Beneath The Surface
976 Words
It had been over three months since that shadowy nightmare. Since the whisper, the dream, the mirror. Alaya told herself it was all in her head. She convinced herself that the figure she saw, the voice she heard—it was stress, anxiety, the pressure of fame.
After the Dubai concert, she went on a successful world tour, blessing stages from Paris to Tokyo. Fans screamed her name like a prayer. Her collaboration with Ariana Grande, a sultry R&B track titled “I Want You,” became a worldwide hit, sitting at the top of charts for weeks. The performance in L.A. had been electric, Ariana and Alaya owning the stage like goddesses of sound.
Alaya laughed with her team after the show, the world finally at her feet.
But on the drive home, the laughter froze in her throat.
She glanced out the window.
There it was again.
That shape. That presence.
A shadow, sitting beside her in the passenger seat, even though no one was there. It didn’t move. It didn’t breathe. But it watched.
She slammed the brakes, heart hammering.
It was gone.
She blinked. Nothing but an empty seat. “I’m tired,” she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else. “I’m just tired.”
Back at her penthouse, the silence was unsettling. Even the hum of the refrigerator felt too loud. She tossed her keys on the marble countertop and walked straight to her room, trying not to think about what she'd seen.
That night, her dreams returned.
She was running through a hallway—dark, endless. The walls pulsed like veins, the floors sticky with red. Something followed behind her. Not running. Gliding. She could hear it breathing in her ear even when she turned corners.
“Alaya…” it whispered.
“You belong to me.”
She woke up screaming, sweat coating her body like glue.
She clutched her blanket and stared at the ceiling until morning.
The following week was worse.
She began hearing voices—not through speakers, not from fans, but in the stillness of her own space. Whispers when she walked past mirrors. Footsteps behind her even when she was alone. Her phone would ring, and when she answered, the line was silent… until she heard the faintest voice breathing, “Alaya…”
At first, she told herself she was hallucinating. Sleep-deprived. Overworked.
But then… things started moving.
One morning, her grand piano played a single note. Just one. She wasn’t even in the same room.
Another time, she found her bedroom mirror cracked… from the inside.
Paranoia curled around her like smoke. She stopped inviting friends over. Stopped doing interviews. Rhea noticed something was off, but every time she asked, Alaya smiled and said, “I’m just focused.”
She didn’t want anyone to think she was crazy.
It all came to a head one night after a particularly long studio session. She was exhausted. Her body ached from rehearsals. Her throat raw from vocal takes.
All she wanted was a hot shower.
She stepped into the marble-tiled bathroom, steam quickly fogging the mirrors. The warm water hit her skin like a gentle massage. She closed her eyes, letting her mind drift.
That’s when she felt it.
A hand.
Not her own. Not imagined.
Fingers—cold but firm—sliding between her legs. Her breath hitched. A sudden, involuntary moan escaped her lips. It wasn’t fear. Not at first. It felt… good. Intimate. Familiar. Like a lover who knew her too well.
Another moan. A gasp.
She leaned against the cold glass of the shower wall, overwhelmed by sensation.
And then—just as a tremble began to build inside her—a voice.
“Your body is mine.”
Everything froze.
Her eyes flew open. The air in the shower turned icy.
She stumbled backward, falling against the tiled wall. No one was there. Just steam and silence.
“No,” she whispered, shaking. “No, no, no…”
She rushed out of the shower, wrapping herself in a towel, heart thudding like a war drum. Her reflection stared back at her—wide-eyed, pale, terrified.
But no shadow this time.
Just her.
She didn't tell Rhea.
She didn't tell anyone.
She curled up in her bed that night, shivering under the sheets, trying to convince herself that it had been a dream. That her body had tricked her. That the voice hadn’t really spoken.
But deep down, she knew.
It wasn’t gone.
It had just been waiting.
The next day, during rehearsals, her microphone sparked. No one touched it. No one knew why.
Later that evening, all the lights in her penthouse flickered violently for thirty seconds straight. Her security system went offline. When it came back, every camera feed showed the same thing.
A tall, dark figure standing in her living room.
Even though the room was empty.
Even though the doors were locked.
Alaya stared at the screen, cold sweat running down her spine.
Still… she said nothing.
She began sleeping with the lights on.
She began praying to a God she hadn’t spoken to in years.
She started writing songs she couldn’t remember composing.
Lyrics like:
“Take me now, I’m already yours”
“I said no but my body said yes”
“Every breath I take is borrowed from you”
They poured out of her like confessions from someone else’s mouth.
Rhea praised the raw emotion in the songs, called them “dark but genius.”
Alaya forced a smile. “Yeah,” she said. “Genius.”
One night, while she was alone in the kitchen sipping wine, the TV turned on by itself.
It displayed nothing but static.
Then a voice.
“Bride of the dark.”
Alaya dropped the glass.
It shattered across the marble floor.
To be continued..
- Writer
