Blood of the Solaris

Chapter four

Clara's pov

An inexplicable heaviness sat deep inside my chest from the moment I woke up that morning, but by evening, it had grown into something suffocating.

I stood quietly at the kitchen sink, rinsing soap from the last plate in the silence of the room. Water dripped steadily from the tap, splashing softly against the metal basin while the rest of the house murmured faintly in the background. Someone laughed briefly from the sitting room before the sound faded away. Everything looked ordinary. It was the exact kind of mundane evening I had lived through hundreds of times before.

I lowered the plate carefully onto the drying rack and reached for a cup. I expected to feel my usual baseline of caution, the quiet anxiety that kept me safe in this house.

Instead, a sudden, violent wave of raw anger hit me out of nowhere.

The ceramic cup nearly slipped from my fingers as an intense heat rushed sharply through my chest. My breathing turned uneven without warning, my fingers tightening painfully around the smooth edge. I stared down at the soapy water in utter confusion.

Why am I so angry?

My uncle hadn’t even spoken to me. He was just standing down the hallway, speaking quietly to my aunt, his voice low and distant. I couldn’t even make out his words. Yet the rage inside me kept growing, turning hotter and stronger by the second. My heartbeat pounded heavily against my ribs, each pulse carrying a strange, heavy pressure through my veins.

For one terrible moment, a vivid image flashed through my mind: lifting the heavy ceramic cup and hurling it across the kitchen, watching it shatter violently against the wall just to hear the sound of destruction. I wanted to see my uncle turn sharply in shock. I wanted to see him bleed.

I sucked in a sharp breath, absolutely horrified by my own thoughts. I would never do that. Never. I was the girl who stayed quiet, the girl who swallowed her emotions before they became dangerous. Yet this wrath remained there, burning fiercely behind my eyes like it didn't belong to my soul at all.

“I'm coming,” I called out quickly when my aunt finally called my name from the next room. My own voice sounded completely strange to my ears, tight, breathless, and sharp.

I set the cup down before my trembling hands could drop it. I pressed both palms flat against the tile counter, trying to steady my racing pulse. Small sounds were startling me. Simple tasks were making me violent. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me, but the emotion came so fast it felt like a physical sickness.

I moved carefully toward the dining room, wiping a sudden, stray tear from my face before anyone could notice. I tried to hold onto the word normal, but the moment I stepped across the threshold, the room shifted.

The laughter stopped at first. Then the conversation.

An unnatural silence spread slowly across the dinner table like a living stain. I froze near the doorway as five faces turned toward me at once. My aunt’s expression tightened instantly. One cousin lowered his eyes to his plate so quickly it looked rehearsed, while another subtly leaned away from me, clearing his throat awkwardly.

The distance between my chair at the far end of the table and the rest of the family might have looked accidental to a stranger. It didn’t feel accidental to me.

“Sit down,” my grandmother said flatly, breaking the quiet.

I obeyed, keeping my eyes lowered, hiding my shaking hands beneath the table. I could feel the tension pressing into my skin from all sides. But worse than my cousins' avoidance was the weight from the head of the table.

My uncle was watching me. Not casually. Carefully. His expression remained unreadable, but his dark eyes lingered on my face far longer than they should have, tracking the erratic rise and fall of my chest.

“Are you alright, Clara?” he asked softly.

The question sounded completely normal. Concerned, even. Yet every single muscle in my body stiffened, a primal instinct screaming at me to run.

“I’m fine,” I answered, the lie slipping out too fast.

Another silence followed, heavier than the first. My aunt exchanged a swift, uneasy glance with my grandmother. They saw it too. Whatever storm was raging inside of me, it was bleeding into the surrounding air.

Then, the glass of water sitting right next to my hand shifted.

It was only a fraction of an inch, a tiny tremor against the wood of the table. But no one had touched it. No breeze had crossed the room. Yet the glass vibrated faintly, the water inside swirling in tiny, agitated rings before falling still again.

My cousin pushed his chair back slightly, a look of genuine fear flashing across his face.

My breathing turned shallow. No, please, I thought desperately. Don’t look at me like that.

The overhead bulb buzzed sharply, flickering once, twice, dimming the room for a long half-second. In that brief stretch of twilight, I looked toward the far wall beside the old clock. A shadow was standing there where the walls should have been empty. Tall. Motionless. Waiting.

The light steadied, and the shadow vanished.

“Eat your food before it gets cold,” my grandmother muttered sharply, her voice trembling slightly.

I reached for my spoon, my mind spinning into chaos. The whispers, the unprovoked rage, the moving glass, none of it made sense. I was losing my mind.

Then, a voice brushed directly against my ear. It didn't come from across the room, and it didn't come from the hallway. It was a female voice, low, urgent, and so close I could feel the non-existent breath of it against my neck.

Don’t let him touch you.

I jerked violently in my chair. The spoon slipped from my hand, clattering loudly against the ceramic plate.

Everyone stared at me instantly. My mouth opened to apologize, but no words came out. The whisper hadn’t felt like the distant murmurs from the walls earlier that week. This voice felt familiar, like a melody I had heard a lifetime ago in a dream and forgotten.

I looked up, and for the briefest second, I saw my uncle smiling. It wasn't a smile of amusement; it was a smile of recognition. He wasn't surprised by the glass, or the light, or my panic. He was expecting it.

“I’m tired,” I whispered, pushing my chair back.

No one stopped me. No one even looked relieved to see me go; they just watched me with wide, hollow eyes.

I walked quietly through the hallway, my entire body feeling completely drained, weak in a way that went deeper than physical exhaustion. The strange emotions had hollowed me out from the inside, leaving only raw, exposed nerves behind. I felt a deep, biting shame. They thought I was dangerous. They thought I was a monster.

I locked my bedroom door behind me and leaned heavily against the wood, squeezing my eyes shut as the pitch-black safety of the room wrapped around me.

Slowly, I walked over to the small mirror beside my bed. I wanted to see myself. I wanted to see the ordinary girl I used to be.

Under the faint moonlight filtering through the curtains, my reflection looked pale and terrified. But as I stepped closer, a faint, rhythmic ringing filled my ears. My heartbeat began to rise again for reasons I couldn't explain. I stared into my own eyes. They didn't look entirely like mine anymore. They looked darker, sharper, hiding something ancient behind the pupils.

Then softly, so softly it sounded like dust settling in the dark, a whisper drifted through the room from the empty space behind me.

“It’s starting.”

I spun around instantly, my pulse thundering painfully against my ribs.

The room was completely empty. No movement. No shadows. Only the dead silence of the night.

Trembling, I forced myself to look back at the mirror. And for one horrifying, unmistakable second, my reflection seemed to turn its head to look at me a fraction of a second too late.

The breath caught violently in my throat. The image immediately snapped back to normal, but the terror remained, freezing the blood in my veins. I could no longer trust my own eyes, my own mind, or the skin I was wearing.

Something lay buried deep within the dark spaces of my soul.

And whatever it was... it was finally awake.