Teeth in the Silence
1110 Words
The rain had stopped, but the world still looked wet.
Gray clouds clung to the sky like old bruises, and puddles shimmered in the gutters, catching the city’s dull light. Bella walked with her hood up—not to keep dry, but to stay small. Invisible. The kind of invisible that took effort. The kind that meant pulling your shoulders in, watching your feet, never meeting anyone’s eyes.
She’d always hated that feeling.
Growing up, Emily had called it her “turtle posture”—the way Bella folded into herself when the world pressed too hard. Bella used to fight it. Stand taller. Look people in the eye. But not today.
Today, it was armor.
The city couldn’t know she was watching it back.
She turned a corner near the café she passed every morning, a narrow brick-walled place with chalkboard menus and warm lights that made it feel like a pocket of peace. Bella never went inside. But she always glanced through the window, just for a moment.
There was a man who sat there every day. Gray hoodie, battered novel in hand, always with the same crooked smile when he caught her eye. Not a friend. Not even an acquaintance. Just… a constant.
Today, his seat was empty.
Bella stopped in her tracks, staring at the vacant chair through the glass. No coffee. No book. Just a folded napkin on the table, weighed down with a spoon.
Something cold settled in her gut, quiet and heavy.
She kept walking.
By the time she made it back to her apartment, the world had brightened to a reluctant gold. Sunlight bled through the blinds like it was apologizing for showing up late. Her clothes were still damp, and her boots left ghost-footprints on the floor. She didn’t take them off.
The dagger was still in her coat pocket, warm against her thigh.
She hadn’t planned to bring it. She hadn’t even thought about it consciously before she left—but some part of her must’ve known.
It wasn’t just a relic anymore.
It was proof.
Proof of something ancient and dangerous, hunting beneath the surface of the world.
She pulled out her laptop, wiped the moisture from the casing with her sleeve, and opened a blank document. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a beat—then began to type.
> Emily Granger – Sister. Dead. Killed with the Morvana blade.
Rowan Hale – Missing.
Clara Winslow – Presumed dead in fire. No remains.
Jonah Reed – Alleged suicide. No depression history.
Arin Devaux – “Natural causes.” Alone. No family.
She added a new line beneath them, fingers slower now.
> The Severing Blades of Morvana – Kill the Bound.
And then, under that, in a hand that trembled slightly:
> What the hell are the Bound?
The words sat too cleanly on the screen. No blood. No screaming. No rain or fire or silence to make them real. Just black on white—truth reduced to bullet points.
Bella leaned back, staring at them, trying to breathe around the weight in her chest.
Her fingers moved again. She started building a timeline—dates, locations, articles. Trying to spot what the board of photos hadn’t shown. Looking for overlaps. For gaps. For names in the footnotes.
She was twenty-seven minutes in when her screen flickered.
It wasn’t a glitch.
Not the normal kind, anyway. This wasn’t static or lag. The display froze for a full second, like something had gripped it from the inside.
Then it was fine.
Just… fine.
Bella sat completely still.
Then—
A knock at the door.
Three raps. Sharp. Precise.
Not the sloppy rhythm of a neighbor. Not the pause-and-knock of a delivery driver. Not repeated.
Just three.
And silence.
Bella reached for the dagger.
She moved barefoot across the apartment, each step careful, her shoulder pressing to the wall beside the door. She didn’t speak. Didn’t make a sound. Her breath was shallow. The person on the other side wasn’t pacing. Wasn’t shifting.
They were waiting.
She counted to ten. Then, in one smooth motion, she pulled the door open—
The hallway was empty.
No footsteps. No elevator ding. No echo of retreat.
Just stillness.
Bella’s heart pounded.
Then she saw it.
An envelope.
Cream-colored. Damp around the edges from the rain. No address. No return stamp.
Just a wax seal in smeared black, stamped with a shape she already knew too well:
A locket. Cracked down the middle.
She picked it up slowly, half-expecting it to vanish when she touched it.
Inside was a photograph.
Black and white. Grainy with age. The kind of photo you find in a shoebox under an attic floorboard. A woman stood near a fountain, half-turned to the camera, mid-smile. Her clothes were dated—1940s maybe. No one Bella recognized.
But in the woman’s hand—casual, like a purse or an umbrella—was a dagger.
The dagger.
Same hilt. Same twisted, darkened metal.
She turned the photo over. In small cursive script, someone had written:
> They were always here.
— E. D.
Her brain paused on the initials.
E. D.
Emily’s last name was Granger. Devaux? No—the "E" didn’t match. Arin Devaux hadn’t written this. This was someone else.
Someone watching.
Someone who knew.
Bella stared at the photo so long her eyes started to blur.
Then—her phone rang.
She flinched. Let it buzz once. Twice. Then picked it up with a hand that barely felt her fingers.
“Hello?”
There was no answer.
Just static.
Then, a voice. Female. Ragged. Like old paper and rusted nails. A voice that hadn’t spoken in years and hated the sound of itself.
> “The blade marks you.”
Bella froze.
“Who is this?”
More static.
Then—
> “Find the Pale Order. Before they find you. Before it’s too late.”
The call ended.
The screen went dark.
Bella didn’t move for a long time.
The blade marks you.
She looked down. It was still in her hand. Still warm. But now, something shimmered faintly along the edge. Not light. Not reflection. Something… else.
It hadn’t done that before.
Bella didn’t wait.
She packed a bag. Essentials only—clothes, charger, cash, the photo, the dagger. The laptop too. She didn’t know where she was going, not exactly. But she knew what she was looking for.
The Pale Order.
The Bound.
The truth behind the locket.
Because whatever world had taken Emily—
It had just sent a message.
And Bella?
She was sending one back.
With a blade.
And fire.
- Writer
