The night felt heavier than it should have.
Not darker—heavier.
Like the air itself had thickened, pressing against my skin, slowing my steps. Streetlights glowed the same dull yellow they always had, but their light didn't travel far tonight. It stopped abruptly, as if something invisible swallowed it whole.
People noticed.
They always did.
Doors slammed shut one after another as I walked down Karsen Street. Metal shutters screeched down storefronts that usually stayed open past midnight. A woman across the road hurried her child along without looking back, her grip tight enough to hurt. No one ran. No one shouted.
Everyone just… knew.
That was the night I realized darkness could watch back.
I wasn't special.
I didn't have a bad feeling or a sixth sense. I was just another person trying to get home before the city decided I'd stayed out too long.
Curfew sirens hadn't started yet, but the city was already closing itself. That always happened first. The sirens were just a formality—an excuse, maybe. By the time they wailed, it was already too late to be outside.
I adjusted the strap of my bag and picked up my pace.
Missing posters lined the walls near the underpass. They always did. Faces I didn't recognize, dates that never got updated. People stopped tearing them down a long time ago. Pretending not to see them was easier.
The underpass lights flickered.
I stopped walking.
The sound of the city—cars in the distance, footsteps, voices—thinned, like someone had turned a dial down too far. My breath sounded too loud in my ears. The flickering lights didn't go out completely. They just… hesitated.
Something moved beyond the edge of the light.
I told myself it was a trick of the shadows. Fatigue. Anxiety. The same excuses everyone used.
Then the shadow moved again.
Not like a person.
Not like an animal.
It stretched, lengthened, then folded back into itself, as if it were testing how much space it was allowed to take.
I backed away.
The sound returned in fragments. A distant horn. The hum of electricity. But whatever I'd seen didn't retreat with the noise. It stayed just beyond the light, patient.
Watching.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I flinched so hard I nearly dropped it.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
You shouldn't be out.
I stared at the screen. My fingers hovered, then typed back.
Who is this?
No response.
The underpass lights went out.
Not all at once. One by one. Left to right. Like a countdown.
I ran.
Footsteps echoed behind me—not matching mine. Too slow. Too deliberate. I didn't look back. Looking back was how people disappeared.
The alley to my right was blocked. The street ahead was darker than it should have been, the lamps swallowed by a wall of shadow that hadn't been there seconds ago.
I turned sharply and nearly collided with a rusted metal door half-hidden behind a stack of crates.
It wasn't marked. No sign. No lock. Just a door that shouldn't have been there.
I shoved it open and stumbled inside.
The air changed instantly. Dust. Old metal. Something dry and bitter, like burned oil. I slammed the door shut and pressed my weight against it, heart hammering.
Silence.
Too complete.
I stood there for a long moment, counting my breaths, waiting for something to slam against the door.
Nothing did.
The room was small. Storage, maybe. Shelves lined the walls, most of them empty. In the far corner sat a worktable coated in dust so thick it looked untouched for decades.
And on that table—
A lantern.
Old. Metal frame warped and darkened with age. The glass was cracked, spiderweb fractures catching the faint ambient light. It looked heavy. Wrongly solid. Like it belonged to another time.
I didn't touch it.
I don't know how long I stood there staring at it, but the silence began to press in again, heavier than before. My skin prickled. The shadows in the corners of the room felt… closer.
Something scraped outside the door.
Slow. Deliberate.
The lantern flickered.
There was no flame inside it. I was sure of that. And yet—warmth brushed my knuckles as if it had exhaled.
"No," I whispered. "No, no…"
The scraping grew louder. Nails. Claws. Something testing the door the way a person might test ice.
The lantern pulsed.
Not light—recognition.
I reached for it before I could stop myself.
The moment my fingers closed around the handle, pain lanced up my arm. Sharp. Burning. Like my skin had been branded from the inside.
The lantern ignited.
A small flame bloomed within the cracked glass—warm orange, steady, alive. The shadows recoiled instantly, slamming back into the corners as if struck.
Something screamed outside the door.
Not in pain.
In anger.
The door bowed inward. Once. Twice.
The lantern burned brighter, its weight settling into my grip like it had always belonged there.
I understood then, in the quiet, terrifying certainty that settled into my bones—
I wasn't holding the light.
The light was holding me.
The pressure in the room shifted. The darkness beyond the door didn't retreat. It didn't flee.
It acknowledged.
The flame steadied.
And in that moment, I knew—
I wasn't chosen by light.
The night had chosen me.