EPISODE 7:THE BREATHING IN THE DARK
829 Words
Elara’s breath came in short, shallow gasps as she pressed her back against the wall of Madam Ren’s shop. The candles flickered violently, casting shadows that stretched and twisted, making the small room feel like a shifting void.
Theo stood beside her, hands clenched into fists, his eyes darting toward the door. Madam Ren moved with quiet urgency, flipping through the brittle pages of an old book, whispering to herself in a language neither of them understood.
Outside, the wind howled. But it wasn’t just the wind.
There was something breathing in the dark.
The sound wasn’t natural—it was too deep, too slow, like a thing savoring its presence, knowing they couldn’t see it. It pressed against the edges of reality, heavy and suffocating, just beyond the threshold of the shop.
Elara could feel it watching. It had always watched.
“What do we do?” Theo’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Ren, tell me you have some kind of—of spell, or—”
Madam Ren snapped the book shut and turned to Elara. Her face was unreadable, but her eyes—those dark, knowing eyes—held something that made Elara’s stomach drop.
“You’re past spells,” Ren murmured. “It knows you now. It’s marked you.”
A sharp thump against the window.
Elara flinched. The glass didn’t c***k, didn’t even shake, but the force behind that sound felt like it should have shattered the entire building. Theo grabbed her wrist, instinctively stepping in front of her, but they all knew it wouldn’t help.
The thing outside wasn’t bound by walls.
Madam Ren exhaled sharply, moving toward a cabinet. “We don’t have much time. There’s one thing left to try, but it’s not safe.” She hesitated, then turned to Elara.
“You have to let it in.”
The room went dead silent.
Elara’s pulse slammed against her ribs. “What?”
Theo whirled on Ren. “Are you insane? We’re trying to keep it out!”
“It’s already inside,” Ren said softly.
And then, the candles went out.
The room collapsed into absolute blackness.
Not just the kind of darkness that comes when the lights go out. This was deeper. Thicker. Alive. It swallowed the candlelight, the moonlight from outside, even the glow of Theo’s phone screen.
And in that suffocating void, Elara heard it.
A whisper—so close it could have been inside her ear.
"I see you."
Her entire body went rigid. The voice wasn’t human. It wasn’t even like the whispers she had heard before, the ones that slithered through the walls at night. This one had weight. Presence. Hunger.
She felt its breath. Cold. Damp. Lingering.
Theo’s grip on her wrist tightened. “Elara?” His voice shook. “Ren? Where the hell are you?”
No answer.
A soft scraping sound echoed from the far side of the room. Something moving. Something dragging its fingers across the wooden floor.
Elara’s chest tightened as she realized—Madam Ren was completely silent.
She swallowed hard. “Ren?”
A moment of dead silence.
Then, from across the room—where Ren had been standing only seconds ago—came a voice. But it wasn’t Ren’s.
"She’s not here anymore."
Elara’s blood turned to ice.
Theo’s breathing grew ragged. “No—No, no, no—”
Elara tried to move, but her legs wouldn’t obey. The darkness pressed against her like hands, like fingers curling around her arms, her throat, her ribs. She couldn’t breathe.
And then, suddenly—
A spark.
A single, flickering ember in the void. Then another. And another.
The candles burst back to life.
The darkness recoiled, pulling back so fast that Elara felt a rush of air against her skin. She gasped, stumbling backward, her vision adjusting to the sudden glow.
Madam Ren was exactly where she had been before. But something was wrong.
Her eyes were wide. Unblinking. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
Theo shook her by the shoulders. “Ren! Ren, snap out of it!”
She blinked—once, twice—then suddenly gasped like she had been drowning. She clutched her chest, eyes darting wildly across the room.
“It spoke to me,” she choked out. “It was—it was inside my mind.”
Elara shuddered, hugging her arms around herself. “What did it say?”
Ren swallowed hard, staring directly at Elara.
"It said you already let it in."
Elara’s stomach dropped. Her hands were shaking. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
No. No, that wasn’t possible. She would have known. She would have felt it.
Wouldn’t she?
But then she remembered—the dreams. The whispers. The feeling of being watched long before this started.
Maybe the entity hadn’t just noticed her recently.
Maybe it had been with her all along.
And now, it was getting closer.
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(To be continued...)
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- Writer
