**Chapter Six: After The Lights Go Out**
1301 Words
The joyful city returned to its usual rhythm too quickly.
Christmas lights were taken down as if they had never existed. Wrapping papers lay crushed in bins. Music faded from cafés. The warmth that had filled the streets drained away, leaving behind cold pavements and tired faces.
To everyone else, it was the end of the holidays.
To Alexander, it felt like the beginning of something he could not name.
He woke before dawn, breath sharp in his chest, his body burning from the inside out. His sheets were twisted tightly around his legs, as if he had been fighting them in his sleep. For a long moment, he sat still, staring at the wall, trying to understand what had pulled him from rest.
His heart was racing.
Too fast. Too strong.
Alexander pressed his palm to his chest, counting each beat. It did not slow. Instead, the heat inside him spread, crawling through his veins like restless fire.
This had never happened before.
He swung his legs off the bed and stood. The wooden floor felt cool under his feet, yet his skin continued to burn. Every sound in the apartment felt loud—the ticking of the clock, the faint hum of electricity, the distant echo of a car several streets away.
He frowned.
Since when could he hear things like that?
Alexander walked to the window and pushed it open. Cold air rushed in, sharp and biting. It should have chilled him.
Instead, it felt good.
That unsettled him more than the heat.
His phone buzzed softly on the bedside table, lighting up the dark room. He didn’t need to check it to know whose name would calm him and trouble him at the same time.
Mary.
He stared at the phone for a long time.
Then he turned away.
Across the city, Mary was already awake, sitting at the small kitchen table with a mug of tea forgotten between her hands. The window beside her showed a pale sky, the city stretching wide and quiet.
Her granny slept in the next room, unaware of the storm growing inside Mary’s chest.
Mary rubbed her arms slowly. She felt cold, yet uneasy, as if something unseen brushed against her skin again and again. Sleep had brought strange dreams—running through dark woods, her breath steady, her heart fearless. She had woken with a word on her lips she did not recognize.
Alexander.
She sighed and shook her head.
“You’re overthinking,” she whispered to herself.
But even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true.
Yesterday had changed something. Spending the day with him had felt natural, too natural, like something that had been waiting to happen for a long time. And now, being apart felt wrong in a way she couldn’t explain.
Mary stood and rinsed her mug, forcing herself into routine. Life did not pause for strange feelings or confusing connections.
By midday, Alexander had broken two things.
The first was a glass.
He had barely squeezed it while washing up when it shattered in his hand, sharp fragments biting into his skin. He stared at the blood for a moment, surprised by how little it hurt.
The second was the handle of his apartment door.
He hadn’t meant to pull it so hard.
The metal bent under his grip.
Alexander stepped back, his breath uneven, staring at his own hand as if it belonged to someone else.
“What is wrong with me?” he muttered.
He wrapped his bleeding palm in a towel and left the apartment, needing space, movement, air.
The streets were busy again. People hurried to work, carrying coffee and complaints, unaware of the tension coiling inside him. Alexander walked fast, too fast, his long strides eating up distance as his thoughts spiraled.
Without meaning to, he found himself near the same streets he had walked with Mary the day before.
He stopped abruptly.
This was getting ridiculous.
He turned sharply and headed the other way, but the feeling followed him—tight, restless, demanding. It wasn’t just emotion. It was physical. His muscles felt ready, alert, as if his body was waiting for a command it did not understand.
A sudden shout cut through the noise of the street.
Alexander’s head snapped up.
Two men stood outside a closed shop, faces red with anger. One shoved the other hard. The second stumbled back, knocking into a metal shutter.
Something surged inside Alexander.
His vision sharpened. His chest tightened. His fists clenched before he could stop them.
He took a step forward.
The thought of violence shocked him.
He stopped himself just in time as the men backed away from each other, muttering curses before walking off in opposite directions.
Alexander stood frozen, breath heavy.
Why had that almost pulled him in?
At the same time, Mary’s day was unraveling in quieter ways.
She dropped packages at work, her hands trembling. She forgot simple things she had done a thousand times. When someone called her name, she turned too quickly, her heart jumping as if she had been caught doing something wrong.
During her break, she stepped outside and leaned against the wall, closing her eyes.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t.
She felt watched. Not by eyes—but by something deeper, heavier. And beneath that unease was something else. A pull. Stronger now. Clearer.
Not a place.
A person.
The realization made her breath hitch.
Alexander.
The thought came with warmth and fear tangled together. She pressed her fingers into the brick wall behind her, grounding herself.
“How does someone become important so fast?” she asked the empty street.
She had no answer.
As evening fell, the city began to whisper.
Strange things had happened during the holidays, people said. Things that didn’t make sense. A metal fence twisted as if crushed by invisible hands. A streetlight ripped from the ground after a loud crash no one saw. Dogs barking at empty corners. Birds fleeing the city in sudden flocks.
Alexander heard the stories everywhere—on the radio, in passing conversations, in worried voices.
Each one made the fire inside him stir.
He returned home as the sky darkened, clouds heavy and low. His cut hand had healed too quickly. The skin was smooth, unbroken.
That should have frightened him.
Instead, it thrilled him—and that frightened him more.
He sat in the dark for a long time before finally reaching for his phone.
Mary answered almost immediately.
“Alex?” Her voice sounded surprised, then relieved.
“Are you okay?” he asked, the question escaping him before he could think.
There was a pause. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
He let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“I don’t feel right,” he admitted. “Since yesterday.”
Mary swallowed. “Neither do I.”
The silence between them felt alive, stretched tight with something unspoken.
“It feels like something started,” she continued softly. “And it doesn’t want to stop.”
Alexander closed his eyes.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s it.”
They talked a little longer, about nothing important and everything at once. When the call ended, the quiet felt heavier than before.
Night fell completely.
Alexander stepped onto his balcony, gripping the railing as the wind tore through the city. His strength pressed into the metal, bending it slightly under his hands.
Far away, Mary woke from sleep with a sharp gasp, her heart racing. Outside her window, the wind howled like a warning.
Somewhere beyond the city, something ancient stirred.
The lights were out.
The holidays were over.
And whatever had awakened would not be ignored.
- Writer
