CHAPTER 2: The Mark Under My Skin
1316 Words
I woke up with the feeling that my body no longer belonged to me.
It wasn’t the kind of waking up caused by an alarm or the noise outside. It was the kind of awakening where your chest feels too tight, like something invisible is sitting on you, watching you breathe.
I sat up abruptly, gasping.
My dorm room was still dark. The city lights outside my window painted long shadows on the walls, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure if I was still dreaming—or if the night had followed me home.
Then I felt it.
A burning sensation just below my collarbone.
it was not a pain from a wound. It was worse. It was… alive.
I pulled my shirt down with shaking fingers.
There, etched on my skin like ink soaked too deep to erase, was a symbol.
It was not a tattoo. I’ve never had one. I hated needles. I was too practical, too scared of permanent decisions.
But this—this wasn’t a choice.
The mark looked ancient. A circle broken by sharp lines, intersecting like claws, with a symbol at the center that made my head ache when I stared too long.
I pressed my palm against it.
The moment my skin touched the mark, a memory that wasn’t mine exploded behind my eyes.
Fire.
Stone streets slick with blood.
People screaming in a language I didn’t understand—but somehow felt.
And a voice.
Low. Commanding. Familiar.
You are bound.
I screamed and tore my hand away, collapsing back against my pillow, my heart pounding so hard I thought my ribs would crack.
“What the hell is happening to me?” I whispered.
I barely slept after that.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw fragments—old buildings swallowed by shadows, figures kneeling, hands raised in fear, and always, always that same presence watching from the dark.
That night, sleep never truly came. Every time I closed my eyes, fragments of the day replayed themselves—his voice, the way his gaze never wavered, the feeling that something irreversible had already begun. I lay there listening to the city breathe outside my window, realizing how fragile my sense of normalcy had always been. What I once thought was stability now felt like an illusion carefully maintained by ignorance. I wasn’t naive enough to believe I could simply wake up and return to who I was before. Some doors, once opened, never truly close. And though I still clung to the hope that I might control the pace of what came next, a quiet truth settled in my chest: the world I had stepped into would not slow down for me.
By morning, the mark had faded slightly. Not gone. Just… quieter. Like it was waiting.
I tried to convince myself it was stress. Finals week. Lack of sleep. Maybe some allergic reaction. Maybe my brain was finally snapping.
But deep down, I knew.
This wasn’t random.
The realization did not arrive all at once. It crept in quietly, settling between my thoughts as I replayed every strange detail, every uneasy coincidence that no longer felt random. What unsettled me most was not fear, but the sense that something had already decided my involvement long before I became aware of it. The city moved on its own rhythm, indifferent to my confusion, yet somehow responding to my presence in subtle, almost imperceptible ways. I felt observed—not in a physical sense, but as if the environment itself was adjusting, waiting for me to either notice or deny what was unfolding. The more I tried to rationalize what had happened, the more fragile logic became. It was then I understood that ignorance was no longer protection. Whatever path I had stepped onto, retreat was no longer an option.
The city didn’t look back at me last night by accident.
On campus, everything felt wrong.
The noise was too loud. The colors are too sharp. Every passing shadow made my spine stiffen.
I kept my jacket zipped up to my neck, even though the sun was warm, my fingers subconsciously brushed the mark beneath the fabric.
My friends laughed around me, talking about exams, weekend plans, normal things.
Normal lives.
I felt like an intruder in my own body.
“You okay?” one of them asked. “You look pale.”
“Didn’t sleep,” I lied automatically.
It was easy. I’ve been lying to myself since I woke up.
I tried focusing on my classes, but the words on the board blurred together. Every time the professor turned his back, I felt it again—that pressure.
Like someone was standing behind me.
Watching.
When the bell rang, I left early, my nerves stretched thin.
I didn’t know where I was going. My feet just moved, pulling me away from the crowded campus, toward the older part of the city where the buildings leaned closer together and the air felt heavier.
That’s when I sensed him.
The same way you feel a storm before it breaks.
I stopped walking.
The street was narrow and quiet, lined with closed shops and cracked sidewalks. Sunlight barely reached the ground.
And then I heard his voice.
“You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
I turned slowly.
He stood a few meters away, half-hidden in the shadow of a building like he belonged there.
The man from last night.
Same dark eyes. Same stillness. The same presence that made the world feel smaller around him.
My pulse spiked. “You followed me.”
“I found you,” he corrected calmly.
My hand clenched into a fist. “That’s worse.”
A corner of his mouth twitched—not quite a smile. “You felt the mark, didn’t you?”
My breath caught.
“You don’t get to say that,” I snapped. “You don’t get to talk like you know me.”
He stepped closer.
Every instinct in my body screamed danger.
“Show me,” he said softly.
“No.”
The word came out stronger than I felt.
For a moment, he just studied my face. Not like a stranger would—but like someone confirming something he already knew.
“It manifested faster than I expected,” he murmured.
“Stop talking in riddles,” I said. “What did you do to me?”
His gaze darkened.
“I didn’t give you the mark,” he said. “The city did.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not yet.”
He stopped a step away from me, close enough that I could feel the cold radiating off him despite the warm afternoon.
“Listen to me carefully,” he said, his voice dropping. “What’s bound to you is older than this city. Older than the rules you think protect you.”
I swallowed hard. “And you?”
“I’m one of the rules,” he replied.
A chill crawled down my spine.
“What happens now?” I asked quietly.
His eyes flicked to my chest, where the mark lay hidden.
“Now,” he said, “you stop pretending your life is still normal.”
He leaned in just enough for me to smell something unfamiliar—like rain on stone.
“Because once the mark wakes up completely,” he added, “the city won’t just look back at you.”
“It will come for you.”
Before I could respond, he stepped away, melting back into the shadows as if he had never been there.
I stood frozen, my heart racing, the weight of his words pressing down on me.
Under my jacket, the mark burned—hotter than before.
And for the first time, I realized something terrifying.
Whatever I had to overnight…
I was no longer invisible to the dark.
- Writer
