Volume 1, Section 5: The Mark Begins to Tremble （1）
1631 Words
Volume One, Section Five: The Mark Begins to Tremble
**(Part One)**
The sky was bright.
But this brightness didn’t belong to morning.
It was like an overexposed stage light, illuminating every crease of the city with stark clarity, yet devoid of warmth. Elijah stood by the window, his eyes fixed on the street below, freshly washed by rain, its dark asphalt reflecting a sickly, cold sheen.
He hadn’t slept all night.
Not because he wasn’t tired, but because—he didn’t dare.
The scene in the mirror still looped in his mind. Those five blood-like fingerprints weren’t a dream, nor a symbol, but traces of a real intrusion. He could feel it—the mark, like a virus lurking beneath his skin, waiting for a moment, a lapse in resolve.
“She won’t use brute force,” Noshira said from behind him, her voice low and raspy. “Lysia never tears the door open. She makes the door open itself.”
Elijah didn’t turn. He only closed his eyes briefly. His face still bore unwipeable sweat, his T-shirt soaked with cold perspiration, clinging to his spine. The faint tremors in the fabric betrayed his taut nerves.
“I feel her still,” he murmured.
“Her fragments linger,” Noshira nodded, stepping closer. “Last night… that was her first attempt to *shape* you. You have to endure ‘three days and nights’ for the mark to not bind permanently.”
“Has she ever succeeded?” he asked.
Noshira didn’t answer immediately. She stood beside him, her shoulder lightly brushing his arm, as if transmitting warmth in the gentlest way possible.
“I still carry her shadow,” she finally said. “Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see her moving inside my body.”
Elijah turned to look at her. Noshira wore that gray hoodie, fresh from a shower, her wet hair draped over her shoulders. Water droplets fell from the tips, tracing a clear line beneath her collarbone before vanishing into the fabric.
Her face was paler in the daylight, her eye sockets slightly sunken, but her dark eyes burned with uncanny brightness. Her high nose and clean lips formed contours like the bones of a saint from an old religious painting—beautifully terrifying, inviolably sacred.
“Did you know I was taught to love her as a child?” she said suddenly, her bitter laugh barely audible. “We were told to call her name in our dreams, to call her ‘Spiritual Mother.’ And she? She’d breathe beneath you, speaking in your voice, saying, ‘I offer myself.’”
Her words thickened the air.
Elijah didn’t respond. His throat tightened, his fingers trembled slightly. He knew she wasn’t being sentimental. She was unveiling a hidden structure of power—domination and sacrifice—that he hadn’t yet grasped.
“She’ll make you love her,” Noshira continued, her tone like an unsheathed blade. “Not as a woman, but as the source of your truth. She makes you believe she’s the womb of your soul—and then you let her in.”
“So, she seduces?”
Noshira turned to him, her gaze steady as still water.
“No. She’s higher-dimensional manipulation. She destroys your boundaries with the illusion of intimacy. She’s the ‘woman’ your subconscious craves most—understanding you, encouraging you, crying for you, embracing your darkness. She won’t force the door open, but she’ll always make you feel like you invited her in.”
Elijah suddenly realized that in his loneliest nights, in those moments of exhaustion, disappointment, and powerlessness, he had imagined such a woman.
Not a carnal desire, but a longing for belonging—a soul’s anchor. Someone to hold his hand when he was on the verge of breaking and say, “I won’t leave.”
A chill crept up his spine.
“She’s closing in on you,” Noshira said, reading his state, her voice low and calm. “She’ll enter through your weakest emotional breach—not fear, but *dependence*.”
Elijah turned to face her. “How are you still alive?”
Noshira smiled, a mix of bitterness and pride. “Because even in my final moment of hatred, I remembered a name.”
“Which name?”
She didn’t answer immediately.
She stepped closer, placing one hand on his chest, her palm pressing against his heart through the T-shirt. Her fingertips were cold, yet they pinpointed the exact rhythm of his heartbeat with uncanny precision.
“Can you still say that name?” she asked.
Elijah opened his mouth, but no sound came.
Noshira tilted her head slightly, leaning closer. He could feel her breath, the warm air from her neck, and the subtle, real curve of her chest brushing against him. They were close enough to kiss, yet neither moved.
“If you can’t say it,” she whispered, “she’ll think you belong to her.”
“It’s… Jesus,” Elijah forced out.
Noshira stepped back, the corner of her mouth lifting faintly.
“Remember that,” she said softly. “You don’t belong to the darkness.”
---
**The Depths of Night**
In the depths of night, there is a silence—not for rest, but for waiting.
In that moment, Elijah lost consciousness. It wasn’t sleep, but a gentle pull into some internal cavity where there was light, warmth, and a voice he thought he’d long forgotten—
“You want me.”
The voice was no longer a whisper but a murmur within his body.
---
In the dream, the room glowed softly, a plush sofa floating in midair, surrounded by walls that felt both familiar and distorted, like the curves of a womb, warm and echoing with a heartbeat.
Lysia sat on the sofa, legs crossed, barefoot toes grazing the edge of a rug. Her silk gown clung to her skin, light as mist. Her chest rose and fell slowly, the deep neckline revealing a faint black mark nestled in her cleavage. Her eyes swirled with fog, her lips curved in a tame smile, but that smile slid inch by inch toward danger.
“You’ve finally come,” she said, opening her arms, fingers curling like a snake coiling around prey. “I’ve waited so long.”
Elijah approached, entranced, drawn by an irresistible scent—not perfume, but the warmth of a woman’s body at the juncture of breast and neck, warm, moist, undeniable.
Lysia stood, stepping closer.
Her chest pressed against his, their breaths intertwining. He tried to step back but found his back against an invisible wall—the dream’s structure had trapped him.
“You’re not alone anymore,” she whispered.
Her hand slid down, grazing his chest, his waist, until her fingertips hooked the edge of his waistband, testing the boundary of his will. Her other hand curled behind his neck, fingers weaving into his hair, gently tugging until he was forced to lower his head.
“You’re tired, aren’t you?” she tilted her face, lips nearly brushing his. “I can be your final world.”
She rose on her toes, nibbling his earlobe, her tongue flicking briefly.
Elijah’s body tensed, unsure if it was resistance or surrender. His mind screamed danger, yet it was enveloped in a warm haze, his bones softening, unable to fight.
Lysia chuckled softly, settling back onto the sofa. Her dress parted, revealing a long, pale thigh, its skin faintly glowing, marked by a subtle sigil on the inner side, as if written stroke by stroke with a tongue.
“Do you crave belonging?” she leaned back, arms open, half-naked, her gaze pure as an altar.
“Just say, ‘I vow to you,’ and I’ll give you—body, dreams, motherhood, paradise, darkness… all of it.”
Her legs parted slowly, the dress falling away, the air growing heavy with a humid, summoning heat.
Elijah’s throat tightened, his fingers trembling.
She stood, closing the distance, guiding his hand to her lower back, pressing it against skin so soft it felt like silk freshly unbound.
“All you need to do is nod…”
Her lips grazed his neck, teeth nearing his throat, preparing the “mark’s kiss.”
---
“Elijah!!”
The dream shattered.
A blazing light tore through the ceiling, a black shadow plummeted from above, yanking him away.
Noshira sliced into the dream like a blade, clad in a tight black runic robe, wet hair loose, barefoot, radiating an aura like cursed fire.
She tackled him, one hand pinning his chest, the other casting a burst of light that repelled Lysia.
Lysia roared, her form twisting into a serpentine woman, claws slashing as the dream began to collapse.
Noshira leaned down, growling into his ear:
“Don’t answer her! Say you belong to the Lord!”
Elijah whispered tremulously, “I don’t belong to her…”
“Say it again!”
“I belong to Jesus… not her.”
The black mist shattered.
Lysia’s scream faded into the air, the sofa, her body, her scent—all receding like a tide.
The dream collapsed.
---
Elijah jolted upright in bed, sweat soaking his body. Beneath his T-shirt, his abdominal muscles still quivered, a lingering ember of arousal smoldering between his thighs.
Noshira stood by the bed, pale, her hoodie slipping to reveal a sweat-soaked black tank top, the fabric clinging to the subtle curves of her chest.
She crouched gently, taking his hand and pressing it to her heart.
“She hasn’t given up,” she murmured. “She nearly entered me through your body.”
Biting her lip, she looked up, enunciating each word:
“Five seconds later, and in my dream… there would’ve been her child.”
- Writer
