Episode 4:The Midnight market
613 Words
Episode 4: The Midnight Market
Kai awoke to a knock at his dorm door—not the friendly kind, but the kind that sounded like it owed you money.
Standing outside was a small creature with a beard, a trench coat too big for its tiny frame, and a monocle that kept falling off.
“You Kai Velden?” the creature rasped, voice like an old drainpipe.
“Depends who’s asking.”
“Name’s Grint. Courier for the Moonlight Messenger Guild. This is for you.” He handed Kai a sealed envelope. “And don’t open it near mirrors. Bad luck.”
Kai looked down. The envelope shimmered faintly with runes and had a return address scrawled in what appeared to be bat guano: MIDNIGHT MARKET, ONE NIGHT ONLY.
Nox floated out of the wall yawning. “Oooooh. The Midnight Market. That’s exclusive. Only opens on blood moons, planetary alignments, or when someone’s lost enough socks to summon it.”
Kai raised an eyebrow. “That’s… specific.”
Hours later, just after twilight, Kai and Nox made their way down a hidden stairwell behind the gargoyle statues in the east wing. Lira joined them, appearing from the mist like she always did—uninvited but somehow always expected.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You opened the weird letter.”
“How’d you know?”
“You smell like teleportation ink.”
The stairwell opened into a glowing ravine beneath Nightmoor, lit by lanterns shaped like screeching skulls. Dozens of shadowy figures moved between colorful tents made of stitched-together dreams. The Midnight Market was alive, loud, and chaotic.
Vendors shouted out offers like:
> “Charms! Curses! Chewing gum that bites back!”
> “Two-for-one haunted teacups! One guaranteed to weep!”
> “Mystery meat! Don’t ask! Seriously—don’t!”
Kai wandered from stall to stall in awe. One vendor tried to sell him a memory he hadn’t had yet. Another offered a pocket-sized thunderstorm “with optional lightning!”
Nox got distracted buying a pair of mood-changing socks. Lira stuck close to Kai, her nose twitching at every scent.
“Why did I get invited to this?” Kai asked. “I’m nobody.”
Lira paused. “The Market only calls to people with... potential. You must’ve sparked something.”
At a quiet stall tucked between a tent full of talking skulls and a ghost fortune teller, Kai spotted a mirror. Not just any mirror—a cracked, smoky one with runes carved into the frame.
He stepped closer. It shimmered, and in its surface, he didn’t see himself.
He saw her—Lira—eyes wild, lips bloodied, back arched in a moonlit forest.
Then the image shifted—to him, eyes glowing silver, surrounded by wolves that bowed to him.
“What the—” he staggered back.
The stallkeeper, a woman with no face, leaned in. “The truth sees you, boy.”
Kai turned to Lira. “Did you see that?”
But Lira was gone.
They regrouped at the end of the Market by the Memory Fountain, where ghost children tossed old regrets into the water.
“Why do I feel like something’s coming?” Kai asked.
Nox looked solemn for once. “Because something is.”
Lira returned, stepping out of the fog with a rare, serious expression.
“There’s a prophecy,” she said quietly. “About a boy with shadow eyes and a heartbeat that howls.”
Kai’s mouth went dry. “And that’s supposed to be me?”
She nodded. “And if it is… you might have to choose. Between the world of monsters… and me.”
- Writer
