Something In The Dark
1066 Words
The first sign that something was wrong came at 2:13 on a Tuesday afternoon.
Elena was halfway through a report when the office lights flickered.
Nobody paid much attention. Someone complained about the electricity, another person joked about the building's management, and the conversation quickly moved on.
Elena kept typing.
Then she heard a voice.
Help me.
Her fingers stopped above the keyboard.
She looked up.
Nobody nearby appeared to have spoken. Rachel was on the phone at her desk, a man near the windows was discussing a delivery, and two employees were arguing quietly over a document.
Elena glanced toward the corridor.
Nothing.
She returned to her report.
Help me.
This time, the voice was clearer.
It sounded like a woman whispering directly beside her ear.
Elena spun around so quickly that her chair struck the desk behind her.
"What's wrong?" Rachel asked, lowering her phone.
Elena stared at the empty space beside her.
"Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
Elena hesitated.
"Nothing. I thought someone called me."
Rachel looked unconvinced but returned to her call.
Elena sat slowly.
Her palms were damp.
She tried to concentrate on the report, but the words on the screen had begun to blur. She read the same sentence three times without understanding it.
Then came the smell.
Wet earth.
Leaves after rain.
Something metallic beneath it.
Elena's stomach tightened.
She had smelled it before, though she couldn't remember where.
For a moment, the office seemed to disappear around her.
She saw trees.
A stretch of dark ground.
Something moving between the trunks.
Then the image vanished.
Elena gripped the edge of her desk.
Her heart hammered against her ribs.
"Elena?"
Rachel was standing beside her now.
"You're white as a sheet."
"I'm fine."
"You're shaking."
Elena looked down.
Rachel was right.
Her hands were trembling.
"I think I need some air."
Rachel nodded immediately. "Go. I'll cover for you."
Elena grabbed her bag and hurried toward the stairwell.
She didn't remember deciding to take the stairs instead of the elevator. She only knew she needed to get away from the office, away from the voices, away from whatever had just happened.
By the time she reached the ground floor, her breathing had become steadier.
She pushed through the exit and stepped into the afternoon sun.
The warmth helped.
She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.
It had been a hallucination.
That was the most reasonable explanation.
People experienced strange things when they were exhausted or stressed. She had been sleeping badly, worrying about her internship, and dealing with symptoms she had never understood.
There had to be an explanation.
Her phone vibrated.
A message from Noah.
How's your day going?
Elena stared at the screen.
For a moment, she considered telling him everything.
Then she imagined his expression, the questions, the insistence that she see a doctor again.
She typed a simple reply.
Fine. Just tired.
She put the phone away.
A breeze passed through the entrance.
The smell of wet earth returned.
Elena's eyes opened.
Across the street, a man stood beside a tree.
He was looking directly at her.
She couldn't see his face clearly from that distance, but something about the way he stood made her uneasy.
She straightened.
A bus passed between them.
When it was gone, the man had disappeared.
Elena remained outside until Rachel came to check on her.
She didn't tell anyone what she'd seen.
---
Liana received the invitation that evening.
It arrived in the old-fashioned way, delivered to the human-world residence she occasionally used when she wanted privacy.
A sealed envelope.
Her name written across the front.
No message on a phone. No convenient explanation. Just a formal summons from a world she had spent months trying to avoid.
She recognized the handwriting before she opened it.
Her mother's.
Liana sat at the small dining table and broke the seal.
The message was brief.
A gathering had been arranged for the families who still held influence in their society. Her attendance was expected.
There was no mention of her wishes.
There rarely was.
Liana read the letter twice before placing it on the table.
She had known this would happen eventually.
Since her father's death, people had become increasingly comfortable making suggestions about her future. They spoke of alliances and responsibility, always with the assumption that she would eventually return to the life her father had spent years shielding her from.
They seemed to forget that his protection had never meant he wanted her to live according to someone else's plans.
Liana folded the letter carefully.
She wouldn't throw it away.
That would only delay the inevitable.
But she wasn't going to agree immediately, either.
For now, she had time.
And she intended to use it.
---
That night, Elena woke to the sound of something scratching against her bedroom window.
She sat up, disoriented.
The room was dark except for the pale light slipping through the curtains.
The scratching came again.
Three slow strokes.
Elena pushed back her blanket and crossed the room.
She pulled the curtain aside.
Nothing stood outside.
Only the garden, the fence, and the trees beyond it moving gently in the night breeze.
She unlocked the window and opened it a few inches.
Cold air brushed her face.
Elena looked down at the sill.
A thin branch rested against the outside of the window, its leaves still wet from the evening rain.
That explained the sound.
She let out a breath and reached to move it.
The moment her fingers touched the branch, a sharp pain shot through her hand.
Elena jerked backward.
The branch fell away from the window.
She stared at her palm.
There was no cut.
No splinter.
Nothing that explained the pain.
But for one brief second, she'd felt something else.
Not pain.
Recognition.
As though some part of her had responded to the touch before she had a chance to think.
She closed the window and locked it.
Then she stood in the middle of her room, staring at her hand.
She could still smell the wet earth.
It had followed her home.
And for the first time in years, Elena wondered whether the doctors had been looking for answers in the wrong place.
She didn't know what was happening to her.
But she was beginning to suspect that pretending nothing was wrong wouldn't make it stop.
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