Shadows in the light
932 Words
Auto Saved Word Count 924
34/70
Morning sunlight spilled across the bedroom, bathing the cream-colored curtains in a golden glow. Elena stirred in the sheets, her head pressed against Daniel’s chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. That sound had become her anchor, the rhythm she clung to when her nights filled with whispers from the past.
But this morning, the beat was almost drowned out by the memory of the envelope.
It lay tucked inside the top drawer of her nightstand, unseen but burning in her thoughts. A thin cream paper, her name written in looping strokes she had hoped never to see again. She hadn’t opened it. Couldn’t. Last night she shoved it out of sight, telling herself she’d imagine it away. Yet even as Daniel kissed her forehead and murmured about breakfast, she could feel it there — a ghost waiting for her to acknowledge it.
“Are you okay?” Daniel asked, his voice still husky with sleep.
She forced a smile. “Just… tired. Wedding stress.”
He brushed her hair back, searching her face. Daniel had always been good at reading her silences, but he had never lived in the world of violence and control she once did. To him, shadows were only shadows. For her, they carried teeth.
They rose together, Daniel humming while he brewed coffee, moving with the casual ease of a man in love. Elena sat at the kitchen counter, staring at the swirling steam of her mug. The envelope sat in her thoughts like a thorn under skin. She hadn’t even told him.
Her phone buzzed. Unknown number.
Her stomach twisted. She didn’t answer.
The screen went dark, but the silence in the room seemed to shift. Daniel was telling her something about catering options, yet his words blurred into background noise. She couldn’t stop glancing at the phone, half-expecting it to light up again with another anonymous call.
By the time she left for work, her nerves were raw.
---
Elena worked at a boutique design studio downtown, a job she loved for its calm precision. The place smelled of ink and fresh-cut paper, and she usually found comfort in the quiet hum of printers and the rhythmic tap of keyboards. But today, even the safety of her desk felt fragile.
A small box sat on her chair when she arrived. Plain white. No label.
She froze.
Her colleagues moved around her, oblivious. With hands that trembled, she pulled the box closer and lifted the lid. Inside was a single rose, deep red, its petals perfect and gleaming as though dipped in blood.
Her breath hitched. Memories clawed at her throat — a room lit only by candles, Adrian’s voice whispering in her ear as he pressed a rose against her skin, pricking her just enough to bleed. “Yours is the only blood I’ll ever crave.”
“Elena? You okay?”
Her coworker Lena had appeared, peering curiously.
Elena snapped the lid shut. “Yeah. Just—just a delivery mistake, I think.”
But when she slipped the box into her drawer, she saw it: a small smear of red ink on the underside of the lid, drawn into the shape of a looping infinity symbol.
Her throat went dry.
The symbol of the oath. The one she had sworn with Adrian in the past, sealing it with blood.
---
That night, Elena tried to distract herself with Daniel. He had made pasta, poured her wine, lit candles, and turned their little apartment into something warm and safe. She clung to it, laughing at his dumb jokes, pretending she wasn’t seeing phantoms.
But when she stepped into the bathroom, she found steam had fogged the mirror. Words scrawled faintly across it, revealed as though by invisible ink:
MINE.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
She stumbled back, hand flying to her mouth. Daniel called out, asking if she was okay, but her voice failed her. She wiped at the letters, smearing them into nothing.
It wasn’t possible. Adrian wasn’t here. She was imagining it.
She had to be.
---
Sleep didn’t come easy. When she finally drifted off, the dreams returned: Adrian’s hands pinning her wrists, his lips pressing to hers with bruising force, the oath carved into her memory like fire. She woke gasping, sweat dampening her skin, Daniel’s arm heavy across her waist.
She tried not to move, not to disturb him, but her eyes slid to the nightstand. The drawer. The envelope.
She reached for it, slowly, as though even the act of touching it would summon something. Her fingers brushed the paper, and a shock of recognition went through her.
Her name. Adrian’s handwriting.
She pulled it out, holding it in trembling hands. Hours of resistance cracked in the stillness of the night. Carefully, she slit the flap open with her nail.
Inside, only one line:
“An oath written in blood is never broken.”
Her vision blurred. She dropped the letter back in the drawer, slamming it shut.
Daniel stirred, half-asleep. “Babe? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she whispered, curling against him. “Go back to sleep.”
But her eyes stayed open until dawn, staring into the dark, her heart drowning in the weight of a vow she had once been foolish enough to make.
---
By the second morning, Elena knew two things:
1. Adrian hadn’t forgotten her.
2. And he was close enough to remind her.
She just didn’t know how long she had before he stopped sending signs… and started showing up himself.
- Writer
