrow like he was looking at something he had lost long ago.
“I came to ensure you were safe,” he said quietly.
“No,” she snapped, “you came into my room through a window. Safe isn’t the word I’d use.”
Draven’s expression didn’t shift, but something in the atmosphere did.
The temperature dipped a few degrees. The shadows stretched slightly around him, bending toward him as though he were pulling them closer.
“It was not intentional,” he said. “I only needed to confirm you were unharmed.”
“Unharmed?” Mary-Ann’s disbelief slipped into anger. “You could’ve knocked on the door!”
“That would have woken the boy,” he replied calmly. “Your brother.”
Her chest tightened.
“How do you know about Stephen?”
Draven lowered his gaze briefly. Almost respectfully.
“Because when I protect someone, I observe everything around them.”
Mary-Ann swallowed hard. “I don’t need protecting.”
Draven’s attention flicked to the window behind him. His jaw hardened.
“That is where you are mistaken.”
A hum pulsed through the room so subtle Mary-Ann barely felt it. But Draven felt it immediately. His pupils thinned. His body went still.
Someone else was out there.
Watching.
Hunting.
Draven turned toward the window, and the tension in the air thickened like a storm about to break.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered.
Mary-Ann froze. “What? No. You need to”
A whisper cut through the night. Soft. Inhuman.
Draven moved faster than her eyes could track. One moment he was near her bed; the next he was standing at the window, his hand pressed against the frame as though listening through the wood.
Mary-Ann’s pulse surged with panic.
“What’s happening?”
He didn’t answer at first. His expression darkened into something cold, ancient, lethal.
Then
“They have found you.”
Mary-Ann’s heart felt like it stopped.
“Who?”
Draven turned to her, his voice low and urgent.
“Pack a small bag. Only essentials.”
“A… are you insane?” Her fear snapped into disbelief. “You break into my room, talk about mysterious threats, and now I should run away with you?”
Draven took one step toward her. Only one.
But it silenced her instantly.
Because the air changed around him again , colder, heavier, threaded with something ancient that prickled her skin.
“If you stay here,” he said, “you will die.”
The words hung between them, stark and merciless.
“You’re scaring me,” Mary-Ann whispered.
“I know.” His voice softened, breaking through the tension. “And I have tried, truly, to stay away from you. But your life is now tied to mine, whether either of us wants it.”
Mary-Ann forced herself to breathe. “This is insane. Who’s after me? That guy from earlier?”
“No. Something much worse.”
A sudden knock echoed through the apartment door outside the bedroom.
Three slow, deliberate taps.
Too calm.
Too sure.
Stephen startled awake in the living room.
“Mary? Someone’s at the door.”
Draven’s head snapped toward the hallway.
“Do not let him open it.”
But Mary-Ann was already running.
“Stephen, wait!”
Draven blurred forward reaching the door before she could.
He placed a hand against Stephen’s chest and gently pushed him back.
“Stay behind your sister.”
Stephen looked confused and terrified. “Who is this guy?”
The knocks came again.
But this time… something scratched along the wood beneath them.
Like claws.
“Mary…” Stephen whispered, “what is that?”
Draven stepped in front of them both, eyes fixed on the door with predatory focus.
“It’s one of mine.”
Mary-Ann felt the ground tilt beneath her. “One of yours? What does that mean?”
“It means,” Draven said, voice dripping with centuries of restrained violence,
“that they’ve come to see if you’re important enough to kill.”
The scratching stopped.
A new voice spoke through the door, low and amused.
“Open the door, Draven. You can’t hide her forever.”
Mary-Ann’s breath cut short.
Stephen gripped her hand so tightly her fingers went numb.
Draven’s expression shifted no longer sorrowful or calm, but something terrifying beneath the surface. Something that barely remembered humanity.
He whispered without turning around,
“Take Stephen. Go to your room. Lock it.”
“No,” Mary-Ann said, shaking her head. “I’m not leaving you.”
He finally looked back at her.
In that moment, Mary-Ann understood exactly why people feared the dark.
And why the dark feared Draven.
“I wasn’t asking,” he said.
The door handle twisted.
The wood cracked.
Draven’s silver eyes ignited like moonlight on steel.
“Run.”
The door exploded inward.
And everything went black.
- Writer
