The Man In The Shadow
688 Words
Lila woke to the sound of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears.
She was still on the floor. The candle had burned out. Her sketchpad lay beside her, torn open at the page of the dark-eyed man she’d drawn. His gaze seemed sharper now, almost watching her.
She sat up slowly, her head pounding. What the hell just happened?
The knock. The vision. The voice.
It all felt too real to be a dream.
She pulled herself up, stumbling to the door, but when she yanked it open, the hallway outside was empty. No sign of anyone. No footsteps. Not even a breeze.
Just silence.
And a strange symbol scrawled in chalk across the floor in front of her door.
A perfect circle with a flame inside it.
Lila stared, breath caught in her throat. She stepped back, slammed the door, and locked it three times. Her hands were shaking.
She should call the police. Or someone. But what could she say?
“Hey, a stranger knocked on my door and now I’m having hallucinations about ancient symbols and creepy silver-eyed men in cloaks”?
Yeah. No one would believe her.
And deep down, she wasn’t sure she believed it herself.
The next morning, Lila called out of work and wandered the city instead, trying to shake the restlessness crawling under her skin. She ended up in an old part of town she barely remembered ever visiting. The buildings were older here, the streets quieter, like time had forgotten this place.
That’s when she saw it.
A tall man in black, standing across the street.
He wasn’t doing anything just watching her.
The same height. The same build. Even the same posture as the man from her dreams. Her pulse spiked, but when she blinked, he was gone.
Lila looked around wildly. Nothing.
No trace of him.
She crossed the street and stood where he had been. The air felt colder, like winter had passed through. Then she noticed something on the ground a single black feather, unnaturally long, glinting faintly with silver at the tip.
She picked it up.
The moment her fingers closed around it, her vision spun again.
She stood in a palace of glass and shadows.
Above her, the sky rippled like water. Dark creatures circled in the distance. Flames burned along the edges of the walls, casting eerie reflections on the crystal floors.
And at the far end of the throne room… was him.
The dark prince.
Closer now.
His voice rolled through her like thunder wrapped in velvet.
“You shouldn’t be able to see this.”
She took a step back. “Who are you?”
His eyes pierced her. “You already know. You’ve always known.”
Suddenly, a shadow creature lunged from behind her. She turned to scream, but before it touched her
Lila jolted awake, gasping.
She was back in the city street, hunched over on a park bench she didn’t remember sitting on. The feather was gone. Her palms were scraped, her heart racing.
But her soul…
Her soul remembered him.
Meanwhile, in the Realm of the Veil…
Dorian paced the war chamber, his jaw clenched.
“She saw the throne room,” he said.
His second-in-command, Kael, nodded. “Her connection is deepening faster than expected.”
“She’s not ready,” Dorian growled. “She still fears me.”
“Should we retrieve her now?”
Dorian’s eyes flashed silver. “No. If we drag her into this, she’ll run. Let her come closer to the truth… on her own.”
Kael hesitated. “And if the Shadow Court reaches her first?”
Dorian’s voice dropped like steel. “Then I’ll burn their realm to the ground.”
Back in her apartment that night, Lila couldn’t sleep.
She stood at the window, watching the stars, the same unease stirring inside her. Somewhere out there, something was shifting.
She could feel it in her bones.
And in the distance, hidden behind the veil of her reality, Dorian watched her from the shadows.
He whispered only one word to the night air.
“Soon.”
- Writer
