───────────────⋆˖☽ ​𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝑫𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 ☾˖⋆───────────────

The dark was not an absence of light, but a presence. It had weight, pressing in on me from all sides. A chilling cold, sharp as a needle, sank past skin and muscle to settle deep in the marrow of my bones. At my feet, miasma swirled, coiling up my legs like a living serpent, its touch tasting of grave dirt and regret.

Then, the pain. Not a sudden eruption, but a spike of cold that drove into my sternum and blossomed into a searing agony, as if my heart were being torn in two. The world fractured. A guttural cry was ripped from my throat as my knees buckled, and I clutched at my chest, a prisoner to the torment devouring me from within.

My body convulsed. But as quickly as it began, the agony vanished, leaving a hollow echo in its wake. I was standing again, the thick, gray mist now a suffocating shroud. A voice, ancient and resonant, echoed from the emptiness—not a sound, but a pressure against my eardrums that vibrated through my soul.

“You will regret this,” it seethed, the words woven from malice and frost.

My eyes strained against the oppressive gloom, searching for a source. I was utterly alone. “What will I regret?” I choked out, the words swallowed by the vast silence that was my only answer.

The scene dissolved, colors bleeding into the gray and reforming. I stood in a meadow saturated with impossible hues, shades of green so vibrant they hummed with life, flora that pulsed with light in colors that had no name. How can I see this? The question was a whisper in my mind. A single, perfect stream of crimson trickled through the impossible grass, and where it flowed, the world soured. The brilliant colors bled out, leeched away into the creeping miasma that once again reclaimed everything.

My eyes snapped open.

My heart beat frantically against my ribs. I shoved myself into a sitting position, my eyes darting through the darkness of the room. My hand flew to my chest, searching for the wound that wasn’t there, tracing the frantic, hammering rhythm beneath my skin. Those colors… that pain… it had all felt terrifyingly real. I glanced down at my hands, washed in the bloody light of the moon pouring through the window.

That’s when I heard it. The soft, deliberate tap of the floor in the hall.

A shadow shifted under my door. And froze.

My breath hitched. My entire body went rigid. Hide.

I moved without a sound, a phantom in the room, arranging the covers into a deceptive lump before sliding into the darkness beneath the bed. For the first time in my life, I was thankful for the nightmares that had taught me the art of silent fear. The metallic snick of the lock turning felt like a death sentence. I flattened myself against the floor, forcing my breath into shallow, silent sips.

Heavy boots tapped against the wood, the sound methodical, predatory. They stopped beside the bed. A moment of terrifying stillness hung in the air, thick and suffocating.

Then the mattress above me was violently flipped, hurled across the room with a grunt of effort.

My mind screamed. I shot my hand out, fingers clamping around a leather-clad ankle. I pulled with a surge of desperate strength. The intruder cried out in surprise, stumbling, crashing into the nightstand with a deafening bang. Glass shattered. Water spread in a dark, creeping pool. A deep groan rumbled from the man on the floor. I scrambled backward to escape, but an iron grip clamped onto my ankle, yanking me out from under the bed.

“Where do you think you’re going?” a voice snarled, thick with fury.

I lashed out with my free foot, kicking blindly. My heel connected with something solid. His grip loosened for a fraction of a second—all I needed. I wrenched my leg free and scrambled to my feet, my eyes locked on the door, my only way out. I lunged, but my periphery caught the blur of his tall frame surging toward me. He collided with my body, slamming me against the wall with enough force to steal my breath.

My head cracked against the plaster. The room fractured into a kaleidoscope of pain. I raised a hand to fight, but he was faster, pinning both my wrists in a single, crushing grip against the wall above my head.

“Let me go!” I screamed, the sound raw.

He leaned in, his face inches from mine. The moonlight caught his eyes, and I saw they were a haunting, defiant green—the same green as the grass in my dream. Adrenaline, cold and sharp, flooded my veins. I closed my eyes and drove my forehead into the bridge of his nose.

A wet, cartilaginous crunch. A sharp hiss of pain. His grip faltered as blood gushed from his nostrils.

One move flowed into the next. I stomped my heel down hard on his foot. As he flinched, I drove my elbow into his stomach. He stumbled back, gasping. I danced around him, mind racing. Door’s too far. No escape. My eyes scanned the room, landing on the heavy porcelain vase on the mantle.

But he was already recovering, his powerful frame coiling to lunge again. I saw the muscles in his thigh tense for a tackle. I sidestepped his charge, pivoted on the ball of my foot, and snapped a vicious kick into the back of his knee. The joint buckled with an audible pop. He dropped, catching himself on his hands just before his face hit the floor.

I tried to dart past him, but even on the ground, he was impossibly fast. His hand shot out, not grabbing but shoving, channeling all his momentum into the heel of his palm. The blow sent me flying backward. I collided with a wooden chair. It didn’t just break; it exploded beneath me with a sharp crack, a splintered leg skittering across the floor.

The air was blasted from my lungs in a painful whoosh. Before I could recover, he was on me, his weight immense, a crushing finality. His legs locked around mine, trapping me in the wreckage.

My left hand clawed for his face, fingers aimed for his eyes. He caught my wrist and slammed my arm against the floorboards with brutal force. His other hand closed around my throat.

Panic, pure and absolute, iced over my thoughts. My eyes blew wide. A scream built in my chest, a desperate, silent thing that died before it could ever reach my lips. My right hand scrabbled blindly across the floor, searching, desperate. My lungs burned. My vision began to tunnel into a tight, dark pinhole. My fingers brushed against something solid and cool—the splintered leg from the shattered chair. I wrapped my hand around it.

My arm felt impossibly heavy, but I swung the makeshift club with the last of my strength, slamming it into the side of his head. The impact was a dull, sickening thud. He absorbed the blow with little more than a grunt, his grip on my throat somehow tightening. He was still conscious.

How? my mind shrieked in frustration.

But the blow had made his legs loosen fractionally. It was the only opening I would get. I hooked my own legs around his torso, locking them just beneath his ribs and squeezing, using my hips to throw him off balance. The move forced him to adjust. My hands shot up from my chest, clamping around his neck as I dug my thumbs into the hollow of his throat.

For a single, breathtaking second, his mask of violence slipped. His fierce green eyes widened in shock, raw fear flickering in their depths. The look was so vulnerable it was almost a question.

But the moment passed. The fear was replaced by a cold, hard resolve as his eyes locked onto mine.

“You,” he rasped, each word a desperate gasp for air, “are a threat.”

He locked his hands together and brought them down like a hammer, shattering my grip. My fingers gave out. He took one ragged, desperate gasp of air before his hands were on my throat again, thumbs digging deeper, cutting off everything.

Black stars bloomed behind my eyes. The world dissolved to grayscale. I’m running out of time. Can’t die. Not like this.

With a final surge of will, I straightened my hand into a rigid blade and drove it into his windpipe. He made a wet, choking sound, his head snapping forward. I bucked my hips, clawing at his hair, yanking his head down, doing anything to get free. But his grip was tight. It didn’t loosen.

The world began to fade. Just as consciousness was about to slip away completely, the bedroom door crashed open.

A violent slash of light cut through the darkness, framing a silhouette in the doorway. Even through the haze of my dying vision, I knew who it was.

Mira.

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